BEVERLEY ALLITT

Beverley Allitt

Beverley Allitt is a notorious English serial murderer who went on a horrific killing rampage in 1993, killing four children, injuring six more, and attempting to kill three more.

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The horrific murderer struck 36 times over the course of two months in 1991 at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire, where she worked on the children’s ward. She would inject her victims with insulin or potassium chloride, causing them to suffer fatal hypoglycemia or cardiac arrest. The discovery of missing nursing logs prompted suspicions, and investigators eventually determined that she was the sole nurse on duty throughout each and every occurrence.

In May 1993, Allitt was sentenced to thirteen life terms, with the judge indicating that her release was highly improbable.

Beverley Allitt’s Formative Years

Beverley Allitt, infamously dubbed the “Angel of Death,” displayed concerning behaviors during her childhood as one of four siblings, such as donning bandages and casting over self-inflicted wounds to garner attention while preventing any examination of the injuries.

As an adolescent, she gained weight started acting aggressively, and sought attention from others. She devoted significant time visiting hospitals in pursuit of medical care for various physical maladies, ultimately resulting in the excision of her healthy appendix, which healed slowly due to her insistence on tampering with the surgical scar. Because her attention-seeking actions became common knowledge among medical professionals, she resorted to “doctor-hopping” and self-harmed on occasion.

Beverley Allitt’s conduct during her teenage years seemed to align with the characteristics of Munchausen’s syndrome. When this behavior did not produce the expected responses from those around her, she resorted to harming others to fulfill her need for attention. She continued her nursing education despite suspicions that she had engaged in strange behavior, such as marking her walls with feces. Due to a series of sicknesses, her absenteeism was also very high. She was aggressive, manipulative, and dishonest, according to her ex-boyfriend, who accused her of rape and false pregnancy before they broke up.

The chronically understaffed Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire began employing her on a temporary six-month contract in 1991 to work in the children’s ward, despite her history of poor attendance and recurrent failure of her nursing examinations. When she began, there were just two registered nurses working the day shift and one night shift; this may explain how her aggressive, attention-seeking conduct went unnoticed for so long.

Beverley Allitt’s Criminal Offenses

On February 21, 1991, Beverley Allitt’s initial victim, 7-month-old Liam Taylor, was hospitalized in the pediatric unit due to a chest ailment. His parents were able to rest easy knowing he was in good hands thanks to Allitt, who went to great lengths to reassure them. After their return, Allitt informed them that Liam had overcome a respiratory emergency. Both she and the boy’s parents opted to stay at the hospital that night, as she agreed to work extra shifts to keep an eye on him.

Just before midnight, Liam experienced another episode of respiratory distress, although it was believed that he had recovered adequately. But Allitt was left alone with the child, and his health took a nosedive. When red spots developed on his face and he became deathly pale, Allitt called for a resuscitation team. The lack of alarm monitors at the time, which did not go off when Liam stopped breathing, perplexed his nursing colleagues.

Although the medical staff did their best to save Liam after his cardiac arrest, he sustained serious brain damage and could only stay alive with the assistance of life-support machinery. He died of heart failure, and his parents had to make the heartbreaking decision to turn off his life support despite medical advice to the contrary. Concerning her part in Liam’s death, Allitt was never interrogated.

Beverley Allitt and Subsequent Crimes

Two weeks subsequent to Taylor’s demise, her second victim was Timothy Hardwick, an 11-year-old suffering from cerebral palsy who was taken to the hospital on March 5, 1991, after an epileptic seizure. When Allitt was alone with the boy for an extended amount of time, she called for help from the emergency resuscitation team, who discovered that he was no longer breathing and had turned blue.

The team’s efforts, which included a pediatric specialist, failed to bring him back to life. Although his epilepsy was officially blamed, an autopsy that followed failed to reveal an apparent cause of death.

Thirdly, on March 3, 1991, she accepted 1-year-old Kayley Desmond, who appeared to be making a full recovery from a chest ailment. In the same bed where Liam Taylor had passed away two weeks before, Kayley suffered a heart arrest five days later while Allitt was present. She was taken to another hospital in Nottingham after the resuscitation team was able to revive her.

