RedHanded - Episode 131 - Louise Woodward & Shaken Baby Syndrome

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

When 8 month old Matthew Eappen was admitted to hospital with signs of a severe head trauma, and died just days later of his injuries, doctors and police suspected abuse.  Louise Woodward, Matthew’s 18 year old British au pair, was quickly arrested and tried for his murder; and although she denied ever hurting the baby, many experts seriously doubted her story.  With the medical evidence pointing in every direction, in this week’s episode Suruthi and Hannah put shaken baby syndrome and the case of Louise Woodward under the microscope... References: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWVHYKvCVO4 https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/louise-woodward https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBAHCc96-YE https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nanny-controversy-flares-again/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nanny-controversy-flares-again/ https://www.irishtimes.com/news/doctor-admits-head-fracture-could-have-been-weeks-old-1.113939   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti.

I'm Hannah. Sorry, I just had a mouthful of coffee at the worst possible moment. I timed that so badly. I realized you were about to start and I was like, oh shit, fuck. Good. So welcome to Red Handed, sponsored by Kenco. And a mouthful of it in Hannah's mouth.

This is sponsored by Hannah's burnt mouth. And yeah, it's going to be a bit of a beast of a case. That's why Hannah's on the coffee. And I've been eating Skittles by the handful from my box. Because it's a bit of a beast, yeah. Have you got've been eating Skittles by the handful from my box because it's a bit of a beast yeah you're gonna have you got a box of Skittles um I found some in like a tote bag when I was clearing them out they were from our tour oh shit so in our rider when we were on our UK tour was uh Skittles in every single town that we were in and we ended up with quite a lot of them

because it turns out my stomach was going all sorts of directions and I couldn't really sit in the dressing room and just eat bags of Skittles. But now I can, so it's fine. And I'm in Skittle surplus heaven over here. So, yeah. I think I took the M&Ms and you took the Skittles. We had a divorce proceeding at the end of the tour

with all of the food and drink that we'd accumulated. We had a custody battle over the Skittles. Exactly. I took all the vodka and the Skittles and Hannah took all the M&Ms and the gin. Splitsies. But yeah, it was absolutely needed because this case is going to be quite the case. You're going to have to get on your very best legal hats, your very best medical hats and any other apparel that you're going to need throughout this case to get through it. I don't know what else you'll need, but be warned is all

I can say. I felt quite dizzy by the end of doing the research for this one. And I suspect that I might feel quite dizzy by the end of this probably two hour record that it's going to take because I've got quite bad stomach cramps and backache today and I am yet to buy a stool so I should be standing. Whose fault is that though? It's my fault. The campaign Stools for Cerrutis has failed to inspire me. Oh god. But anyway it's going to be good. It's going to be good. Hopefully you're sat down. That's the main thing. Because, yeah, I would describe this as a real transatlantic head scratcher. That's what I'm going to go with. Because it's a case in which not just the alleged perpetrator was put on trial,

but also a potentially controversial medical diagnosis, shaken baby syndrome. So we've got a lot to cover. On the 4th of February 1997, at 3.45pm, 911 received a call from a home in Newton, Massachusetts. I really struggle to say that word, Massachusetts. Massachusetts? You know what I mean. An affluent suburb in Boston. The caller was 18-year-old Louise Woodward, a British au pair who was working for an American family, the Eapons, during a gap year in the States. Louise had been with the family for three months and looked after their two kids,

Matthew, who was eight months old, and Brendan, who was almost three. On the 911 call that day, Louise was panicking because baby Matthew was struggling to breathe. When the paramedics arrived, baby Matthew was jerking uncontrollably. He was gasping for breath and he slipped into unconsciousness. He was immediately rushed to Children's Hospital in Boston. Louise had paged Deborah Eapen and Sunil Eapen, Matthew's parents. They were both doctors at nearby hospitals, and soon they too were at their son's side.

When she arrived, Deborah, Matthew's mum, who's an ophthalmologist, checked her son's eyes and noticed blood behind his retinas. It was retinal hemorrhaging. Deborah thought straight away that her son must have suffered some sort of severe head trauma, and she knows what she's looking at. Radiographs showed immense pressure on baby Matthew's brain from the bleeding. He had a subdural hematoma, which is usually a result of a traumatic head injury that results in blood collecting between the skull and the surface of the brain. The blood being not where it's supposed

to be comes from the blood vessels that penetrate the dura being sheared. So like any injury that causes bleeding, we're looking at damaged blood vessels. X-rays were also taken of eight-month-old Matthew and two fractures were spotted. One was a large transverse fracture on the back of his head and the other was a wrist fracture on one arm. This one was found to be definitely older as it had clearly started to heal. And it was estimated to have occurred roughly three weeks before. But it looks to doctors who were treating Matthew that the injuries he was currently suffering from had been sustained just a few hours before he was admitted into hospital.

And it seemed to be a head injury. At 5.30pm on the 4th of February, doctors operated on Matthew to relieve the pressure on his brain. A Newton police began to investigate what had happened. Sergeant Bill Byrne went to the Eapen house that evening to speak with the family and with Louise. This conversation became a key moment in the investigation. Sergeant Byrne says that Louise told him that Matthew had been cranky and tired that day. He says that she told him that she was frustrated. And he noted in his report that she had told him that she had tossed him onto the bed, meaning, of course, Matthew. Sergeant Byrne also

noted that Louise had admitted to him that she had been, quote, a little rough when bathing Matthew that day. He also recorded that Louise said to him that she may have dropped Matthew on the bathroom floor. But Louise later denied that she had said this at all. The interview, as we said, happened at the Eapen house. It lasted 20 minutes and was not recorded. Present were four officers including Bill Byrne and Louise so it would later go on to very much just become a case of her word against his. That night the detectives took Louise's passport and left and Bill Byrne went straight to the hospital to interview the doctors. They told him that Matthew's injuries were so severe that it definitely looked like abuse and not an accidental fall. Matthew had a two and a half inch fracture to the back of his

skull and doctors seriously suspected that it was as a result of being slammed against a hard surface. This head injury had caused the blood clot in the brain that had then catastrophically exploded. The outlook for baby Matthew wasn't good. After his operation, he was put on life support. The very next day, on the 5th of February 1997, at 9pm, Louise Woodward was arrested for assault and battery. She was arraigned in Newton District Court. Bail was set at $100,000,

and with no chance of raising that kind of money, Louise was held in prison. Five days after his hospitalisation on the 9th of February, the Eapons made the heartbreaking decision to take Matthew off life support. Half an hour later, he died in his father Sunil's arms. Louise Woodward was now facing a murder charge. And of course, the story caused an absolute media storm, both in the US where it happened, but also back home where Louise was from in the UK. So let's look at who Louise Woodward actually was. Louise had grown up in the Cheshire village of Elton here in England. She had finished secondary school in 1996 and wanted to take a year out

before starting uni. So she signed up with an au pair agency in Boston. The premise was that they would give her some basic training, then place her with a family in the States. She would get paid and have a room and board in exchange for childcare duties. I think to Louise, au pairing seemed like the perfect option. So when Louise first joined the agency, she was initially placed with a family in the rural town of Manchester-by-the-Sea in Massachusetts. And when you Google it, while it looks absolutely beautiful, it currently has a population of just like 5,000 people. And according to Google Maps, it looks like it's either an hour to an hour and a half away

