These are the faces of five killer women locked up for their crimes in 2023.
From a woman who stabbed a man after an afternoon in the pub, to another who murdered her partner after an argument 'about nothing', there have been a number of cases in Merseyside this year involving woman who have killed. Further afield is the case of Lucy Letby who was found guilty of the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of six others.
All these women were jailed this year for their heinous crimes. Some of these cases happened right here in Merseyside, while other big news stories happened close by and the ECHO reported on them at the time.
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When killers come before our courts in Merseyside, it is more frequently men who find themselves in the dock for these most serious crimes. But every year, women who kill continue to horrify ECHO readers with their sickening crimes.
Whether they acted alone or worked with an accomplice, each of these women were locked up for their role in some truly shocking cases. We take a look below at their evil crimes and how these killer women were caught.
Joanne Moran
A woman who fatally stabbed her partner in the heart has been found guilty of murder.
Joanne Moran, of Bridge Road in Litherland, was unanimously convicted of murdering Jonathan Gibbons at Liverpool Crown Court on Wednesday, April 12. A trial heard that on October 30, 2022, at about 4.45am, emergency services received a phone call from Moran reporting a man had been stabbed and the caller was requesting assistance to attend their home on Bridge Road.
Mr Gibbons and the defendant had been in a relationship since 2016 and had lived at the address for around four years, where they had been playing cards and drinking since 3pm the day before. Moran called the police after she stabbed Mr Gibbons using a small black handled knife following a drunken argument between the pair.
She told officers “I just stabbed my partner” and repeatedly said “I’m sorry” immediately after the incident. Under interview, she said that on previous occasions she had “scratched” her victim during or after arguments and he would restrain her to stop her.
When police asked if Mr Gibbons had ever assaulted her or hit her, she said no and said he was “placid" – then referred to herself as “just a cow”.
Moran also said she had “not painted herself in a very good light” and claimed her boyfriend had assaulted her and given her a black eye on two occasions. She added: “I don’t always put my hands on him.
"If we argue, we argue, but it doesn’t always end up in me assaulting him. I’m not that bad."
Moran admitted she had stabbed Mr Gibbons and caused his death, but during her trial claimed that although it had been a deliberate physical act, it was to move “into his space not into his body”. She said: “I moved the knife like that, I didn’t go to stab John.”
The murderer repeatedly asserted throughout the trial that she did not remember picking up the knife or deciding to stab Mr Gibbons, and claimed she never intended to stab him. The Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC told the court "a silly argument about nothing in particular developed" between the couple which would later lead to Moran stabbing Mr Gibbons.
Moran was handed a life imprisonment with a minimum term of 17 years.
Lucy Letby
Baby killer nurse Lucy Letby will never be freed from prison.
The 33-year-old became the UK's most prolific child killer back in August after being convicted of murdering seven newborns and attempting to kill a further six. Her horrific and cruel crimes were committed over the course of a year while she was working on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Letby, who also spent time on placement at Liverpool Women's Hospital in 2012 and 2015, was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court. She refused to attend the hearing but was handed a whole life order in her absence, meaning she will never be eligible for release from jail.
Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, told the court during a nine-month trial that Letby had assaulted the defenceless babies by injecting them with air or insulin or overfeeding them with milk. Others had medical tubes shoved into their throats with such force that it caused them to bleed, while one boy suffered a blow to his abdomen so hard that it caused him liver damage.
Among the young lives she took between June 2015 and June 2016 were two boys from a set of triplets, while she also attacked three separate pairs of twins. The "cold, calculated, cruel and relentless" child killer was said to have trawled through the Facebook profiles of her victims' parents in order to revel in the devastation she had caused.
she was said to have been the "common denominator" in all of the deaths and collapses, being the only member of staff member present during each incident. Her shocking crime spree only came to light in the summer of 2016, when a group of consultants met to discuss a puzzling rise in deaths and unexplained collapses of babies.
An internal investigation led to Letby being taken off the ward and moved into a desk job. When she was first arrested in July 2018, Cheshire Police discovered a note in her home on Westbourne Road in Chester reading: "I am evil, I did this."
Letby was found guilty of seven counts of murder and seven of attempted murder, including two attempts on one baby. She was cleared of two further counts of attempted murder, while the jury were unable to reach verdicts on seven charges.
In December, Letby maintained her innocence after she was found unfit to practise at a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) hearing. The panel was told Letby was asked in a "tick-box exercise" if she accepts the NMC charges.
She ticked "yes" to each of the charges, but added: "I do not wish to take part or be present at the hearing. I do not resist the application to strike me off the nursing register. I accept the fact of the convictions. However, I do not accept that I am guilty of any of the allegations.
