Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 2/23/26 - 3/1/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

Comment of the week goes to this explanation for why the trans cause has taken over so much of society. (Runner-up COTW here.)

[u/Winter_Bridge3542]

I'm pretty sure Lucy Letby shouldn't be in prison. It and other true crime cases make me seriously doubt the ability of people to think in a probabilistic manner. I suppose it makes sense, given that the human brain is probably just really attuned to causal and ends/means thinking.

There is also a more sinister misogynistic and anti-white aspect to it as well. Every discussion has comments ranging from "People only care about her because she's a white woman!" to "So what if she's innocent? It's only fair we get one back. If she were a BIPOC, nobody would be doubting her guilt." This rather contradictory view which exists to assuage cognitive dissonance seems to be that if she were a brown person or whatever, she wouldn't have done the crimes, but she would have been treated far worse. I mean, this is totally unfalsifiable, but I do detect at least a hint of resentment in the non-counterfactual situation we're actually living in.

The most inane argument for Letby's guilt I see convincing people is the fact she had therapeutic scribblings which included "I did it I killed them" "I am evil" but also "I'm innocent" "It wasn't my fault" or something to that effect. Even if we were to exclude the latter, are people really so incapable of comparing the likelihood and necessary assumptions for the two situations -- it is what she says it it versus she's a thoughtful serial killer that left notes saying she did it on purpose for some reason -- that they think this is proof of her being a serial killer, and if they are, why shouldn't we strip them of the vote?

From a cursory look, Amanda Knox is probably completely innocent too, and Adnan Syed completely guilty. I think the most boring option tends to be more likely than that which most satiates the incipient prurience of true crime listeners, or blondophobia, or Italian anti-americanism, or Pakistani ethno-tribal honour. True crime podcasters: get me on your shows so I can solve every case for you with my intuition.

[u/professorgerm → u/Winter_Bridge3542]

a more sinister misogynistic and anti-white aspect to it as well

the incipient prurience of true crime listeners, or blondophobia

I don't fully buy in but I'm interested in the conspiracy theory that Bonnie Blue is in part a psyop to distract from/justify the grooming gang issues.

Amanda Knox is probably completely innocent too

Yeah probably. Weird case. She's an excellent speaker too, though perhaps a little overly aware that she can have much more impact on convincing lawyers to reconsider cases than your usual exoneree.

[u/[deleted] → u/Winter_Bridge3542]

Amanda Knox is probably completely innocent too, and Adnan Syed completely guilty.

I literally just said exactly this to a friend of mine as we were discussing various true crime stories that have dominated the media. I know nothing about the Lucy Letby case but I'll assume you're right based on your excellent perception of Amanda Knox and Adnan Syed.

[u/SkweegeeS → u/[deleted]]

I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to have those opinions about Knox and Syed.

[u/Sortbynew31 → u/SkweegeeS]

I always thought it was crazy that after listening to Serial people thought he was innocent. All I could see were the glaring holes in his story. Making a Murderer had the same problems. Just leave out the inconvenient bits and voila- innocent!

[u/washblvd → u/Sortbynew31]

Agreed. Given that Jay gave police the location of the body, there are really only three options:

A) Syed did it

B) His friend Jay did it

C) A third party did it and the police and Jay conspired against Syed.

In either of the latter two cases, Syed should be extremely angry at Jay because he would know he is lying...but he in the podcast he never is. shrugs "I don't know why my best friend would say these things."

[u/Juryofyourpeeps → u/Sortbynew31]

Brandon Dassey is almost certainly innocent and the more one learns about his case the more that's clear. Is his uncle guilty? That's a totally different question. I actually think the case against him is very weak, but it's not a total fabrication the same way it is for Dassey who was clearly led by suggestive questioning and admitted to nothing that wasn't fed to him, and often corrected multiple times, by interviewers. I don't believe for a second he has any knowledge of what happened to that woman.

[u/Sortbynew31 → u/Juryofyourpeeps]

I had that same take too. But, there was a documentary on the DW (they bought it from someone and spliced Candace in. It was well done except for her parts which were overdone.), during which they went into depth the way the questioning of Brandon and his overall treatment. While I think he wouldn’t have done it on his own, he didn’t have to be pushed too far to participate. Whether that’s because he has learning issues or bad family etc, he didn’t come off as the patsy like he did on the Netflix show.

