Mathematisches Kolloquium

Zusammenfassung: I will analyse the scientific evidence in the case of the Dutch nurse Lucia de Berk, serving a life sentence for 7 murders and 3 attempts in hospitals in the Hague during 1996--2001. I will argue that the medical evidence for the conviction was for one part wrong, and for the other part contaminated by bad statistics; the statistical evidence for the conviction was for one part wrong, and for the other part contaminated by incorrect medical information. No other serious evidence exists. This logical circle is locked down by the legal institutions of the Netherlands, and it appears that they have thrown away the key. The principle of trias politica means that nothing whatsoever can be done about this. Naturally I shall give special attention to the mathematical details on the statistical side. The keywords and phrases here are: hidden confounders, unmeasured heterogeneity, overdispersion. The case of Lucia de Berk does not stand alone, there is in fact a world wide epidemic of (collapsed) murder cases against nurses who seemed far too often for it to be a coincidence, present during all of an unexplained cluster of hospital incidents.

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