"I maintain my innocence in respect of all of the convictions. These convictions are now the subject of an appeal."
She faces a retrial next June for one count of attempted murder.
Rachel Fulstow
Michael Hillier and Rachel Fulstow were both found guilty of the murder of Liam Smith, 38, back in August following a six-week trial at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester. Fulstow, 37, was also found guilty of perverting the course of justice.
The couple "acted as judge, jury and executioner" as they plotted to kill Mr Smith just a few yards from his home on Kilburn Drive, Shevington, on November 24 last year. Hillier, 39, claimed to have been acting in revenge after Fulstow told him she'd been raped by Mr Smith during a Tinder date in September 2019, reports the Manchester Evening News.
After shooting Mr Smith in the face and throwing sulphuric acid over his body, Hillier conspired with Fulstow to avoid justice using false alibis and cloned number plates. The pair jetted off to Jamaica just days after the murder, but were eventually arrested after they returned home.
Sentencing the couple, Judge Maurice Greene said Hillier and Fulstow had "showed no remorse" for the "the brutal and cold blooded" murder. Both were handed life sentences, with Hillier ordered to serve a minimum of 33 years behind bars and Fulstow a minimum of 30.
Learose Cheng
A woman who stabbed a man to death after an afternoon in the pub has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 16 years.
Learose Cheng was unanimously convicted of murdering Dylan Bacon by a jury of four men and eight women earlier and the 27-year-old was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court on Friday, September 8.
Mr Bacon died aged 39 on March 14 2022 after being found collapsed in a pool of his own blood outside a block of flats on Rock Grove in Old Swan. A post mortem found the cause of death as stab wound to the chest. A trail of blood led police back to Cheng's apartment, after which she told officers that Mr Bacon had knifed her in the leg then "killed himself because he didn't want to go to prison".
She later accepted that she had been responsible for inflicting his fatal wounds. However, the defendant claimed that she did not remember doing so and claimed that Mr Bacon had "stalked and preyed" on her in allegedly following her home from the pub in her intoxicated state.
Sentencing, Judge Neil Flewitt KC rejected she had "memory loss" and that Cheng had "exaggerated Dylan Bacon’s faults" to support the suggestion she stabbed him in order to defend herself. The judge added he was satisfied that Cheng stabbed herself after stabbing Mr Bacon.
Cheng was sentenced to to 16 years in prison.
Natalie Bennett
A woman gave a thumbs up as she was jailed for life for stabbing her boyfriend to death.
Natalie Bennett was convicted of the murder of her partner Kasey Anderson in October following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court. He died a week before his 25th birthday in March this year after being slashed several times with a knife and suffering two stab wounds.
The 47-year-old killer plunged a knife into his heart before attempting to stab him in the head as he lay gravely injured in the neighbour's driveway and pleading for help, telling a 999 call handler that "he was dying". Bennett then claimed to police that he had arrived at her home on Carr Lane East in Croxteth "like that".
However Bennett denied murder and attempted to convince a jury that she had a poor memory of the stabbing and she only struck him with a knife because they were fighting and "she was scared, scared of Kasey" and "what he was going to do". However Richard Pratt KC, prosecuting, put to her during his cross-examination that said she had told "bare-faced lies" in the immediate aftermath in claiming that she did not know how he had been injured.
Damning evidence included her next door neighbour's Ring doorbell camera. This showed Mr Anderson clutching his chest after he had been stabbed in the heart and collapsing to the floor as he called for help, having seemingly tried to flee from his attacker.
In spite of him being clearly gravely injured, she was caught on camera aiming one final blow at his head with the knife. In doing so, Bennett completely undermined any suggestion that she had been acting in self-defence and underlined that she was in fact the aggressor.
The CCTV footage also captured Bennet calling Mr Anderson a "rat" as he lay fatally injured outside the house. The jury also heard how Kasey had been previously seen with black eyes, with his family members reporting she left him "looking like the Elephant man".
A guilty verdict was reached after just four hours and 42 minutes of deliberations, with Bennett showing no reaction when the verdict was announced. Members of Mr Anderson's family meanwhile cried "yes" and burst into applause, before becoming tearful.
Judge Denis Watson KC told her at the time: "You have been convicted of murder, for which there can only be one sentence – imprisonment for life. It is possible there may be some medical information that may touch on the minimum term I must assess before you can be considered for release. This is a sentence where there can be that only one sentence, which is imprisonment for life."
Bennett was was handed a life imprisonment with a minimum term of 18 years.