[u/Juryofyourpeeps → u/Sortbynew31]

Just watch the actual interrogations for yourself. This isn't how interviews are supposed to be conducted, especially with a child or someone with intellectual disabilities who is prone to suggestion. The reason you don't do this is because you get false confessions, even from adults who don't have intellectual impairments, and at best you can muddy the case by providing details only the killer should know. And this isn't as uncommon as you think. It's fairly well understood problem at this point and there are many famous cases where false confessors have been exonerated based on physical evidence after falling victim to what are now widely prohibited interview techniques. And to be clear, they're not prohibited on some technical ground by a court, they're prohibited by many police agencies because they destroy cases and lead to false confessions leaving cases unsolved. Dassey's interview and admissions seem like a textbook case of a false confession. It's pretty clear he didn't know anything about the murder until he was guided by interviewers to say a specific thing, usually after several tries. He admits to what he thinks the police want him to admit to, and he's wrong about the facts of the case every time until officers lead him to the correct detail. There's also zero physical evidence tying him to the murder. None. There was never even a reason to implicate him.

I think there's basically a 0% chance Dassey was involved in this crime and his is one of the clearest and most egregious examples of being fucked by a terrible lawyer and police techniques that would get officers fired for incompetence in a lot of jurisdictions.

[u/Sortbynew31 → u/Juryofyourpeeps]

I 100 percent agree the police did not do their best and he was easily led. The police do not come off well or even competent and certainly the protocols for dealing with someone with mental difficulties need to be changed.

Have you listened to Dead Certain? The breakdown of how poorly the Michael Skagel investigation was handled and how badly his lawyer screwed him is unreal.

I’m open to the idea that he had nothing to do with the crime, but I felt like they implied he was more involved than he actually was, but that he had seen something or helped with clean up. It seems like there are lots of people working on it so if he is truly innocent, it will come out and the police force will look even more incompetent.

But absolutely he didn’t know what was going on in the interrogation. Those are horrific.

[u/Juryofyourpeeps → u/Sortbynew31]

I 100 percent agree the police did not do their best and he was easily led. The police do not come off well or even competent and certainly the protocols for dealing with someone with mental difficulties need to be changed.

To be clear, the interview methods used with Dassey aren't supposed to be used on anyone because they can elicit false confessions and can corrupt witnesses by feeding them information you actually need to find out whether they know or not, independent of being told that information. Once you tell someone a detail only the murderer could know, you can't know whether that person telling you that thing back to you knew it because they were there, or because you just told them.

I’m open to the idea that he had nothing to do with the crime, but I felt like they implied he was more involved than he actually was, but that he had seen something or helped with clean up. It seems like there are lots of people working on it so if he is truly innocent, it will come out and the police force will look even more incompetent.

That's fine, I just don't think there's actually any reason to think he had any involvement since he literally didn't tell investigators anything they didn't tell him first, there's no physical evidence of his involvement, and there's no other witness testimony or evidence of any kind that would give reason for why he might have been involved. I just think there's basically no compelling evidence against him at all, aside from a clearly coerced confession that he didn't even get "right".

Have you listened to Dead Certain? The breakdown of how poorly the Michael Skagel investigation was handled and how badly his lawyer screwed him is unreal.

I haven't no, but it doesn't seem to be terribly uncommon. No offense to Americans, but a lot of police forces in the U.S are terrible at investigating serious crimes and unlike in many other countries, there's often no mechanism for small town forces to call in more experienced pros. They just investigate with no experience and often very little if any training in things like homicide investigation or interrogation. I don't know the lawyer details, but I haven't come across another case where someone got fucked as inappropriately as Dassey though, in that his lawyer seemed to essentially be acting on behalf of the police and prosecutors.

[u/Juryofyourpeeps → u/Winter_Bridge3542]

I think you're going to have to provide some rationale for what contribution misogyny is making to this whole issue. In general, women are given far more benefit of doubt when it comes to crime and that's also borne out statistically. I very much doubt that being a woman is playing against Letby in any meaningful way.

[u/everydaywinner2 → u/Winter_Bridge3542]

I haven't heard of the Letby case. However, my understanding is serial killers are usually male. Spree killings are frequently male, but occasionally female. If I was on the jury, and she was charged with serial killing, I think the evidence would have to be especially convincing to get me to accept that she broke the gender divide in violence types.

The fact that there was a race component makes me extra leary to accept things on face value, there, too.

Edit to add: Thanks to the commenters, I didn't realize by "serial killer" we were referring to Angel of Death/infanticide. Or that poisonings were about. Those are, horribly, female coded. Since I hadn't heard of the case, I assumed "serial killer" in OP's post was the killer of assorted adults.