During a thorough examination, visiting physicians noticed an unusual puncture site beneath her armpit. There was no investigation prompted despite the discovery of an air bubble close to the puncture mark, which they ascribed to an unintentional injection.

Five-month-old Paul Crampton became Allit’s subsequent victim, admitted to the ward on March 20, 1991, due to a mild bronchial infection. Paul seemed to be experiencing insulin shock, going into a near-coma three separate times, so Beverley Allitt, who was once again attending to a patient alone, requested help just before he was discharged. The physicians were able to bring him back to life each time, but they still didn’t know what was causing his insulin levels to fluctuate.

With Beverley Allitt by his side, he was transferred to a different hospital in Nottingham via ambulance. He had an excess of insulin once again. It was a stroke of luck that Paul managed to evade the Angel of Death’s care.

Bradley Gibson, a 5-year-old with pneumonia, had an unexpected heart arrest the following day; the resuscitation team managed to preserve his life. His insulin levels were found to be high in subsequent blood tests, which perplexed the attending physicians. Allit’s attendance led to another heart attack that night, necessitating his relocation to Nottingham for recovery.

No suspicions were raised at this time, and Allitt continued her frenzy of violence unchallenged, despite the frightening increase in the occurrence of inexplicable health events.

Beverley Allitt sounded the alarm on March 22, 1991, after 2-year-old victim Yik Hung Chan became blue and was quite distressed; nonetheless, he responded positively to oxygen. His transfer to the bigger Nottingham hospital, where he made a full recovery, was prompted by another attack. His symptoms were thought to be caused by a skull fracture that he sustained in a fall.

Allitt then focused on twins Katie and Becky Phillips, aged two months, who were retained for observation due to their early birth. Beverley Allitt assumed responsibility for Becky’s care after she was admitted to the ward on April 1, 1991, due to a case of gastroenteritis. She reported that Becky seemed hypoglycemic and cold two days later, but doctors were unable to find any cause for concern. Her mother was ordered to take baby Becky home.

Upon being summoned, a doctor diagnosed her with colic after she experienced convulsions and cried out in what seemed like pain during the night. While her parents were keeping an eye on her, she passed away while they slept. Pathologists were unable to determine a cause of death following the autopsy. Katie, Becky’s surviving twin, was admitted to Grantham as a precautionary measure, and regrettably, Allitt was once more present during this time.

Shortly after, she had to call for a resuscitation team once more to bring baby Katie’s heart rate and respiration back to normal. Katie was successfully revived, but she had a recurrence of the episode two days later, causing her lungs to collapse. After another attempt at resuscitation failed, she was moved to Nottingham, where medical staff discovered that she had fractured five ribs and had considerable brain damage from lack of oxygen.

The irony of all ironies is that Allitt was requested to be Katie’s godmother by her mother, Sue Phillips, who was so appreciative that she saved her baby’s life. Despite causing the baby partial paralysis, cerebral palsy, and harm to his or her hearing and vision, Allit cheerfully accepted. The unusual frequency of unexplained attacks in apparently healthy individuals, together with Allitt’s presence during these assaults, ultimately led to concerns being raised at the hospital, and four more victims followed.

An Investigation

Beverley Allit’s violent rampage concluded with the death of 15-month-old Claire Peck, an asthmatic dependent on a breathing tube, on April 22, 1991. During a brief while under Allit’s supervision, the infant experienced a cardiac arrest. Despite the resuscitation team’s best efforts, baby Claire had a second attack while alone with Allit, and this time they were unable to revive her.

Dr. Nelson Porter, a medical consultant, was concerned about the high frequency of cardiac arrests in the children’s ward during the past two months, and he launched an investigation despite the autopsy’s finding that Claire’s death was caused by natural causes. Despite early suspicions of an airborne virus, no evidence of its presence was detected.

Eighteen days later, the authorities were notified after a blood test showed that infant Claire had an abnormally high potassium level. Traces of the cardiac arrest medication Lignocaine, which is never administered to a baby, were found in her system during her exhumation. Stuart Clifton, the investigating police superintendent, suspected foul play and looked into other questionable cases that had happened in the past two months, finding that most of them had extremely high insulin levels.

