Killer British Nanny | Is Shaken Baby Syndrome Pseudoscience? | Louise Woodward Case Analysis
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- This video answers the question: Can I analyze the case of Louise Woodward? Is “Shaken Baby Syndrome” pseudoscience?
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The question remains: ‘Who caused the prior injuries to the child?’ As he had suffered a skull fracture why didn’t the parents notice he had concussion, since they were physicians? Had no one suspected the parents or thought that the nanny might have hurt him before? It seems to me that no justice has occurred for this baby. Moreover Louise was not a trained nanny and she was very young and left to care for a baby. This is irresponsible behaviour on the part of the parents.
The child could have bumped his head, fell down, etc. At that age, injuries like this can easily go unnoticed. Sometimes they seem fine, after an injury. It may not have been intentional.
Some young people can be excellent child care workers. Louise just wasn't one of them.
U know what I change my post I could be judging wrong I'm sorry I wasn't there when everything happened and I'm wrong for that I'm sorry
They were nice people! The nanny was also paid very well! If it was too much work, she could have quit instead of shoving the baby to death! What is wrong with people?
@@waitaminute2015 she wasn't a nannie she was an au pair, basically a glorified baby sitter & house made. They are cheaper than nannies, less experienced, and a lot cheaper than paying for a nannie/day care as well as a house hold maid. Also there's no proof that she shook the baby, but as she was inexperienced the baby could easily have banged his head, hurt himself, or had an infection and her not to have noticed. Or someone else could have knocked him, we will never know. More experience can definetly go a long way in child safety though.
I believe the previous injuries were in his wrists, they were old & healed, they may have happened before she even went to the house. Nobody knows how he got them, maybe someone hurt him, maybe it was an accident. As to his head injury, there were no other injuries or brushing that you might expect if a child was shaken, it may have happened up to three weeks before, & as repeated in this video but first stated by Patrick Barnes, a paediatric radiologist at Stanford University, & a key prosecution witness in the trial; there has been a revolution in the understanding of head injuries in the past decade, partly due to advances in MRI brain scanning technology: "We started realizing there were a number of medical conditions that can affect a baby's brain and look like the findings that we used to attribute to shaken baby syndrome or child abuse", such as infections and in utero strokes.. So maybe someone hurt him, but we can't proove who or how, & we don't want to sentence to life the wrong person. Or maybe nobody hurt him.
I remember this case. A couple of my friends decided to stay at home and raise their kiddos after this case.
I was training to be a nursery nurses hen this happened. People I know including myself that had wanted to be au pairs changed our minds.
Shaken baby syndrome is a VACCINE INJURY.
All au pairs are INNOCENT.
The only problem with this case is the LAW and BIG PHARMA.
Useless, incorrect diagnosis.
@@kevinkascolinkeithtimghera4305 lol cool story bro
Hell sometimes it costs just as much as someone makes full time to pay someone or some place to watch your kid. So you’re working to pay the fees. Id prefer one parent stay at home, whichever parent makes less money or whichever parent is patient enough to raise the child full time. Because it isn’t just a 9-5 being a homemaker. It’s a 24 hour job 7 days a week.
Then how come it can happen to babies that aren’t vaccinated too or well before they have their first vaccines. “Big pharma” is a useless and weird argument as in the rest of the world we have universal healthcare so no one is making personal profit selling medication or vaccines to doctors or patients. I pay £20 per month for literally any healthcare I need including prescriptions. Your only problem with vaccines and your entire healthcare system is that you have to pay extortionately for everything.
From what I can remember is that they employed a very young woman with zero experience apart from a bit of babysitting and gave her way too much responsibility as I'm sure they also expected housekeeping duties as well. Even if those were just light they were paying a young girl to do way too much so they could save money.
Agreed. Trust me I know how expensive it is to put kids through daycare (I did it twice). But it's one of those things that you cannot do on the cheap without sacrificing safety. For me, safety was the most important. With that being said, an expensive provider does not guarantee safety. It all comes down to the person / establishment. Take time to research, check references, and trust your gut. If something seems off it's because IT IS.