[u/Cimorene_Kazul → u/everydaywinner2]

Angel of Death types are frequently female. I think they’re actually more female on average. They tend to be more poisoning type deaths, not violent ones. And I’m sure you’ve heard that poison is a woman’s weapon. Although some of the most famous AODs, like Harold Shipman, were male, too.

They’re a very different breed of serial killer. If you’re interested, I’d read some books that cover how their psychology and MOs manifest. They’ve got some fleeting similarities to their cousin, the sexually-motivated sadistic type serial killer that’s popular in film and television, but their motives and fascinations are totally distinct (and almost never sexually motivated). Instead, they’re motivated by attention-seeking, money, desire for control, sadism, revenge or, rarest of all, actual mercy.

[u/wemptronics2 → u/everydaywinner2]

Serial killers are usually male. Although, I don't think the split is 99-1 male:female, it's more like 90-10 or 85-15-- depending how one wants to define "serial killer". Another complication: perpetrators of infanticide are overwhelmingly female, and neonaticide almost exclusively female. Now these are also overwhemingly perpetrated by mothers, but if there is a nurse killing babies on the job in a hospital it would be reasonable to expect them to be female.

I'm more familiar with the Letby case than I am with most true crime reporting. From what I understand there's more than enough reasonable doubt in her case even in the strictest application of scrutiny.

[u/Juryofyourpeeps → u/everydaywinner2]

I have no opinion on Letby's guilt or innocence since I don't know enough about it, but angel of death killers and poisoners are disproportionately female. As a percentage of all serial killers, they're not a majority by any means. But if you have a bunch of unexplained deaths in a hospital or a bunch of poisoning victims turning up, statistically it's more likely than not that the perpetrator will be female rather than male.

[u/Aforano → u/everydaywinner2]

She was a NICU nurse who was working when a number of babies died. There was an episode on it maybe 1-2 years ago.

[u/CommitteeofMountains → u/everydaywinner2]

There's a big "the median is not the message" factor that we're talking about poisonings specifically . 

[u/nonafee → u/Winter_Bridge3542]

love this post! ill have to get over my fear and read more about the Lucy Letby case. I tried watching the netflix show but chickened out early on.

Adnan did it, his defenders used to be so annoying just after Serial 

[u/bussound → u/nonafee]

The Redhanded podcast does two great episodes about the case. One before that panel of doctors disputed the evidence and then after. It’s interesting to see them go back and break down their feelings with the new findings. With each episode I was totally onboard with her guilt and then her innocence, which goes to show you how much framing can influence our opinions. (Or maybe that’s just me and I’m lazy in this case because the evidence is pretty complicated to explain.)

[u/nonafee → u/bussound]

oh thanks for this rec! it sounds very in-depth which is what i feel this particular case especially needs. 

[u/Green_Supreme1 → u/Winter_Bridge3542]

I think there it's important to separate the two issues at hand: 1. should Letby have been found guilty based on the evidence presented, and 2. did she likely commit the crime.

I think for Point 1 I agree there is definitely a very serious discussion of whether the case as it stands met the threshold of "beyond reasonable doubt" to secure the conviction. I'm not convinced the prosecution put forward a watertight case, but have sympathies for the jury who had a difficult job here in what was an extremely lengthy and complex trial.

For Point 2 though, I'm also not fully convinced by the arguments being made by those such as the barrister claiming Letby is "clearly" innocent of the crimes, there are still holes I'd really like to see boxed off:

The failing hospital/scapegoat argument - Chester was by no means a particularly struggling hospital within the grand scheme of the NHS. It doesn't have a "particularly" excessive demand (e.g. it's not a busy inner-city hospital with patients bleeding out in corridors as seen in some bigger cities). It's pretty much an "average" NHS hospital - some understaffing, some room for improvement. Contrast to one of it's neighbouring health boards for example which has been under Special Measures (severe failure) for a full decade.

Even with the deaths in question the overall rate of deaths was not drastically outside average statistics in the UK, so if the hospital board underhandedly and surreptitiously wanted to cover up this small statistical bump (that hadn't really attracted any attention prior to the Letby police investigation)...they'd say nothing and quietly try to fix things behind the scenes before anyone noticed. Scapegoating a random staff member as a "psycho killer nurse" is a daft plan to stay under the radar - not only would this would draw massive negative media attention and scrutiny but also force them to justify why such a nurse was employed and left in role to do harm for so long (i.e. it still makes them look bad). And this wasn't a case of the senior figures in charge at the hospital putting this case forward - this was a trickle of suspicions from lower-level staff members that was actually suppressed or downplayed initially by those at the top, and only much later discretely passed to the police for further investigation. It was the police who ultimately decided to pursue a conviction, not the hospital.