from like boston city i just don't think this was what louise was looking for isn't there a really sad film called manchester by the sea yeah i think it's that one with um casey affleck where was like came out was it on that set that he got accused of being a big fucking creepy creepo i think so quite possibly because i think it was quite a big budget production it all just went a bit quiet when it came out so maybe I don't know it's not my kind of film it looks well miserable but it got very good reviews I think um so yeah I just think being put in this like small sleepy little like seaside town wasn't exactly what Louise from a small town in England was looking for. She wanted to be in Boston,

you know. And also this family, they were imposing an 11pm curfew on her. And Louise absolutely fucking hated this. So she left that family and she left Manchester by the sea and was placed with the Eapen family in Newton. And like we said, she'd been there about three months, but already the relationship had become a bit tense. Louise was now much closer to Boston City than she had been in Manchester-by-the-Sea and she'd often go out at night and come home late. Apparently she was super into theatre and she became obsessed with the local show Rent. I don't know if I can even get into how much I hate Rent but it's a weird one because like objectively I understand why people like it but I also came across it at a time when I just would say the opposite of what everyone said because I thought it was cool

so I don't know if I've actually just like kept that opinion of Rent like unfairly but I really hate it I really truly hate it. Should we send you to go watch Rent again to challenge some of your teenage misconceptions or young person misconceptions? I've watched it multiple times. Like, I just don't think it's... Like, I love the concept. It's like, have you seen it? No. It's based on...

Some people call it a musical. Some people call it a rock opera. It's based on the opera Le Bohème, and it's about the AIDS crisis. Like, it's an interesting concept. But I can't remember which journalist it is, but he has a really funny bit about rent. And I'll have to find it and link it

because I can't take credit for this, but it's really funny. It's all about these young, struggling artists and they're just like, oh, just let me be free. I don't want to have to pay rent, whatever. And he's like, when I was a young, struggling artist

with no fucking work, I paid my fucking rent. That's literally the only thing I did. So whatever. I'm not the only one that hates rent. But apparently Louise really fucking liked it. And I know for a fact that there are no bars in Boston open past 1am. So like she can't have been coming home that late unless she was going to rise until 5am, which I believe is

no longer open. I think she was like hanging out with the cast of Rent though. So maybe they were like going back to one of their houses or they were having like a lock-in at the theater i don't know like okay i think she would like made friends with the cast and she was like hanging out with them all the time okay i don't think she was like necessarily going to watch the show i think she was like going there to be like a volunteer to help or something you know she was just like obsessed with her in what i've read weird okay there is some good stuff going on in quite a lot of um major musicals will preview in Boston before they go on to Broadway because it's much cheaper to open a show in Boston yeah I did hear somebody in one of the documentaries call it an

off off off Broadway show yeah it really doesn't surprise me and also like Boston's got Harvard like there's a lot of Harvard do a lot of theater stuff so there's a lot of people in and around Boston that uh would like to think that they're quite up there with with the theatre world I would say Louise was like into theatre before she came to the US so that was like her real passion you know okay that makes sense and she's doing that multiple times a week whatever she was doing and after these nights out she would then struggle to get up in the morning and do her job which is look after the children and the kids are little and they are up at the crack of Christ.

And I'm just not convinced that Louise had any idea what she was doing. This is fucking full on, I think. Like an eight-month-old and a three-year-old. That's like two major crisis points, I'd say, in raising a child. Like so young and vulnerable and can run around and get into all sorts of trouble and put their fingers in like electrical sockets and stuff like that. Yeah. And Louise had only had three days of training at the agency. But I will say, you know, we're mid late 90s here. Au pairs are so normal. Like I think now everyone's a little

bit more scared of everything. And it seems like a completely outrageous idea to have this foreign teenage girl in your house looking after your kids but I would say in the 90s so common even when I left school I was thinking about going to be in an au pair that wasn't until I discovered my complete incompatibility with all children but like it was an option that was out there because the money's good it depends where you can go and live in the fucking Alps. Like you can do all sorts. Absolutely. I think, you know, I've got friends who are au pairs here until like literally a year ago. And it's not that uncommon. I think at the time, and actually now,

I looked up the pay for au pairs in the US. It's minimum wage. It's $8 an hour, but you get room and board. So that obviously cuts down your costs. But I don't know we'll come on to the whole au pair system um a bit later but i take your point it was absolutely normal at the time especially but i think the thing was when louise's behavior wasn't what the epons had anticipated and when life with the epons for louise wasn't exactly what she'd hoped for, everyone became frustrated.

Deborah told her mum that Louise wasn't really a help at all and that if anything, it now felt like she had two boys but also a teenager to look after. But she kind of is a teenager. And also, by the same token, like if you are paying someone $8 an hour, they are not going to be as involved as someone you are paying $28 an hour. That's just how that simple economics, surely. Absolutely. And so after weeks of issues and frustrations building in the Eapen household, in the last week of Jan 1997, the Eapens had a word with Louise.

They imposed on her a midnight curfew. So it's a step up from the 11pm curfew in Manchester-by-the-Sea. And they warned her that if things didn't improve, that she'd lose her job with them. Louise was not happy. In a later interview I watched with her, she says, quote, I was over 18. I can decide when I go to bed. I mean, it just seems so immature. I get it, though. I get it. If I'd left home and someone who was the curfew is clearly because she isn't able to manage her time or her priorities appropriately because she couldn't do the job that she was being paid to do she wanted to go out and have the social life she wanted but then she wouldn't wake up and like look after the kids in the morning so I think it's fair for them to be like well if you're not going to get up in the morning then you have to be home by 12 because clearly that's the issue that you can't manage at this

age or at this point in your life. The thing is with all of this I just basically think that she wasn't cut out for this job. A job that no doubt required her to be up incredibly early with the kids as Deborah and Sunil rushed off to work and it was only a few days after this confrontation that baby Matthew fell into his coma. As this story hit the headlines, it seemed to awaken in parents a massive anxiety. How can you trust anyone to look after your kids? To many, Louise Woodward seemed like the perfect au pair.

Back home, she was known as a trusted babysitter and thought of as calm and level-headed. But I do have to say that being an evening babysitter in your hometown is a little bit different to being a full-time au pair in a foreign country. I think it's different if she had significantly younger siblings. Like that I would think would be a more important experience to have than being a babysitter if you're going to look after other people's kids full-time. Like I think like just being around significantly younger children. I definitely think that would make a difference. I just think this au pair agency didn't have any such prerequisites. I don't even think they would have cared if she'd had no babysitting experience.

