A Massachusetts family hired a young English au pair who was later charged with killing their infant.
A jury found Louise Woodward, then 19, guilty of second-degree murder in the death 8-month-old Matthew Eappen and sentenced to 15 years in prison. A judge later reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter, sentenced the nanny to time served and sent her home to England.
The highly publicized trial brought a spotlight to “shaken baby syndrome” like no other case before it.
Prosecutors say that Woodward admitted to shaking Matthew and to dropping him on the floor and tossing him on a bed. State medical examiners say Matthew hit the floor with the “force equivalent to a fall from a second-story window.”
Woodward, now 31, lives in Bridgnorth, England, where she teaches salsa dancing in a parish hall.