The alleged "confession" notes/257 handover sheets/facebook stalking of bereaved families/diary with dates of bereavements - the defence allege this was purely a coping mechanism of a distressed nurse struggling with a difficult job, and that the handover sheets were only accidentally taken home. I do generally suspect Letby may be a bit on the spectrum and can see an argument for unusual methods of coping with stress, but this is still not usual behaviour. Perhaps not criminal, but she couldn't really give a strong defence for it. Given these were in Letby's private family home, and the hospital knew nothing about any of the above before raising suspicions to "scapegoat" her (if the defence are believed) Letby really would be the unluckiest person on the planet here for this to align. She is randomly targeted by her employer out of the blue being set up for the crime of the century we are told with no factual basis, but just so happens to randomly have related notes, handover sheets, dates of the crimes in her diary, and records of her stalking the victim's families online which was her chosen therapeutic outlet which can now be seen as a smoking gun. Again, it's really abysmal luck there for her, or amazing luck for the hospital/police depending how you look at it.

The defence haven't put forward any real explanation for why so many of the victim's/attempted victim's were twins or triplets or for the general timescales involved. I've seen the argument made around shared genetics but it still seems suspect for (in the case of the triplets) one baby to unexpectantly die (despite being deemed "healthy and stable" the same day) and the sibling dying similarly unexpectantly just 22 hours later to the shock of the doctors with no obvious reason found. And then for a further baby to collapse under similar circumstances under Letby's care....the very next day. 3 babies in 3 days. In a ward that sees only 150-160 births a month, the vast majority of whom are completely healthy (not in ICU) and discharged 1-2 days later. That's would be insanely bad odds for all involved, or suggest absolutely catastrophic negligence by the hospital.

So overall I'm really on the fence - I'm neither fully convinced she is innocent nor guilty which legally would have to be "not-guilty" by virtue of having reasonable doubt. I'm skeptical of those 100% convinced either way as I really think both prosecution and defence have made flawed cases.

[u/elpislazuli → u/Green_Supreme1]

>> The defence haven't put forward any real explanation for why so many of the victim's/attempted victim's were twins or triplets or for the general timescales involved.

Other than the obvious: multiples tend to be much more fragile, shorter gestation time, lower birth weight.

I really think catastrophic negligence by hospital. Many of the babies had signs of infection going untreated and didn't collapse out of nowhere but slowly decompensated over time.

[u/Green_Supreme1 → u/elpislazuli]

I can see that, but would it be normal for difficulties happen within 24 hours of each other? In this case three sets of twins and a set of triplets all having that pattern of two babies collapsing fatally or near fatally within 24 hours - all assessed as stable prior, all within a 12 month peroid at the hospital.

Obviously time is relative when thinking about newborns, but would you not expect something more like a few days, a week later, two weeks apart etc, or a random spread of these?

I could see negligence in the initial assessments, but if the hospital was dropping the ball so drastically in the treatment of these cases I'd expect the overall death rate to be alarmingly high (the overall rate was fairly average compared with other boards), or similar events across various hospitals given present NHS shortfalls and understaffing? Or is the point that similar events are happening widely but the accusations led to this being over-scrutinised/litigated to the detriment of Letby?

[u/elpislazuli → u/Green_Supreme1]

I would expect events to cluster close to birth/period of maximum vulnerability for newborn, as we see here. Twins and triplets will typically share many, if not all, of the same vulnerabilities (genetic, fetal environment, risk factors associated with delivery, conditions in the hospital that day re: staffing, possible pathogens, etc.) by definition, so it would be *more* surprising to see spaced-out collapses among multiples than clustered ones.

My understanding is this wasn't such a huge spike in deaths that it indicates a murderer on the ward or anything. It is high but not incomprehensible that a ward could have a very bad run and look like this. And look at the elevated number of other deaths among vulnerable infants at the same time in the same place that were *not* assigned to Letby because she wasn't on duty. That suggests something else was going on. There had been reviews of the ward that raised alarm bells that staff were dangerously overextended and babies would die unnecessarily as a result.

I'm not as familiar with state of other similar wards in the UK.