@@nbrown8386 I agree. While some young people are fully capable of caring for two children, some are NOT. You really have to do your homework and check out as much as information you can, before hiring a childcare provider. It's the most important decision you can make. I don't think it's as easy to get reliable information about someone you're hiring from another country. I know few people who did it, and it worked out great for everyone. My cousin hired an Irish nanny, and she ended up marrying that cousin's brother! Now, she's family and babysits for free!
She was paid well and came from a service that provided nannys . Stop blaming the victim, they were nice people.
I have no comment on the parents' choice. Lots of people hire au pairs, nannies etc. Yes, some au pairs and child caregivers are not very good or downright bad. On balance, most of them will be good enough to take care of the children without problems.
I believe what is really a problem is the concept that child care should be the sole responsibility of parents (particularly the mother). Providing support to new parents is essential and some of that support involves making other ways to care for the baby available, particularly difficult-to-soothe babies and/or babies with medical problems that require additional care. Families do better if they have additional carers for babies, whether that's daycare, nannies, or extended families. Yes, parents are the primary caregivers, but why do we think that it is appropriate to blame people and say they don't "deserve" children if they can't handle the intensive caregiving? That's just not reasonable. For all intents and purposes, anyone can have a child: it is very much the default and has years of evolutionary drives dedicated to its occurring which will always override any rational thought (at the population level and over time, that is). It pushes vulnerable mothers (and fathers, but most caregiving still falls on women) who could have managed with help into incredibly negative mental health states and then they get further blamed for not being "good" or "ideal" parents. smh.
@@kathrynturnbull990 Very well said. Thank you. Your comment should be a 'stand alone' comment, not a reply. It could change some people's point of view.
Dr Grande, it's called a subDURAL haematoma. Subdermal just means under the skin. Subdural means under the protective coverings of the brain.
This hits close to home. My best friend in the 80's did daycare in her home and stayed home to care for her own boys. One day she put one of the 4 mos. old daycare children down for a nap. After an hour she went to wake the children and the baby was dead. She was accused of "shaken baby syndrome" and charged with involuntary manslaughter. However, it was found that at the age of 6 weeks the baby had quit breathing at home and the doctors were afraid it was a SIDS warning. The baby had been on a monitor for about a month. My friend had never been made aware of this when she began caring for the child at 4 months. The charges were dropped. She never got over it. She quit doing daycare. She was a wonderful mother to her two young boys and loved children. We always used to babysit each other's children at times She would never do it again. So sad. She had severe depression and her life was nearly ruined over it for a long time.
Hi, I'm sorry about your friend.
My family experienced a SIDS death at 4 months.
Since that time, while there has been research, SIDS deaths are still a mystery.
Although it has been 30 years, your comment is enough to trigger sadness and tears.
I think of what could have been.
Take care
@@bsqwahlE My heart aches for you. So very sad. Yes SIDS is still a mystery and I know much research has been done on it but with still no definitive answer. I'm sorry to cause sorrow for you!
I think more awareness of SIDs is important! Because no experiments can be done, it must be hard to study this terrible tragedy! Thank you two for your stories and sorry for your pain!😓
Terrifying business for her.
Hey! eb! Proof of sympathetic human felling! Awright!
What worries me about this case is that there doesn't seem to have been a real investigation into Matthew's prior injuries. I would want to discover how old these injuries were. .
injuries were 6 weeks old and louise worked for the family for 2 months
@@hollystiener16 oh dear that's no help it just " thickens the plot" .I think shaken baby syndrome he dies the second time .they had told her off threatened to fire her and she took it out on the baby.
I remember this case ,she looked off,unconcerned smirking.
Part of the blame is the cheapskate parents handing the care of an infant to an unqualified teenager
@@anaseijas3923 I'm not a victim of anything.
