Louise Woodward case

Louise Woodward, born in 1978 (age 46), is a British former au pair, who at the age of 18 was charged with murder, but was subsequently convicted of the involuntary manslaughter (reduced from the jury trial verdict) of eight-month-old baby Matthew Eappen, in Newton, Massachusetts, United States of America.

The baby had died from a fractured skull and subdural hematoma, and had a previously unnoticed fractured wrist.

Although, initially found guilty of second-degree murder, Judge Hiller B. Zobel reduced Woodward's conviction to involuntary manslaughter during a post-conviction relief hearing, leading to her release after serving 279 days.

After her return to the United Kingdom, she began a career in law, and later ballroom and Latin dance teaching.

In 2022, a Channel 4 documentary revisited the case, with a civil rights lawyer questioning the validity of the 'shaken baby syndrome' accusation.

Five days after being admitted to Children's Hospital in Boston, Matthew Eappen fell into a coma and died on February 9, 1997, as a result of a fractured skull and subdural hematoma.

He was also found to have a fractured wrist, an unnoticed and unexplained injury from a month earlier.

Lois E.H. Smith, an ophthalmologist at the hospital, observed retinal hemorrhages judged characteristic of shaken baby syndrome.

Woodward was arrested by police on 5 February, and held for assault and battery initially, then murder when Matthew died.

In a statement to the police, Woodward said that she "popped the baby on the bed", which she said at trial meant the same as "laid" the baby on the bed.

However, a police officer testified that Woodward had said she was rough with the child and dropped him twice that day.

A grand jury decided on a first-degree murder charge in March.

She was denied bail, and held until trial at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution – Framingham, a maximum-security prison.

Media coverage of the case was intense, nowhere more so than in Britain..

Before the trial, the defense tried to move it to another city, arguing that a local jury would be too biased to render a fair verdict.

The judge disagreed and denied the defence motion.

Before her trial on 7 May 1997, Woodward decided to undergo a polygraph examination conducted by David C. Raskin, a polygraph examiner hired by her own lawyers.

During the course of the examination, she was asked questions about whether she caused injury to Matthew while he was in her care on 4 February 1997.

She denied having caused any injuries to him, and Raskin concluded that her answers to these questions were truthful to a confidence level of 95 percent.

Raskin's results were evaluated by Charles Honts, another polygrapher hired by her defense lawyers, who also claimed that she had answered truthfully when responding to relevant questions about whether she had injured him.

The presiding judge was Hiller B. Zobel.

The prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorney Gerard Leone, along with Assistant District Attorney Martha Coakley, presented eight physicians involved in Matthew's care, including a neurosurgeon, an ophthalmologist, a radiologist, two pathologists, and an expert in child abuse, who testified to their belief that his injuries had occurred as a result of violent shaking, and from his head impacting with a hard surface.

The defense challenged this, among other things, on the grounds that there were no neck injuries to him; injuries that they claimed would have been expected if he had been violently shaken.

The prosecution had also claimed initially that his impact injuries were the equivalent of having been thrown from a two-story building, but they equivocated over this claim as the trial progressed.

The defense presented expert medical testimony that his injury may have occurred three weeks before the date of death, implying that his parents, Sunil and Deborah Eappen, both of whom were doctors, might be implicated in negligence or abuse of the child.

He had old wrist injuries that may have been incurred before Woodward even arrived at the house.

She, however, claimed under cross-examination that she never noticed any slight bumps, marks, or any unusual behaviour by him at any time prior to the night he was taken to the hospital.

The lead counsel at Woodward's trial, and the architect of her medical and forensic defense, was Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project.

Scheck was hired and paid for by her employer EF Education First's Cultural Care Au Pair.

As part of the defense strategy, her attorneys requested that the jury not be given the option of convicting her of manslaughter (a lesser included offense), and instead either convict her of murder or find her not guilty.

When personally questioned about this decision by the judge, she agreed with her lawyers.

Legal experts speculated that the motivation for this strategy was to help EF Education First avoid a civil lawsuit from the Eappens.

EF's screening process and training for au pairs had come under scrutiny; she had only received three days of training.

If the death had been pre-meditated, then under Massachusetts law, EF Education First could not be held responsible.

However, if the death was not pre-meditated, then it would indicate fault with EF Education First's Cultural Care Au Pair.

On 30 October 1997, after 26 hours of deliberations, the jury found her guilty of second-degree murder.

The following day, Judge Zobel sentenced her to life in prison with a minimum of 15 years to be served.

Woodward's legal team filed post-conviction motions to the trial court, and the hearing opened on 4 November.

In the days following the verdict, it emerged that the jury had been split about the murder charge, but those who had favoured an acquittal were persuaded to accept a conviction.

However, this was of no legal consequence.