This is just what people in her hometown came forward and was saying afterwards. Like we were so surprised, you know, she was such a great babysitter for my little girl. But I'm like, I don't know, just walking down the road to look after somebody while their parents are at the pub for an evening isn't the same as like what's going on here oh totally but you know I just don't think there was any real big deal into it before she was sort of accepted into the agency I was a fucking terrible babysitter I always fell asleep always every single time and you've got two younger siblings yeah I did so much like bringing up of my brother like and I was really good at that but like just night times can't do night times I'm a sleepy bear but always the parents would come home and I would just be asleep with

no idea if their children were okay I did not get asked back ever oh no well it's fine it was never for you Hannah uh no and I just think because my brother is 10 years younger than me I just I remember my mum saying to me when I was a kid she was just like this is probably the best contraception you'll ever receive oh my god my friend who was an au pair isn't anymore she used to look after these two little kids and her boyfriend would always like make little comments about babies and stuff like this. And she was never broody and he always was. And then she said, sorry, I've invited him round for the evening while I have to bathe and put the kids to bed. And she texted me afterwards and said, yeah, he says no more kids in the five year plan. I was like, worked a treat then, didn't I?

I think the key thing is au pairs are just not the same thing as nannies and neither are babysitters but like we've been saying as we've been going we do understand that obviously even though we don't have kids child care is cripplingly expensive but if this system of like au pairs was so much more affordable like Hannah alluded to do we have to ask ourselves why? Like how adequate is it? We are certainly not trying to defame au pairs. Like I said, I have many friends who were until very recently au pairs or slag off people who use them. Parents who have to work often have no other choice. All I think I'm saying is that the training for au pairs is definitely not rigorous. So while you may end up with an amazing au pair who is absolutely perfect for your kids and your family and you love them

and they're like a member of your family and all of this, which au pair actually translates to something like as an equal. So it is like you're a member of the family. The problem is that while that could happen, you may also end up with someone who is just a bit shit and disinterested. It really seems to be a situation based on trust and the relationship that develops between the host family and the au pair. Just total lottery, it seems like. And I think the thing is, in this case, it's clear that the trust and the relationship just really wasn't there. And I don't think I know of anyone or who I've ever heard of anyone who's gone to be an au pair anywhere because it's what they really wanted to do. It's either they wanted to live in that country or they wanted to save a bit of money or they wanted to go and learn the language or something.

It's never the definitive path they want to take. It's an addition. It's a means to an end. I also think like the term host family always just makes me think of like host and parasite, which I suppose is like, I don't know. But I get you're absolutely right, because I think if you wanted to pursue a career in childcare, you would like go do that. You wouldn't like probably become an au pair.

They might be great au pairs, but they're not there for that reason. No, and I bet nannies are like proper snarky about au pairs. Oh, yeah, for sure. In the same way that like real teachers are really snarky about teaching English as a foreign language teachers. They're like, it's not really the same thing. I think it's exactly like that comparison. That's happened to me so many times

when I'm like, oh yeah, I used to be a teacher, but oh, what? Be like, oh, English as a foreign language. They'll be like, oh, not not really then I've got a certificate I mean I think years and years of teacher training and university versus a TEFL certificate hey man no of course it's not the same thing of course it's not the same thing but you don't need to say it in the voice though I mean you could go work at a free school. Yeah, yeah. I could probably go work at a private school

as like a form tutor or something. Not that I would want to in any way. No showdown, teachers. I'm sure it's very rewarding if you are good at it and care, which I do neither. So we really have no interest in being harsh with the Eapins family either. We're not trying to give them a hard time.

Their baby is dead. Their baby died when they were not at home. And there's no higher price that anyone could pay. And of course, the Eapens had faith in this agency. And I'm sure this agency has a really nice brochure with all of these testimonials from one of these other families. Oh, it was amazing. I only had to pay her 50p and now my kid is in Mensa. They're going to have all of those things.

I'm sure they did their research. I'm sure that they went with a reputable agency. But another massive part of this case, apart from all of the sort of criticism of Louise, obviously, is the amount of criticism that the Eapens faced. And that's why we want to be really clear that we're not here to give them a hard time. Because especially Deborah was dragged through the mud.

The backlash against her was really quite disturbing to be honest. She actually literally received bags and bags of hate mail from people angry at her for going back to work and leaving her kids in the care of an au pair. She lost her fucking baby. Like how dare these people? and also just like when i was reading that i was like what sort of fucking miserable dickhead sits down writes a letter goes to the post office buys a stamp and sends a letter of blame and hate to a woman whose baby died like what sort of mentality must you have seriously fuck off like it's the worst. And these people painted Deborah as some sort of like yuppie, who only cared about her career and just fobbed her sons off on some stranger.

I'd like to think that we were past that as a society. And if this case happened now, that this wouldn't happen. But I don't really know if we are. Oh, it obviously would. And it's so entrenched of like, you know, what's the woman doing outside back at work anyway? Yeah. Like if she had just been a real woman and stayed at home and looked after her babies none of this would have happened exactly because it's honestly like whatever decision a woman makes whether it's not to have children and just to work or whether it's to have children and be a stay-at-home mum or whether it's to have children and go back to work someone somewhere wants to demonize us like fuck off i'm so bored of this like she went back

to work that's it deborah epon was i 100 believe acting in good faith that her children were safe she didn't just piss off and leave her kids she had been told by this agency that this person was able to do this and not that her decisions need any explaining but also when you dig into what going back to work actually meant for deborah even she was only working three days a week and coming home every lunchtime to breastfeed baby matthew like everyone fucking chill so once have we all chilled out excellent let's move on so heading back to the impending trial the chillest of all places in all of the land. After her arrest, over the next few months, Louise Woodward was held in prison with no chance of bail. Because remember, it was a whopping $100,000. The au pair agency paid

for Louise's defence team, which I thought was remarkable. But then I suppose it can't be good PR for them to be like, oh, one of our au pairs is in trouble and we've just abandoned her in prison. In a foreign country. And also, I think you could probably argue that if an au pair does damage while on the job, surely their employer, which is actually the agency, not the family, is going to be liable for that. Whatever the reason was and whatever their intentions were, the did not cheap out because louise woodward had barry sheck as part of her defense team and that is the very same barry sheck from oj simpson's dream team is there a more reference legal team in our particular field of work than oj simpson's dream team not a single one and barry sheck is making a fucking cameo in today's episode so yeah you're welcome so in

october 1997 the trial of louise woodward began the prosecution called detective bill burn the first officer to interview louise on the night that matthew was hospitalized and detective bill burn told the court about the interview he'd carried out and how louise had told him that she had been quote a little rough with the baby that day and that she'd dropped him. Of course, Sunil and Deborah Eapen testified as well. Sunil was incredibly emotional as he spoke, but Deborah was calm and collected. And I think she wanted to speak clearly, given all of the hate that she'd faced. But of course, her cool demeanour only served to piss even more people off.