The fractures both had the same age, putting them in mid-January with the suggestion that they happened at the same time. I think it's likely that one of the three adults knew about a fall or other incident, but rationalized it away at the time by observing that Matthew seemed fine. But he wasn't fine. Whoever it was kept their mouth shut, because when the doctors found out about Matthew's fractures, the wheels of justice were already turning, and whoever owned up would surely go to prison.
the injuries were about 3 weeks old, including a fractured skull that was mending, and a previously broken wrist. There has been some investigation now. They believe the older kid brother caused them. Louise was just a scapegoat, sadly.
This is the sort of thing that gives me nightmares, I have a disabled son and he'll need lifelong care, he'll always be with me but I'll always need help. I'm glad the agencies we work with have background checks and abuse prevention training but I'll always always always worry.
That is what true parental commitment and love sounds like! Too often lacking!
Place cameras everywhere, and say nothing about them.
This is such a difficult situation for parents in your place. My heart goes out to you. 🙏
Louise didn't kill the baby though. Likely his older brother injured him weeks before he died.
except that's against the law. @@Max_R_MaMint
This case was all over the news in MA when I was growing up. It scared me. I'm not sure if it's why I eventually decided to stay home with my own kids but it probably contributed.
Yeah I just put up a comment elsewhere, I grew up on the Cape, and I remember this case acutely. My grandparents lived in Hull, across the water from Boston, and I was up there visiting the night before she was supposed to be sentenced (the initial sentence.) There was a terrible storm late that night, very loud thunder, and I was in my grandparents' house thinking about how Woodward, who was being held not far away, could very likely hear the thunder as well. I'm certain she did. I don't see how she couldn't. I always remember that.
Her and I are almost the exact same age, and I remember wondering what it must have felt like to be a foreigner in a land where you're on trial for murder. I also felt empathy for the Eappen parents. If I remember correctly, the father practiced at Brigham and Women's, where I also had doctors. Little connections like that made this case very relevant to me.
I will say though, the subsequent revisions about "shaken baby syndrome" leave me unsettled. A murdered baby is unimaginable, but so is someone being wrongly convicted of a murder they didn't commit. They're both represent loss of life. Lots of things to reflect on here.
I miss New England. Take care up there. :)
@@mcnultyssobercompanion6372 I don’t know much about this case except what I just heard from Dr grande, and it is awful when people are wrongly convicted, but from what I heard my opinion is so far that he was in her care, she claims to have flopped him on the bed but let’s be real, she’s not going to admit to being tough with him since he died, she’s going to downplay it like most people who are afraid they’ve done something wrong would. So from what I know of it at this point my gut is siding with her being the cause or at least the exasperation of the poor child’s death. It’s just awful all around.
@@HeatherHolt Well said, and I agree, for the most part. I'm pretty certain she was responsible for this. It's what I believe in my gut.
I strive to objective as much as possible, and so the subsequent revisions about "shaken baby syndrome" I think will always leave me with a bit of lingering doubt; as Dr. Grande says at the end, one of the expert witnesses states he would not testify today as he did then. That rattles me a bit. If a person's guilt is as stake.
Still....I *believe* she likely did it. I don't know that she did. I can't be certain 100%. But I believe she did. It's likely. Unfortunately.
@@HeatherHolt No she said she "popped " him on the bed. In England this means placed or put.
Eg, I'll pop around. I popped a biscuit in my mouth. Etc.
The American Prosecutors and jurors misunderstood her words.
English spoken by an English person can be very different from American usage.
She is certainly not going to say she slammed him on the bed. She did a great job softening what she did with the particular words she used. I believe she was extremely rough with him and it killed him. She shouldn't have gotten off so easily.
Congratulations on one million. I’m so happy for you!
It's very much deserved. He's great about analyzing all sides of each true crime case he looks into and his commentary is always fair and unbiased.
There is a recent case about a babysitter charged with the death of a 5 year old.
