Nanny Case A Cause Célèbre

Perhaps the most famous shaken baby case is that of Louise Woodward, the English nanny accused of killing her 8-month-old charge. The case captured headlines not only in the U.S., but also in England, where Woodward was seen as the innocent victim of overzealous American prosecution. Below, take a look at the key points in the story.

• February 4, 1997: Eight-month-old Matthew Eappen is taken to the hospital because he is having trouble breathing. He is found to have a skull fracture, bleeding on the surface of the brain and behind his eyes. He dies five days later. His parents, Deborah and Sunil Eappen, both doctors, suspect that Louise Woodward, their English au pair, had something to do with the death.
• February 9, 1997: Woodward, then 18, is charged with murdering Matthew. Prosecutors say Woodward shook the baby to death.
• May 22, 1997: One of Woodward's lawyers, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, is charged with drunken driving. During the arrest, she allegedly makes comments about her client's guilt. She is soon dismissed from the case. Randy Cipoletta, the trooper who arrested Whitfield Sharp on drunken-driving charges, said the lawyer, in an apparent attempt to explain why she was intoxicated, emotionally blurted out she now believes the former au pair is guilty. He said she told him she was "having a hard time handling it."

Break Before You Shake Parenting is challenging job, especially when nothing you try seems to quiet your crying baby. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends taking the following steps if the stress of caring for a child gets to be too much: Take a deep breath and count to 10. Take time out and let your baby cry alone. Call someone close to you for emotional support. Call your pediatrician. There may be a medical reason why your child is crying.

• October 1997: One of the most dramatic moments of the trial came when Mrs. Eappen, an ophthalmologist, testified she had looked into her son's eyes at the hospital
  and knew instantly he suffered serious head trauma. Woodward's defense team argues that Matthew was killed by the re-opening of an old head wound, and that his death could have been accidental.
• October 30, 1997: A jury finds Woodard guilty of murder.
• November 10: 1997: The judge, Hiller Zobel reduces the verdict to manslaughter, saying he believed Woodward had acted out of "confusion, inexperience, frustration, immaturity and some anger, but not malice," in the legal sense. The judge reduces the conviction to manslaughter and sentences her to time served - 279 days in jail.
• June 17, 1998: The Massachusetts Supreme Court upholds Zobel's decision. That same day, Woodward flies back to England. Also that same day, the Eappens file a wrongful death suit. They win the suit after Woodward, claiming that she cannot afford a lawyer, does not contest it.
• January 29, 1999: After long, complex negotiations, the Eappens and Woodward agree that she will not receive any money from the sale of her story. Any money that she makes will be donated to UNICEF.
• March 7, 1999: 60 Minutes airs a segment in which two doctors say they believe that Eappen was strangled - not shaken and slammed by Woodward as prosecutors charged.
• July 25, 2000: Woodward's parents are acquitted of stealing money from their daughter's $500,000 defense fund. Gary Woodward and his estranged wife, Susan, had been on trial on charges of defrauding their daughter's defense fund of more than $13,500.
• Louise Woodward is now a third-year law student at South Bank University in London.

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