She may not have been sobbing in the stand, but there's no doubt that she loved her baby very much. And why she's constantly bitched on by everyone is absolutely staggering. And I completely, like, I think if that had happened to me, if people were accusing me of being negligent towards my child and causing its death inadvertently, of course I would want to sit there and be like no this is this is what happened because if you're sitting there crying no one's going to take you seriously as we know as women all the time and also what I thought was

really um telling about all of the criticism that Deborah got is that not one bit of that criticism was aimed at Sunil he He went back to work too, my friends. So yeah, let's just bear that in mind. So after Detective Bill Byrne and after the parents testified, then the medical evidence began and it was going to be vital. With this type of case, it always comes down to the medical experts. And this time, it was no different. Dr. Eli Neuberger was one of the paediatricians who had treated Matthew at the hospital. And he spoke about his shock at seeing this child, with no previous history of injury or ill health,

come into the hospital, quote, at death's door. So this is how serious Matthew's condition is when he comes into the hospital. And Dr. Neuberger was clear. In his opinion, Matthew had suffered at least one sudden and powerful impact. This had caused the baby's brain to move back and forth, and this had damaged the blood vessels in the brain and led to the bleeding. Dr. Neuberger showed the jury what he thought had happened by vigorously shaking an imaginary baby and then gesturing a slamming motion against the dog. So many people do this same action at this trial, just shaking, shaking, shaking an imaginary baby and then throwing it around. I'm like, I get it, but it's also just so, it's hard because you weren't there.

It's just very, it's very weird. It's very weird to watch. The one thing, though, that Dr. Neuberger was certain about, the injuries that had killed Matthew were sustained in the hours before he was admitted. So therefore, only one person could have been responsible. We'll hear from a lot of experts who think a lot of different things in the trial. But I think what you said is like, possibly the most like apt thing, like none of them were there. And like, as I'm reading through these notes, like I was so reminded of JonBenet Ramsey, like because you can literally get an expert to say anything and listening to one medical expert

over another will take you in two completely different directions yeah well that's the thing someone um i saw on the instagram um someone was talking about the john bonnet ramsey episode and they were like oh like why are you hating on the documentary so much i'm like well i wasn't really like we were just saying like a medical professional who is of equal standing says something completely different so you can't just you can't take it as fact you know like and also the only other thing with that was that we were just pointing out stuff that the cbs documentary had left out yeah i still think it's a good documentary i'm just saying like you can look at other experts who are as hannah said of equal standing pointing in totally an opposite direction.

I know that that can become confusing because as human beings, we like one clear narrative. But it's rarely that easy, especially in a legal setting, which is exactly what we see today. So this trial was pretty huge, not just because, you know, it was a baby murder, baby death. It's also because it dragged into the public consciousness, shaken baby syndrome. But of course, doctors had been diagnosing it for decades by that point. And at that time, when doctors saw a child under the age of two presenting with what they called the triad, so retinal hemorrhaging, which is bleeding behind the eyes,

subdural hematomas, which is bleeding behind the eyes, subdural hematomas, which is bleeding on the brain, and brain swelling, they would often diagnose shaken baby syndrome. And according to many experts, it was a regular diagnosis. In some hospitals, it was a monthly thing. Doctors for the prosecution told the court that this was abuse and that Matthew had died of shaken baby syndrome plus some impact. And this explained the triad and the skull fracture. For a long time, those three symptoms, referred to as the triad presenting by themselves, were accepted as evidence that abuse had occurred, even in the absence of other signs such as bruises or broken bones. But in this case, there was something else.

We have to remember the older wrist fracture that doctors discovered. A picture of serial abuse was being painted. Another doctor testified for the prosecution, and that was Dr Gerald Feagin, the pathologist who had performed the post-mortem on baby Matthew. He told the jury about the fresh two and a half inch skull fracture found on the back of baby Matthew's head. According to Dr Feagin, there was also a purple bruise around the likely injury site. And as far as Dr Feagin could tell, the fracture hadn't started to heal.

And the purple bruise again indicated no healing if you are an anemic motherfucker like me you will know that bruises change color the more healed they are and i look at that chart all the time because i fall over all the time as well so i'm just uh when will these be gone spoilers two weeks so bruises change color as they heal as we know and they heal from the outside edge inwards and as they heal they turn brown or green purple means a brand new fresh bruise black if it's really deep if you've uh if you've hit some real trouble not that that has ever happened to me obviously and finally dr fegan pointed out that due to the extent matth brain was swollen, it indicated to him that this must have been a rapid swelling against the skull.

And from that, he could tell that the baby wouldn't have been functional after such an injury. So this backs claims that the injuries must have occurred recently, likely in the hours before Matthew was admitted. And I watched a recent interview with this pathologist, Dr. Feagan, and it was interesting to him talk about his confusion over the controversy in this case. As far as he was concerned, it was a very clear-cut case. The child had suffered blunt force trauma, and that had caused severe brain trauma, which had led to death. In this interview, he said, quote, the defense just came in with

their experts to create sensation where there was none. In his opinion, it was 100% clear. The baby had been forcibly struck against an object or with an object. There was no other way, in his opinion, that that type of head injury could occur. And just like Dr. Neuberger, Dr. Feagin said in court, there would have been no time after this injury occurred that that child would have functioned normally, so it had to have occurred that day. And as for the older fracture to Matthew's wrist that had clearly aged, Dr. Feagin was asked how could that have been missed for at least three weeks to which he made a good point. That kind of thing can be easy to miss because an eight month old baby isn't using its arm or wrist which makes sense but I do wonder though if you have a fracture wouldn't there have

been some swelling around the wrist? Again would there just have been swelling and then could it have subsided? Like I don't know know. And his parents were also doctors. Like, it increases the, like, unlikelihood of something like that being missed, I guess you could say. But I'm also not suggesting that anyone ignored signs of abuse or that the parents did it. I'm just wondering. It is interesting, isn't it? You would think if a baby is in pain. Yeah, because there's no doubt all of the doctors agreed that that injury on his wrist was at least three weeks old.

Maybe baby Matthew had that thing where he can't feel pain. What's it called? SEPA? I mean, maybe. It's incredibly rare. Yeah, and I also don't think anybody, including both his doctor parents, ever suspected that that was the case. I don't think it's, I think it's difficult to know when they're that young. I don't know. You would think that if a kid's got a broken wrist, the parents would notice. I mean, he had a fracture of his wrist.

Well, I suppose, you know, every time you stub your toe, your hairline fracture it. So maybe it was just super minor. And he's not going to be like supporting any weight on it, is he? No, that's the thing. He's not going to be using it. So it'd be probably hard to tell that it wasn't functioning maybe as normal or as it should. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone.

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or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Another doctor that the prosecution called to the stand was Dr. Joseph Madsen. He was another neurologist from Boston Children's Hospital. Dr. Madsen backed up his colleagues in saying that he did not think that the injuries would have been caused accidentally by a fall. And he also ruled out the possibility that the brain damage had been caused by an existing condition, which had just worsened on that particular day that Matthew had been taken into hospital. But then Dr Madsen was cross-examined by the defence for five hours in total. And Baryshek went to town on Dr Madsen.