Her parents were aware of mistreatment when the older sister told them babysitter was hurting her brother.
They put up nanny cams and kept her employed.
The 5 year old died of internal injuries to nearly every organ.
PARENTS: Do not trust people who don't respect the job just because you may like the person or you don't want them out of a job. Your children's lives aren't worth a good deed.....
Ikr, that babysitter looks like a sketchy, stripper club type. They also need fresh eyes to look at the dad in that case.
@@rullmourn1142 mist people at clubs or even strippers would likely take care of kids better...including their own than these creeps.
Idk what I would do if I saw or even thought someone watching my child had hurt my child. In any way. If I was told or had any suspicion that would be enough to let them go but if I had proof?? Idk, it would be hard not to snap in some way, I’ll be honest. I don’t think anyone could say for certain they wouldn’t react in some way.
Well how did the baby still die if they had cameras up? Do she kill it the very next attack?
@@eadweard. They probably didn't tell her there were cameras. I know it's stupid, they should have fired her on the spot, but it seems like that's what they did.
I remember at the time of the case it was mentioned that the baby had a broken arm as an earlier injury. I was living in the UK and the case was all over the media. The report stated that the baby would have been in a great deal of pain, especially if it was picked up. It made me wonder how two doctors in the house could have missed that, unless they had little to no interaction with the child.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. The doctors that I've met are not exactly the best parents out there. They're kinda neglectful with their kids in many ways. And I guess that was what happened here too. There's no way that a responsible parent would be ok leaving their kids under the care of a teenager that has already demonstrated to be irresponsible.
It wasn't a full break. It was a "green stick" fracture of the very end of the right radius. It's what you'd get if you fell forward and put out your hand to break your fall, but the force was just about too much.
As a Bostonian I remember this when it happened and thinking this kid shouldn’t have been taking care of a kid for that long of a time per day
The judge's decision may have been in part due to "what were those parents thinking?"
The Au Pair program is inherently exploitative. The young women who apply are promised a cultural exchange experience as part of a "host family", but when they arrive they're treated as "the help" and expected to work over 40 hours a week for less than minimum wage.
The term "au pair" translates as "in tandem" or "equal to". The post-WWII program was initially intended to place young women as household help for middle class SAHMs, in lieu of the domestic servants which had become hard to find. The name au pair was supposed to emphasize that this was NOT an employee, but rather the guest of a host family, who was expected to "pitch in" with the childcare, to prepare for her own future role as a wife and mother. She was not expected to be left by herself to care for the children while the mother held down a full time job.
@@astrinymris9953 It's almost like slavery. The Financial Diet said she knew a Paris Au Pair who was essentially held hostage by her host family and had to be rescued in the night secretly.
@@astrinymris9953 that nanny was paid well. I worked in Newton at the time and knew several nannys. The only blame here is the abuser who killed a baby.
@@astrinymris9953 yes, absolutely. Many parents use Au Pairs because they tend to be young and therefore easier to control (especially if you make them live in your home). I'm not saying this was the case with these parents here, cause I don't know the facts: I'm basing it on the experiences of all my friends (and friends of friends) who had experience being au pairs. Any child caregiver with more experience would probably not put up with the conditions and would be able to find a situation where they were not treated like an indentured servant. It's the same reason that undocumented immigrant women tend to fulfill this same role in the U.S....not that they are young, but they have so few options for working that they are very much at the mercy of the family.
If I remember correctly, she actually said she “chucked” him in his bed and this caused a lot of issues as the American use of the word chucked implies a much more violent act than the more flippant and colloquial British use. I always found that to be an interesting point in this case. Regardless, she was clearly not fit to be caring for children and I have met many parents hesitant to hire help because of her while I was working as an au pair myself.
I have a feeling she might have said "popped"? There was a pretty deep dive into this on the Red Handed podcast Episode 131 - Louise Woodward & Shaken Baby Syndrome.
No, she said “popped.”