Additional evidence indicated that Allitt had notified the relevant parties about the key missing from the insulin refrigerator. Every record underwent thorough examination, interviews were conducted with the parents of the victims, and a security camera was strategically installed. Upon the identification of 25 distinct suspicious incidents involving 13 victims, four of whom were deceased, the sole commonality was the presence of Beverley Allitt at each occurrence.

Arrest

The police had enough evidence to prosecute Allitt with murder by July 26, 1991, but they didn’t formally charge her until November 1991. Under questioning, Allitt remained composed and asserted that she had only been caring for the patients, denying any involvement in the attacks. The missing nursing log was partially found during a search of her residence.

Comprehensive background checks conducted by the police revealed a consistent pattern of behavior indicative of a significant personality disorder. Allitt displayed symptoms associated with both Munchausen’s syndrome and Munchausen’s syndrome by Proxy, both of which are defined by the pursuit of attention through illness. When someone has Munchausen’s by Proxy, they inflict harm on others in order to garner attention for themselves, whereas, with Munchausen’s syndrome, the symptoms are either self-induced or faked in the victim. A person presenting with both illnesses is quite rare.

When Beverley Allitt’s adolescent conduct didn’t get the right responses from people, she turned to hurting her young patients as a means of getting her attention, which seemed like symptoms of Munchausen’s syndrome. In spite of numerous medical experts visiting and evaluating Allitt while she was in prison, she still would not admit guilt.

Trial

Allitt was indicted on four counts of murder, eleven counts of attempted murder, and eleven counts of causing severe bodily harm following a sequence of hearings. Anorexia nervosa and fast weight loss were symptoms of the mental health issues that she displayed while she awaited her trial.

At her trial at Nottingham Crown Court on February 15, 1993, after multiple postponements caused by her “illnesses” (which caused her to lose 70 pounds), prosecutors showed the jury that she had been present at every suspicious episode and that there had been no episodes when she was removed from the ward. Allitt was also associated with evidence of elevated insulin and potassium levels in all of the victims, as well as drug injection and puncture marks. She was also accused of smothering or otherwise interfering with her victim’s oxygen devices, so depriving them of oxygen.

Professor Roy Meadow, a pediatrician, gave the jury an explanation of Munchausen’s syndrome and Munchausen’s by Proxy syndrome after bringing up Allitt’s unusual behavior from her childhood. Meadow also brought up evidence of Allitt’s typical behavior after her arrest and the high incidence of illness that had delayed the start of her trial. Professor Meadows believed that Beverley Allitt was incurable and a threat to everybody who came into contact with her.

On May 23, 1993, Beverley Allitt received thirteen life sentences for murder and attempted murder during a trial that lasted nearly two months (and which she attended for only sixteen days because of her ongoing sickness). The sentence imposed was unprecedented for a female offender; however, Mr. Justice Latham argued that it appropriately reflected the severe anguish experienced by the victims and their families, as well as the disgrace she had inflicted on the nursing profession.

Aftermath

Due to the extreme impact of Allitt’s case, the Maternity Unit at Grantham & Kesteven Hospital was closed down. A high-security institution near Nottingham known as Rampton Secure Hospital, which houses primarily persons detained under the Mental Health Act, was Allitt’s place of confinement instead of a traditional prison. While incarcerated at Rampton, she resumed her attention-seeking behaviors, such as swallowing crushed glass and splashing her hand with boiling water.

In a subsequent admission, she acknowledged six assaults and three of the murders with which she was accused. Her offenses were so heinous that the Home Office put her on a list of those who can never be paroled. Accusations have emerged, particularly from Chris Taylor, the father of Beverley Allitt’s first victim, Liam, suggesting that Rampton resembles a Butlin’s holiday camp rather than a prison. The prison employs over 1,400 staff members to manage about 400 offenders, at a cost of roughly $3,000 per week for each inmate to taxpayers.

Even though she is now unmarried, rumors circulated in 2001 that she was going to wed fellow prisoner Mark Heggie. Her receipt of more than $40,000 in State benefits since her incarceration in 1993 was most recently exposed in May 2005 during an investigation by the Mirror Newspaper. The Probation Service notified the victims’ families of Allitt’s request for a sentencing review in August 2006 because she had filed the paperwork. However, Beverley Allitt is still in Rampton.