He showed the Dr Katz scans of Matthew Eapen and asked, quote, Let us assume that Matthew Eapen suffered a skull fracture two to three weeks prior to the admission to the hospital and the swelling went down afterwards. Aren't these consistent with that kind of event? And Dr. Madsen had to admit that yes, it would be consistent. And this is the thing I think for me, kids get dropped. I used to drop my brother all the time and he's fine, kind of. Like, you know, especially if you've got two, especially you're holding one and another one is running around doing something, it's incredibly easy to crack

their head on a doorframe or something like that. No one's saying that it's the right thing to do. I'm just saying that accidents do happen. Yeah, I think there's no way to know if this was an accident or not, because these medical experts, as we'll go on to see when the defence come up, couldn't agree. Some say that this indicates or could be consistent with an accidental fall. Some say there's absolutely no way this is consistent with an accidental fall. This is only consistent with a deliberate blow or, you know, something like that, some sudden and forceful impact that happened that was delivered on purpose. I think the real problem is not so much was it an accident or not. I think that's incredibly difficult to prove. I think the bigger problem for the prosecution was that it was really difficult

to age the fracture to Matthew's skull. Just couldn't agree. Radiologist Dr. Robert Cleveland testified, quote, it could have been the day before the film was done. It could have been days, even weeks earlier. There just doesn't seem to be any clarity around this situation. And the defense claimed that blood clots removed from Matthew's brain could have provided the vital evidence that they needed to more accurately age the injury, but that these hadn't been saved for examination. So all they're now more accurately age the injury, but that these hadn't been saved for examination. So all they're now left with is the edges of the fracture, and they seem to be the sharper they are, the more recent the injury. But again, it seems

to be quite subjective. And when he was asked about these blood clots, Dr. Madsen admitted that while the clots could have revealed the age of the injury, he had thought that they would most likely have just fallen apart before reaching a pathologist anyway. But Mr Sheck asked him, quote, could you have taken the blood clots, put them in a bottle, labelled them and sent them there to a pathologist? Could you have done that? And Dr Madsen admitted, yes, we could have done that. There's no way to know if the clots would have made the difference here, but the issue remains, there was definite ambiguity around when the head fracture had actually occurred. So clearly what

the defence are trying to do, they're trying to link the skull fracture with the wrist injury and say that it happened two to three weeks before the day that Matthew was admitted to hospital. And another piece of evidence that the defence claimed to have in their possession that indicated this was that they claimed to have notes written by Deborah Eapen at the hospital the day that Matthew was admitted. They claim that the notes listed symptoms such as Matthew being lethargic, sleeping for long periods and having behaved strangely in the two days before the 4th of February. These could of course be signs linked to a head injury. After the prosecution was finished the defence brought in their medical experts. Doctors for the defence claimed that Matthew had not suffered a violent head injury

but rather an accidental fall about three weeks before the day he was admitted to hospital. The defence had to explain two things. The prosecution was saying that this was a case of shaken baby syndrome plus impact. And the defence were claiming that the impact had occurred weeks before and the blood clot has simply hemorrhaged on the day in question. A key point to back this up was that they claimed while there was a bruise on his head, as Dr. Feagan had stated, there was no evidence of swelling on the back of Matthew's head. And surely there would have been swelling if he had been smacked against something that day. But some attending physicians for the prosecution said that the baby's head was bandaged

and in all of the hospital photos this is the case. So they said they couldn't see whether there was swelling or not, but you would think it would be on the notes for sure. Come on. Exactly. And there doesn't ever really seem to be any notes of swelling externally. It's the swelling internally of the brain that's only ever really listed. Having said that, though, there's just not that many blood vessels on your actual skull. So like, it's not impossible for a quite serious head injury to not exhibit that much

external swelling because there's just not that much blood going on. This is the thing with this case. Nothing is definitive. It just all seems so grey. And again, this isn't to question experts. I'm just saying there's lots of well-experienced experts pointing in totally the opposite direction with this case. So whether there was swelling or not threw reasonable doubt into the mix as to Louise Woodward's guilt. Because if the injury had occurred on the 4th of February, so the day that Matthew was admitted to hospital, it had to be her because she was the only one with the kids all day. But if the defence could successfully widen the time frame for when the injury had occurred to the days before or even

to a couple of weeks before he was in hospital, this would widen the pool of people who had access to Matthew and therefore it would increase the number of potential perpetrators. So by introducing doubt over when the impact occurred, they could answer half the story. Now they had to throw doubt on the shaken baby part of it. They made the point that if Matthew had been shaken, he would have developed bruises where he would have been held. So if you're holding a baby and shaking it, you're either holding it by the shoulders or by the ribs, like you've got to be holding it one way or another. But there were no such bruises on Matthew's body. So how are you vigorously shaking a baby until it has retinal hemorrhaging

without giving any bruises to the baby? How does that happen? Upside down by its feet. But it was clearly written there were no other bruises apart from the head bruise to Matthew's body. So to dispel shaken baby syndrome further, the defence called neuropathologist Dr Jan Lietzma to the stand. Dr Lietzma never examined or treated Matthew Eapen,

that's important for everybody to keep in their mind, but he was an expert in the space and he had of course reviewed the medical files. When Dr. Lietzma took the stand he contradicted the prosecution's findings. He looked at Matthew's brain scans and felt that Matthew's injuries looked to have been sustained, in his opinion, around three weeks before his death. According to Dr. Lietzmer, the skull fracture was healing. And he also thought that Matthew's injuries were more consistent with a fall rather than a blow. According to Dr. Lietzmer, Matthew had been living for weeks with the subdural hematoma or blood clot. Then the clot had started to bleed again on the 4th of February, causing the pressure in Matthew's

brain to rise, rupturing the blood vessels behind his eyes. And Dr. Lietzmer is not the only one to think that this could have been the case. Chronic subdural hematomas are tricky. They can go away and dissolve on their own, or they can explode fatally.. Dr Jan Lietzmer was the defence's key medical witness and he had done what he needed to. He had introduced doubt. But assistant district attorney Martha Coakley still had something up her sleeve. She cross-examined Dr Lietzmer and pointed out that a few years before he had published a journal on forensic neuropathology and in this journal he had suggested that blood clots due to child abuse have a tendency to often look like older accidental injuries she must have thought that she had him on the fucking ropes when

she had that like can you imagine when they, when the prosecution found that journal written by the defense's key medical witness saying the exact fucking opposite of what he was going to stand up and say at trial? Like, it's movie-esque. But Dr. Leitzman replied that new data is always coming out and you have to change your mind as and when it does if it points to something new and you do hear that all the time like when I can't this is going to be so wrong but like

I've heard that it's like 25% of the stuff you learn in your first year of medical school will be obsolete by the time you leave like it's moving all the time. I mean it's the definition of science it's that you can't hold on to rigid thinking. You have to always be open to new ways of thinking or new ideas as and when the data becomes available. So I actually felt like, yeah, that totally makes sense. I get it. But you can bet that that would have had quite a major impact on the jury, whatever Dr. Leitzman was saying. And Martha Coakley also got Dr. Leitzman to admit that Matthew could have been shaken either that day or before. Dr. Lietzma admitted that he couldn't rule it out.