Ah, yes. It was “popped.” Thanks for correcting me! I feel like it still holds the same difference between regions as chucked does, and maybe popped is even more innocuous. Either way, still an interesting point in the case!
God Bless you; keep calm & Gentle with Little Ones..
@@carolnahigian9518 always! I’m still a nanny now, just back at home in my own city. Children are my whole world and I hope to go back to school this spring to get into social work. I want to be an advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves.
An important factor here is the USA is one of the very, very few countries left in the world that does not offer as a right paid parental leave. In every European country the mother would get at least 6 months leave to look after the baby straight after it is born. A 19 year old untrained stranger from a foreign country is a totally inappropriate person to be given the huge responsibility of looking after someone else's child! It is ridiculous the USA doesn't provide this for new mothers.
Yeah it’s pretty ridiculous. Some jobs give 6 weeks paid leave and that’s considered a great job to have… some jobs give zero paid but will allow you to take time off. And some jobs won’t allow anything … having just had a baby I cannot imagine having to have someone else watch my 6 week old baby while I go back to work. They’re still so small and so needy and so fragile at that age. Plus they need bonding time from both parents. Plus sometimes it costs so much to have your baby watched by a daycare center, I can see how some parents (or especially a single parent, omg) might have to hire someone with no experience because they won’t require as much money. It’s such a sad situation. And you’re 100% correct.
So my small business needs to pay an employee 6 months to sit home with a baby. Grow up
Here In the UK men also get 2 weeks paid paternity leave. I never knew that there was no parental leave in the USA.
@@HeatherHolt That is why the government pays in many countries!
@@delaneybucknor3710 yeah most guys I’ve known had to use sick or vacation days for one week and that was for the birth and a few days after coming home. It’s sad to think what that does to a relationship between the father and child. The father misses out on a lot of that early bonding.
Strange Coincidence--"Killer British Nanny" was the name of Dr Grande's High School Punk Rock Band.
You are mistaken. It was "British Killer Nanny". I hear they played a lot of garages.
@@Martina-sw7hl I stand corrected!
Actually not bad.
Big - I think his band was "The Undiagnosed!"
@@bthomson That's a great name for a band!
Thank you for covering this case. It was gavel-to-gavel coverage back in the days of Court TV. I feel the au pair agency did not do a thorough screening of their student employees - their level of maturity in the face of stress, their ability to handle multiple priorities, and their prior work/school performance. She seemed immature and self-absorbed, acted/spoke much younger than her age, and had little experience with handling children and multi-tasking. There was a lot made of the fact the family insisted she perform housekeeping, cooking, and laundry outside of daily babysitting duties. Maybe resentment and anger boiled up and she took it out on the baby. A friend who works for a domestic au pair agency said the industry does extensive research and testing, and multiple interviews before hire due to this case. A good outcome, if not early enough to save Matthew.
An interesting sidelight!
I think entirely too much time in (and around) this trial was spent discussing the pseudo-employment conditions. It was like a competition to try to show who was a better person, Woodward or the Eappens. I have no time for such irrelevancies. Give me the evidence supporting the prosecution theory of crime!
@@AdrianColley I agree. Pitting a 19-year old girl against two physicians in a battle as to whose "lifestyle" contributed to the death of a baby was poor optics (even if it worked on the jury, the judge had perspective).
Thank you for discussing this! I worked in medicine when the shaken baby theory was all the rage, and I never really bought into the notion that even the most subtle shaking could cause that kind of contra coup injury. Not advocating shaking ANYBODY, and it’s best to avoid it, but I wonder how many innocent parents’ lives were ruined by the smugness of the medical community.
In my country, a baby had brainswekking and blooding according to an desease. They still held the baby back months after the parents were proven innocent, until they went public. It was a few years ago.
