Themis is the Greek goddess of justice, divine order, law, and custom and her symbol is the Scales of Justice. Her Roman equivalent is Justitia. She personifies divine law – “that which is put in place”. Judges were often referred to as “themistopóloi” – the servants of Themis. Many defence lawyers in Angel-of-Death nursing case studies jingle the goddess Themis’ Scales of Justice resulting in infants’ deaths while their narcissistic clients manage to manipulate judicial systems or go undetected. Themis is not wrathful, but when she is disregarded, the goddess Nemesis brings just and wrathful retribution.
In August 2023, Lucy Letby, a former British neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital, was convicted on the murders of seven infants and the attempted murders of seven others, between June 2015 and June 2016.
Currently Lucy Letby’s case is trending headlines again. On 4 February 2025, her new legal team, headed by Mr Mark MacDonald applied for her case to be reviewed as a potential miscarriage of justice. A a panel of 14 international experts have just concluded that all the incidents could be explained by natural causes and or substandard care, finding no evidence of deliberate harm.
Dr Dewi Evans, a retired paediatrician and professional expert witness in her trial, stated that people find it difficult to accept that a killer could be a “young, white, English nurse from a respectable background” who “hid in plain sight”. Dr Evans has since received threats from supporters vehemently claiming Lucy’s innocence.
In September 2024 during an inquiry chaired by Lady Justice Thirlwall, in her opening statement, Ms Rachel Langdale KC, referred to the fact that Lucy Letby was trained at the University of Chester and their curriculum included the case study of Beverley Allit.
Beverley Alitt
Within a span of three months, between February and April 1991, a total of 13 babies’ lives were endangered, when 23-year old British nurse Beverley Gail Allitt killed four of them, attempted to murder three others, and caused grievous bodily harm to a further six at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, Lincolnshire.
During Beverley’s trial is was argued that she suffered from Munchausen by Proxy ( see my previous article: Munchausen by Proxy- Lying a Child to Death) and that she had been self-harming since childhood. She pleaded not guilty, but in May 1993, Beverley was sentenced to 13 life sentences.
As she went on a hunger strike immediately after her sentencing, Beverley has since been serving her sentence at Rampton Secure Hospital in Nottinghamshire.
Beverley’s mental state was assessed when she was arrested and the psychiatrists concluded she was not mentally ill and should be in prison, not a hospital. However it suited her better to stay in hospital and not be transferred to a mainstream prison, so Beverley refuted her not guilty plea and confessed to all 13 of the crimes, keeping the Scales of Justice tipped in favour of hospitalization.
Yet the scales tipped again on 3 October 2023, when Beverley realized if she was transferred to a mainstream prison, she would become eligible for parole within six months of her transfer, so she appeared before a mental health tribunal to be assessed again.
Changing her plea from not guilty and then making a full confession to suit her own needs – ratling the Scales of Justice – suggests Beverley Allit is not showing remorse or an inkling of insight into the suffering and loss of the parents of those children. Currently at the publication of this article, she is still incarcerated in Rampton Secure Hospital.
Kirsten Gilbert
Across the Atlantic, at the American Verterans Affairs Medical Centre, in Northampton, Massachusetts, staff noticed an increase in cardiac arrests in the wards where nurse Kirsten Gilbert was on duty, but they passed it of as a joke, calling her the ‘Angel of Death’. Later during her trial prosecutors pointed out that Kirsten was on duty for about half of the 350 deaths that occurred at the hospital from when she started working there in 1989. In 1996 finally, three nurses cottoned on to the number of cardiac arrests linked to the decline in the supply of epinephrine and called for an investigation. Kirsten left the hospital and checked herself in and out of psychiatric centres, seven times, for periods ranging from one to seven days.
On 14 March 2001 Kirsten was eventually convicted by a jury on four murders and two attempted murders. Since her crimes were committed on federal property, they were subject to the death penalty. Her defence team pleaded for the emotional wellbeing of her children to be considered. On March 26, 2001, the jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment. Kirsten Gilbert is currently serving her sentence at the FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas – a federal prison for female inmates of all security levels, primarily with special medical and mental health needs.
Rattling the Scales of Justice, in July 2003, Kirsten Gilbert dropped her federal appeal for a new trial after a new US Supreme Court ruling that would have allowed prosecutors to pursue the death penalty upon retrial.
Themis’ scales settled
Lucy Letby’s outcome is still pending, yet Themis’ scales settled in favour of two nurses formerly convicted but since reprieved.
In 2004 Lucia de Berk of the Netherlands was convicted of seven murders and three attempted murders of patients in her care. She refused a psychometric evaluation and when a psychologist testified at the trial that Lucia de Berk was “theatrical, narcissistic, aggressive and suffering from a personality disorder”, Lucia answered: “that sounds like me”. Along with her sentence she was ordered to mandatory psychiatric treatment, despite the state criminal psychological observation unit finding no evidence of mental illness. People who commit murder are not by default mentally ill. In April 2010 Lucia de Berk was exonerated based upon a statistical reanalysis of her case.
Likewise in Italy, Daniela Poggiali who was accused of killing 38 of her patients, was exonerated in 2021, after confounding factors were found in a statistical reanalysis of the hospital’s mortality data. She has been found not guilty by Supreme Court in January 2023.
Can one observe the ominous shadow of Nemesis hovering in background, due to the fact that statistical probabilities are now deemed to determine ‘that what is put in place’?
Last month, February 2025, a video recording of two nurses admitting on camera that they would kill Israeli patients in their Sydney hospital, send shock waves through Australia. In the video, posted by Israeli influencer Max Veifer, the male nurse, identified in local media as Ahmad Nadir, says he sends Israeli patients to Jahannam – an Islamic place akin to hell, and the female nurse, Sarah Abu Lebdeh, accuses Max Veifer of having no soul and says: “I won’t treat them, I will kill them.” Both were immediately suspended by the health authorities.
New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park described the video as appalling and announced that a rapid examination of hospital records had not turned up anything unusual, but a full-scale investigation is being launched. It has been reported that Nadir had apologised to Veifer and “the Jewish community as a whole”.
Australian health authorities immediately responded to the video, but what if it was not revealed in social media? Angels of Death too often go undetected because fellow staff members raise the alarms too late, or when they do raise the alarm, authorities do not take them seriously enough.
Top image: Allegory of Justice by Gaetano Gandolfi (1760) (Public Domain)