Okay, let's have a little recap before we move on. Essentially, all of the medical experts pointed at the fact they couldn't definitively say when Matthew Skull Fracture had occurred. It could have been on the day, it could have been before. There's just no clear-cut evidence. But the doctors who treated Matthew, who actually treated him in hospital, thought strongly that his injuries had occurred within hours of his arrival. And they were certain that it was a head injury caused by a blow to the head. So the prosecution's claim was that Louise Woodward had shaken Matthew for several minutes

and then slammed his head against a hard object. The defense's claim was that Matthew had hit his head about three weeks before his death, most likely by accident. And then the injury had re-bled and this is what had killed him. And that since it hadn't happened on the 4th of Feb, it could have been anyone who caused the head injury. So convicting Louise would be incredibly unsafe. A point I found really interesting about this story, about this case, is that the entire trial was shown on Court TV. And I was just googling this. It's called Court TV, like the nanny murder,

like that particular episode of Court TV, which I didn't realise that's how they released it. You can buy it on Amazon, but only on VHS. So if you've still got a VHS player somewhere and you really want to, $5 will get you a copy of this entire court case for some particular reason and also what's important to note that obviously louise is english and in the uk you never have cameras in the courtroom so it was an absolute revelation for louise's family and her supporters back home to be able to watch her trial unfolding and they all used to go to like the local pub and watch it there which is just so like so like so, like, small village in England. And needless to say, it was, of course, tense.

And everyone in the UK and in the US was waiting for the day that Louise Woodward would take the stand. And when she did, she was dressed in a cardigan, wearing an Alice band. Possibly, I think, to make her look even younger than she was. Oh, definitely. Every exam I ever took, every festival, everything, make yourself look as young as possible. Every exam? Like written exam? Like singing exams or piano exams and stuff like that. Ballet exams. Oh, right. That makes sense. That makes sense. And in the newspapers I was reading about this trial, I can't remember which one it was, but someone was reporting on her calling her things like pudgy and baby-faced and all this.

And baby-faced is fine. She does have quite a baby face. Not when she's on trial for killing a baby. Yes, that's true. Absolutely not. Oh, my God. Oh, that's awful. You're right.

It didn't even occur to me. I was like pudgy. Fuck it out. It's a bit mean. But she is on murder trial for murdering a baby. So maybe don't call her baby faced. And also maybe it doesn't matter if you call her pudgy. I don't know.

So the moment is finally here. Louise is in the dot. And according to Louise, this is what happened on the 4th of February, 1997. At 3.15 in the afternoon, she had gone into Matthew's bedroom to check on him. When she saw him, she noticed that he was gasping for breath, turning blue. She says that she tried to do CPR and then called 911. She told the court, quote, I looked at him, he was unresponsive.

His eyes were half closed, he was gasping for breath. I shook him gently to try and at him. He was unresponsive. His eyes were half closed. He was gasping for breath. I shook him gently to try and revive him. Andy Good, one of Louise's lawyers, asked Louise, Did you ever hit Matthew? Did you ever see Matthew's head become injured? Did you slam Matthew Eapen? No, no and no, came the replies from Louise. But there's a moment that caused a massive stir. When Andy

Goode asked her, did you slam Matthew Eapen? Louise looked down, strangely smiled and then said no. It's momentary, but it's clear to see. And that must have been so incredibly frustrating for her defence team. She's smiling at the most crucial question in the entire trial. And it wasn't the only time. Sometimes she smiles or she laughs. It's quite odd, but it could just be put down to her being awkward or just completely immature and not really realising how it looks. And it is an immense amount of pressure for an 18-year-old to be under. After the trial, jurors said that they weren't influenced by her weird behaviour. The issue was that they just didn't really believe her story.

Assistant DA and prosecution attorney Jerry Leone did not aggressively cross-examine Louise. I think that he knew that it might push the jurors to have sympathy for this young girl. But he did ask her about the interview with the police the night Matthew had gone to hospital. Louise told the court that the detective had just misunderstood her. She said, I told him, quote, I popped Matthew on the bed and he thought that meant I dropped him on there. But Bill Byrne is adamant that she said dropped, not popped. In a lot of the like, um, document, well not in the lot, there's two documentaries out there on this, which we'll link below. There's like um document or not in the lot there's two documentaries out there on this which we'll link below there's like a huge discussion because in one of them the host is

british she says to these american people she's into do you know what popped means and they're thinking it sounds like something really aggressive like i popped him and she's like no no it's like a it's like a really casual way of saying like you placed something somewhere or you just put something somewhere. And Louise's argument and one of her lawyers, who is British, says that this detective just misunderstood her and thought when she said popped, she meant something aggressive by that. Because you say like, oh, I'm just going to pop to the shops, which don't mean I'm going to very aggressively stomp down to the shops. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. But again, it's like, do Americans say, I'm just going to pop to the shops? I don't think they do. I think that's a very British thing to say.

Yeah. In America, like, I'm going to fucking pop a cap in your ass is what they say. So maybe it's... Is it? Is that what all of the Americans say? That's what Americans say. So maybe he's thinking that. But Bill Bendar say, no, no no no no she didn't say pop she said dropped

and i didn't hear popped and think she meant dropped if you see what all through so it's all very confusing again right right why wasn't this interview taped why is she talking to him in the fucking house like don't speak to the police without a lawyer. Fuck's sake. But anyway, Gerry Leone's tactic at trial, according to him, was to not, as Hannah said, aggressively go after her. His plan was to just let Louise's slip-ups and damning evidence speak for itself. And a couple of things did stand out. Like, for example, the 911 call.

On the call, Louise told the dispatcher that she thought Matthew was choking. And she was clearly told to turn Matthew over. So turn him over onto his front. When asked at trial if she had done everything that she was told, she said that she had. But actually, when the police and paramedics turned up, Matthew was face up. So she hadn't turned him over like the dispatcher told her to. Jerry Leone asked her why, why didn't you turn him over? But Louise couldn't answer.

So Jerry posed the idea that not only had Louise killed Matthew, she had done it because she was angry at the Eapons. He linked Louise's irritation with her curfew and the Eapons coming down on her just a couple of days before the accident, or incident, as a reason for her killing Matthew. I think that's a bit of a stretch, in my opinion. I mean, yeah, I just think getting annoyed about a midnight curfew is not a reason anyone kills a baby. Like, I just... Well, it could be a reason that a fucking psychopath or a sociopath would. Or a horrible person who's got a fucking horrible way of thinking about things.

But we don't know that she does. I'm just saying. So after all the testimony was complete, the defense took an absolutely massive gamble. They made a request to the judge that the jury only be allowed to consider first or second degree murder, not manslaughter.

They said that this was to avoid the jury making a compromise. They were so sure of Louise's innocence that they wanted to force the jury's hand. Their idea was convict her of murder or set her free. It's often referred to as the noose or loose defence. So, yeah, it's a risky game they're playing. And the judge actually warned Louise against this move, but she listened to her lawyers and she took it. And on the 28th of October 1997, the jury went to deliberate.

After three days of deliberation, they had reached a decision. And at 9.30pm on October the 30th, they returned a verdict of guilty of second-degree murder. Back home, Louise's friends and family and supporters were watching it again at their local pub, and they were floored. In court, Louise burst into tears, shouting, why did they do that to me? Even the judge, Judge Zobel, looked shocked. The gamble had totally backfired. In interviews after the trial, jurors explained their decision. With so much conflicting medical evidence, they had taken the words of the doctors who had actually treated Matthew Eapen over the word of medical professionals who

were looking at the case after the fact and using other cases or data to back up their claims. I also think the jury couldn't believe that the injuries had occurred two weeks before and had gone unnoticed by two doctor parents. But it is a weird one because although I completely understand them going with the testimony of the attending physicians, if you have conflicting scientific thinking on the matter, like here, given that nobody could definitively say when the skull fracture had actually occurred, then surely not having a reasonable doubt is kind of impossible. In a criminal trial, the burden of proof is on the prosecution.