As a career nanny who's replaced *many* untrained, inexperienced and dangerously ignorant au pairs, I can tell you that it's easy for a young woman who has *no training* nor bond with family/baby (nor shared language w the parents often) to become frustrated and aggressively squeeze or lightly shake a baby, aggravatedly drop them on a soft surface, think it's okay to leave then alone in a tub, not chop food small enough etc etc. I do believe she should've served 5 yrs for manslaughter, she did not intend to injury or cause death but is culpable as his caregiver. Her served time was not sufficient for the life she failed to safeguard!
If you hire childcare - demand references AND followup on them! If they aren't CPR/First Aid certified (get them or make a hard pass), look for someone older with years of experience and if possible any education in Early Childhood Development!
As I sit here with my wee little charge doing tummy time, I know there is nothing she can do to frustrated me enough to think about harming her! The best tool a caregiver can utilize is knowledge of self and when to put baby in a safe spot and walk away for a moment to gather themselves!
Cheers all
Edit - Check out the 60 Minutes episide, it stated that the au-pair agency "rigorously" trained these young women for *4 whole days* before deeming responsible to go halfway around the world and be a caregiver to babies and toddlers. They did not state if they were trained with real toddlers and babies or if it was all book work : |
Thank you. The child died in her care. She is culpable. She needed jail time and/or an ass-whooping.
Self Knowledge, your so right.
My goodness, what a username for a career nanny!
I'm sure I wouldn't trust my child with someone with the user name BlowItOutYourCunt! You sound like your talking in the third person, describing what you are like with other peoples children and had to be replaced numerous times by more professional child carers.
@@gailmiler2797 omg 😆 I just noticed that
I believe she shook that baby previously, and that's where the skull fracture came from. She'd proven that she was capable of hurting him by admitting it. I don't believe that day was the first time she shook him and was aggressive with him, but obviously it was the last. Poor baby RIP.
In the UK "popped" just means placed. It doesn't carry the implication of forceful action it has in American usage. It's that old "divided by a common language" thing again.
We already know that it most likely happened previously, expert witness testified at the trail that, the injury that lead to his death could have happened up to three weeks before (when she wasn't there). Also, as repeated in this video but first stated by Patrick Barnes, a paediatric radiologist at Stanford University, & a key prosecution witness in the trial; there had been a revolution in the understanding of head injuries in the past decade, partly due to advances in MRI brain scanning technology: "We started realizing there were a number of medical conditions that can affect a baby's brain and look like the findings that we used to attribute to shaken baby syndrome or child abuse", such as infections and in utero strokes. So there's no proof that anyone even hurt him. As to other previous injuries mentioned, they were in his wrists, nobody knows how he got them or how old they were, but it seems they were old healed injuries.
There was definitely reasonable doubt in this case and one of expert witnesses has said he made a mistake and would not have testified to shaken baby syndrome now. The parents could have easily harmed the child, she could have, the baby could have fallen or possibly had a medical condition. The jury should never have come back with a guilty verdict because there was not enough evidence either way to prove what happened to that little boy.
Exactly, at the end of the day it was manslaughter. She should have received some jail time. A little bit
I do believe in shaken baby. I work as a peds nurse. I've taken care of these poor babies. Some may be misdiagnosed but it's a tiny % and not worth questioning overall.
She was overworked and isolated.
19 years old and forced to take take of 3 children, clean the big house. Cook and wash for the parents whilst not being allowed to call home for more than 5 minutes aday with a 11pm curfew and no adult interaction until late in the evening..... And they paid the bare minimum. That was 70+ hours a week. They exploitd her decreasing her concentration and mental fatigue.
No neck injury which is related to baby shaking syndrome.
The baby's skull had a fracture that had signs of healing. So it had to have happened weeks earlier.
The smile was a nervous laugh. Its common here in England
The duchenne smile while giving testimony, and later during interviews gives the game away. She is 100% guilty
Poor sweet baby Matthew ☹️... I wonder if Ms. Louise had been "rough" towards the baby on previous occasions, perhaps she had caused Matthew's earlier injuries... If only the Eppen's had not given Ms. Louise another chance after her poor job performance😞. Great analysis, Dr. G. Interesting info on shaken baby syndrome. Love you 🥰, love your channel ♥️
Had his parents maybe been rough him?