All the defense need to do is introduce this reasonable doubt and surely there does seem to have been a reasonable doubt like the fact that no one could age the skull fracture accurately and the lack of bruises on matthew eapen's body that would fit with him having been shaken but it also can come down quite a lot of the time to which expert witnesses are seen to be more credible by the jury and that can be dependent on what colour tie they're wearing. And in any case, I think the defence made a huge error in taking away the middle ground for the jury by removing manslaughter as a charge. This is the thing, I feel like you said, if there is

scientific witnesses, medical witnesses, expert witnesses on both sides saying totally opposite thing, and there's no sort of agreement that can be reached, isn't there just reasonable doubt? But maybe it's that word reasonable. Maybe there was doubt, but maybe the jurors felt like there wasn't reasonable doubt to make them feel like it wasn't Louise. And like you said, the fact that they just believed or decided if we're going to have to believe one set of expert witnesses over another, we're going to go with the ones that actually treated him, which I don't think is unfair. So regardless of whatever the reasoning was behind this or whether the defence were right in what they did with the

whole Noose or Loose defence, the next morning, so Halloween 1997, the sentence was passed. Judge Zobel handed down the mandatory sentence for second-degree murder, which was life with a chance of parole after 15 years. And there were huge crowds outside the courtroom protesting on Louise's behalf. Many people felt that there was no irrefutable proof of her guilt. And she was just 18. People were shocked. And some of the signs outside the courtroom actually read,

Free Louise, Jail the Jury. Which is interesting because they say there was no irrefutable proof of her guilt. But it's only on the defense to introduce reasonable doubt. And the prosecution said, if you couldn't introduce reasonable doubt, maybe there just wasn't any. It's so complicated. But after this sentencing, Louise's defence team weren't done yet. At a hearing four days after the sentencing, they requested that Judge Zobel throw out the jury's verdict and rule himself on the case.

They made the case that the jury were not qualified to make sense of the scientific information that had on the case. They made the case that the jury were not qualified to make sense of the scientific information that had dominated the trial. So Judge Sobel agreed to consider it. And on the 10th of November, he announced his decision. And he took Louise's conviction from second-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. It was huge.

And also, interestingly, this was the first ever legal decision released over the internet, which I thought was quite an interesting little tidbit. Judge Zobel explained in this statement that he felt that Louise was responsible for Matthew's death, but that it was through, quote, confusion, inexperience, frustration, immaturity and some anger, but not malice in the legal sense. And this is key for second-degree murder. One must have acted with malice. And I don't think of all of the things that were proved,

that were disproved, that there was doubt left over, I don't think malice was ever proved at this trial. I don't think malice was ever proved at this trial. I don't think intent was proved either. So Judge Sobel took the remarkable step of reducing Louise Woodward's sentence to time served. And as he explained this at the hearing, Louise didn't even understand what he was saying. Her lawyer had to slip her a note that read, you're free, before she understood. Louise had served nine months in jail. And with that, she was released.

And of course, it caused quite the sensation. But Judge Zabel had overruled Jory's verdicts in the past. However, this was probably the most high profile case in which this had happened and people worried about the impact this decision would have on Juries in the future which is a fair concern. I did think that like the whole point of a jury is not to be tried by 12 scientific experts it's to be tried by your peers so it's a difficult I don't know it's difficult. It is difficult because you're exactly right the point is that the expert should be prepped and briefed in a way that they can explain something to a layman. But also there is the thing that the prosecution and the defense are there to build a narrative. And they just didn't do it in a way that was compelling enough for this jury to believe Louise Woodward. And also they fucking took manslaughter off the table. That was the problem as well, I think here. I think if they hadn't done that, the jury would have found her guilty of manslaughter.

And the prosecution obviously fought this overturning decision. But on the 17th of June, 1998, the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld Sabelle's decision. And that very same day, Louise Woodward was fucking out of there. She got on the next plane and she flew back to England as fast as she could. On the same day, the Eapons filed a wrongful death suit. And they did actually win that suit when Louise Woodward didn't contest it. She said that this wasn't because she was guilty, but because she couldn't afford a lawyer. And also, like, her case has gone all the way to the fucking Supreme Court.

She's probably just really tired. And I think the agency were only there to pay for the defense for the murder trial. They weren't going to also like pay for suits. Not for a civil suit, no way. Yeah. And this suit dragged out into very long negotiations. But eventually on the 29th of January 1999, the Eapons and Louise agreed that she would not be allowed to sell her story for money. And if she did make any money, she would have to donate it to UNICEF. By this time, Louise was doing her best to move on with her life back in the UK. And by 1998, she was enrolled to study law at Southbank Uni in London. And to this day, Louise says, quote, the only thing on my conscience is that I may not have done enough and since all this

happened she has gone on to lead a very normal life she's never been in trouble again with the police or with anyone and she's now married with her own child and of course the fucking tabloids here had a bloody field day when she had her kid because the thing is her conviction was never overturned so she is still convicted of manslaughter in the u.s so there's still a conviction that holds with her but the controversy didn't end there in march 1999 cbs's 60 minutes aired a program on the case in which two new doctors who again had not been attending physicians for matthapen but were, you know, doctors, they theorized that Matthew had never been shaken. The show featured medical experts Dr. Floyd Gillis, chief of neuropathology, and also Dr. Marvin Nelson, a radiologist, both of whom were from Children's Hospital in LA. They reviewed Matthew Eapen's medical records and Dr Gillis asserted that baby Matthew did not die of shaken baby syndrome or a head smashing, but actually of strangulation.

According to Dr Gillis, someone had squeezed Matthew's carotid artery, blocking blood flow to the brain. And he stated that sometimes when an infant is strangled, it can take up to 48 hours for the brain swelling to become evident. He said he felt that it was strangulation because of unexplained injuries on Matthew's neck. But Frederick Ellis, the Eapen's lawyer, called this theory absurd and stated that the experts at the trial had clarified that Matthew's only neck injuries were from a medical procedure to try to get him breathing again. So he claimed that there were no unexplained injuries. Ellis also pointed out that Dr Gillis was not a child abuse expert,

but rather an expert in tumours. Also in response to the CBS show, 77 paediatricians signed a letter refuting the evidence, calling the strangulation theory preposterous. But CBS stood by it. Oh, it's the second CBS documentary outing for us. The case had other effects too. A week after Louise Woodward was released, the Massachusetts legislature voted on the death penalty. One representative who had previously been pro-death penalty actually switched his vote, citing the Louise Woodward case as the one that proved to him, quote, we can't always be sure. And we really can't because there were a couple more controversies that happened after this trial as well, if you haven't already had enough. At trial, Louise had stated, quote, I didn't do anything to hurt Matthew