The old injury was judged to have probably occurred in the time before she was employed. She may have aggravated an old injury by her actions, but she could not have caused it in the first place…
I’m in the U.K. and remember this case extremely well. It was on the news and special news flashes came up about her. I was interested because me and Louise are the same age and I so wanted to travel and be an au pair. It didn’t happen because I ended up having my son at 17 he’s now 25 and I couldn’t imagine ever hurting him. I got flustered like any young person in charge of an infant but I walked away for a few mins and carried on. I believe she should’ve gone to prison because that gorgeous baby didn’t cause those injuries himself. Another miscarriage of justice sadly.
I'm in Ireland and I remember this case well also. At the time, I was preparing to move to the US to take up a job with my new 3-year visa. I was stunned to realize that, as a stranger in a strange land, I was likely to get the same judicial railroading as Woodward did, if I was ever falsely accused while in Massachusetts. Woodward was convicted on the basis of emotion, that someone _had_ to be culpable for what happened to Matthew, and that ending the trial with nobody held responsible was just not an emotionally acceptable option. The medical evidence was clear: Matthew's injuries were weeks old, so there was just no way to pin them on Woodward.
1M! Congrats 🎊🎉🎈 you deserve more recognition!!! Keep up with the good job 👏🏻
Sigam “sigam” 😎😻👏👏
COngrats Dr Grande on your milestone subs = amazing ! I wonder if you can analyse the case of Dennis Nielson, a serial killer of young men in the UK. He was damaged as a child and turned into a lonely nerd. Killing for Company is well documented, but I wonder what your view is? Inate killer or a twisted mind looking for company. Love your videos especially at night when I listen to them as podcasts.
I think Dr Grande already has a video on him.
@@lexiwilson9501 thank you Lexi I will look it up ! x
Congratulations on your one million subscribers Dr Grande!!
Thank you for your hard work.
Greetings from Greece
Love the proof of international appeal!
Parents certainly knew she wasn't responsible enough for the job. Why on earth did they keep her on? Sounds like they could've afforded professional care.
Years ago I saw an episode of Family Feud with one team having a married couple who both claimed to be police officers. The question was "name a good way to stop a baby from crying", and the male "policeman" immediately said "shake them", to which everyone was appalled, even his wife. To justify his ignorant statement he gesticulated grabbing a baby and shaking them quite hard while saying "like this" and then looking around to see if everyone understood that's the "medically approved method" to do it (in his mind). The audience screamed with disapproval as the "cop" stood there, not understanding the profound wrongness of his answer.
That occurrence has stuck with me since I first saw it and I shudder whenever I wonder if he's actually done that. I hope that if he wasn't lying about being a cop his past official actions were investigated to see if he had ever caused permanent damage to a child.
People tend to believe ANY adult who claims to be a police officer and we take for granted their methods of performing duties are professional methods (until we learn otherwise). If a claimed au pair is a youngish girl we also tend to believe THEM. A novice Nanny doesn't automatically become an experienced au pair due simply to their employer's bestowment of that title.
Sorry but why did the smart parents leave this tiny child in the care of this obviously untrustworthy person for SO LONG?
A co-worker reminded me of something I said to her many years ago, "If you get your kid to 18, and the are alive, you've done your job." Obviously these people were only smart in their fields of expertise. They failed the parent test, but they saved money and showed that au-pair who was boss.
Congrats on 1 million Dr. Grande :)
Keep up the great work
I recall this case well. My nanny went to my in-laws with my baby while I was at work - this case was the reason for that.
I was living in the Boston area when this case came to light, and there is a possibility that I might have interviewed for the same job. I also saw Ms. Woodward at a Harvard Square restaurant after the trial. I followed the coverage very closely in the Boston Globe at the time.