or harm him in any way. But Bill Byrne told the court how she had admitted to him that she had been a little rough with him and that she had dropped him. Louise denied saying any of this at trial. It later came out that she had had a polygraph test pre-trial and Louise passed this polygraph test but obviously this isn't admissible in court and it's completely useless information. But what was really interesting is that during the polygraph test but obviously this isn't admissible in court and it's completely useless information but what was really interesting is that during the polygraph she had said that same phrase that Bill Byrne was claiming. She had said that maybe she was quote a little rough with him and this phrase is of course super subjective and just because she lied about it doesn't mean she didn't do something but it is interesting that it's exactly the same phrase

that comes up twice in two different places. And that she flat out denies it at the trial. I think it's the fact that she says it to Bill Byrne when she's sort of unsupervised. She's got no lawyers with her. And then she says it in this pre-trial polygraph because she was probably terrified having a polygraph. But then when she's under the supervision

and under the counsel of her lawyers and her legal team at trial, she absolutely says, I never said that, I said popped. So I don't know, I think she probably did say it. And I think she probably was a little rough. But what does a little rough even mean? Yeah, and also her like megastar defence team are just going to be like, they can't prove it, you can say whatever you want.

It's like it's all inadmissible. You can literally just, you can just say nothing. Exactly. It was never going to be like, they can't prove it. You can say whatever you want. It's like, it's all inadmissible. You can literally just, you can just say nothing. Exactly. It was never going to be called evidence at trial. So like, what did it matter what she said? It was just interesting that it came out that she had admitted to that in the polygraph. But there's another thing to consider. On the 22nd of May, 1997, one of Louise's lawyers, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, this is the one who is a British-born lawyer as well. She was the one that explained the whole stuff about popped versus dropped. She features very heavily in the documentary linked below.

She actually ended up being charged with drunk driving. And during this arrest, she allegedly, emotionally, told the state trooper who had stopped her that she was drunk because her client, the au pair, was actually guilty and quote, I thought she was innocent but now I know she's guilty and I can't handle it. The lawyer was of course taken off the case and this only came out after the trial. But again, it's hardly concrete. Apparently Miss Whitfield-Sharpe that day was so drunk that she couldn't recite the past R in the alphabet. Well, it's just drunk logic, isn't it? It's just

like, I'm in trouble. I'm just going to talk about someone who's in worse trouble than me. It's very, very strange. But before we close up today's case, let's consider the idea of shaken baby syndrome itself. Shaken baby syndrome was first noted in a paper in 1971 by Dr. Norman Guthcletch, who is often cited as Britain's very first pediatric neurosurgeon. And when he wrote about it, Dr. Norman was only interested in the fact that he was seeing these symptoms in cases where parents had confessed to shaking their baby, not realizing the impact. He never even wanted it recognised as a syndrome. And he was horrified that the syndrome was and is being used, in his words,

liberally to convict people quite so frequently of child abuse. Dr Norman was a real champion of justice until his death in July 2016 at the age of 100 years old. He spent his time reviewing cases where he believed that the person had been wrongly accused of killing their baby. But shaken baby syndrome still leads to hundreds of arrests each year in the US. Another prosecution expert who testified at trial was Dr Patrick Barnes, a neuroradiologist who, at the time of the case, worked at Children's Hospital in Boston. He was adamant that Matthew Eapen had died of shaken baby syndrome and impact and swore in court that it could be nothing else.

But for years after, Dr Barnes kept thinking about that trial and how Barry Sheck had asked him, but Dr Barnes, were you there? How can you be so sure? This stayed with Dr Barnes, so he started to look at other literature on traumatic head injury, rather than just within the realm of child abuse. And now he says that once he started looking at it, it was with horror that he realised for the past 15 to 20 years, he had been wrong. And also, he now says that he feels immensely guilty that his testimony led to Louise Woodward's

conviction. Now we're not here to debunk shaken baby syndrome of course shaking your baby can kill it the issue we're discussing here is the risk associated with misdiagnosing this condition and how that can lead to people being wrongly convicted of child abuse. Some babies presenting with the triad of symptoms have clearly been abused, but it can't be ignored that other factors other than shaking, and that have nothing to do with abuse, may also explain the triad. And the numbers also speak for themselves. 213 cases between 2001 and 2015 in which a caregiver was convicted of child abuse due to the shaken baby syndrome triad alone have been overturned. In some cases after having spent a decade in prison.

So the time has come. What do we think? Hannah, what do you think of this whole story? I don't think it was intentional. I think I've got a reasonable doubt and I don't think I would have convicted her. I think I don't believe Louise's story that she just walked in to check on Matthew and he's like suddenly gasping for air, all of this. She never gives any explanations for how any of these injuries could have occurred and the baby's with her for quite a lot of the time. So like I found that quite strange.

I think that she was probably frustrated and I think that maybe she was rough with him. I don't think that she shook him because of the lack of bruises. I don't know. I think because I can't tell when it happened. I just don't know. That's my thing. Like I think if there was a definitive timeline on when the injuries happened, I would have less of a reasonable doubt than I do yeah and I think the biggest mistake for the defense had judge Zobel not agreed to rule on the case

himself and throw out the jury's verdict would have been that they had removed manslaughter from the question so basically we don't know all I can say is that my heart breaks for the Eapen family because like how fucking sad you think that your kid is safe you think that it's with somebody who can take care of them and you come home and he's not so yeah it's just incredibly sad but uh yeah that is the very very I don't even know what adjective to use bizarre case of Louise Woodward and Matthew Eapen um I'm sure you all have lots and lots of theories on this and lots of thoughts on this. So you can let us know on all the social medias at Red Handed The Pod.

And if you would like to, you can also help support the show at patreon.com slash redhanded. And here are some absolutely lovely people who have done so. Oh my God, what is this name? Eva Ann. Eva Ann.

Eva Ann. It's like Eva, but with a B. Or is it Eva-Anne? I think it's Eva-Anne. Eva-Anne Byrne, Alicia Hallerwich, Alexis Castellano, Olivia Story, Elizabeth Graper, Jen Willop, Danielle Torres, Meg Kester, Melissa Roker, Raina Ponce, Maria Kidder, Christopher Irwin, Marianne Pankhurst, Kerry Ouellette, Signature Smooth, Samantha A. Valentine, Prepping for the Apocalypse, Sophie Mog VG, Catherine Scheiper, Rebecca E. Jackson, Amy Le Bailey, Andrea Huseman, Annie, Patricia Scott, Katie Reid, Sarah Major, Chant, Laurie Hedges, Jessie, Heather Whittaker, Alyssa Keys, Ayesa Keys, sorry, Shirin Elizabeth, Katie Nanonkovich, Stuart Baker, Shannon DeMarco, Delaney Mosker, uh stuart baker shannon demarco delaney mosca renee rudzinski lots of polish names um edie rose

justine lamond two when sophia james foster georgia donato andrea brown chantal baleha b respa carol dixon bella deacon erin berkeland, Medessa Jacobs, Alexandra Eastman, Ross Gardner, George Street, Amy Glicks, Gilks, and Karen Roach. I nearly called you Sharon then, Karen, sorry. Thank you very much, guys. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who?

I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy.

Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. You don't believe in ghosts?

I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness.

And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.