When I first heard about the story on the radio, I noticed that she looked just like me. My gut reaction was, "She's guilty."
About the interview I had, it could have been at the Eppen's, it's possible it wasn't. I know the exterior of the house was similar, same area, and that the timeline was consistent. Also, the person who interviewed me looked like the photos that were being presented at the time of Dr. Eppen (the mother). There was something that gave me pause at the interview, something that told me without any doubt at all this was not the job for me. Parts of it were my temper, and my complete inexperience with children. But I felt that there was something I was not being told. Again, it's absolutely possible that it was a different family. I called back and said I had found another job. The person said she understood. She was very polite.
When I saw Ms. Woodward at a restaurant, it was after the verdict. She was with a group of other people her age having a lively discussion. I was struck by how very ordinary she seemed, and how no one else seemed to have realized who she was, although I am quite certain it was her.
I will say one thing in her defense. Au Pairs, at the time, were told a very unrealistic story about how they would be spending their time, and were really sold on a concept of being Au Pairs that was not consistent with the reality. Some Au Pairs didn't know that they would be spending well over 40 hours a week doing child care, which was common because they lived with the families. Au Pair has, since this incident, started giving the Au Pairs a more accurate picture.
One odd thing, at the time, it was not widely known Matthew Eppen was not an only child. This may have been to protect the brother. He was never mentioned in any news articles.
Plus the family went on to have at least one more child. I don't remember if the mother quit her job to be home with the children at that point.
Very interesting... Something told you this was not the job for you...
@@sodoh4920 I just had a bad feeling. This is not a good place to work.
Thanks for this perspective. I am getting the distinct impression that EF Au Pair is selling au pairs placements as a sort of employment agency.
I'm still so excited and happy for you hitting a million! And thanks for hitting this topic...very tragic but interesting.
Wow I remember this. It was ages ago.
That judge had REPEATEDLY told the jury that if they did not think there was enough evidence to convict her of murder they had to give a "not guilty" verdict, but they still found her guilty.
I think however the judge did the right thing in reducing her conviction to manslaughter.
I nannied the same year she nannied it was far from where I live.I remember the case as the parents I sat for got so upset ....she was under the parents who later found their baby unresponsive ....it was god awful for me because every conversation was about infant abuse. We talked about...god awful case. Poor baby
I thought of this trial again today when one of my pupils asked what they should do with their homework book. “Just pop it on my desk,” I replied and then I remembered Louise Woodward.
Thank you for still using the word pupil.
I trust that your pupil gave the book a severe minute-long shake, and then dropped it onto your desk from a height of fifteen feet.
My brother looked in on his infant daughter one day while she was asleep and found her unresponsive and not breathing. He'd not been trained in CPR so he did the Heimlich, which was the only thing he could think of. She gave a gasp, started breathing, and pinked up. He still called 911 and asked EMS to check her out. They said she looked fine and didn't even transfer her. My brother went to his wife's workplace and explained what had happened. The two of them were concerned about why "Jane" had stopped breathing in the first place, so they took her to the hospital. The hospital couldn't find any reason why Jane had stopped breathing and said they thought it was just a fluke, but they kept her overnight to monitor her anyway.
In the morning a doctor my brother didn't know came in, looked in Jane's eyes with a light, and left without even speaking to my brother. Next thing he knows the cops came and arrested him because the doctor -- an ophthalmologist who wasn't even on Jane's team -- that said Jane had "shaken baby syndrome" due to the broken blood vessels in her eyes. Well, DUH! ANY resuscitation can cause broken blood vessels in the eyes. Jane's pediatrician disagreed with the diagnosis, but Steve was prosecuted anyway. I had to cash in my pension to pay for his lawyer. He ended up pleading guilty to "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" -- they insisted that he must have done SOMETHING wrong -- because he couldn't afford a retainer to go to court.
"Shaken baby syndrome" makes so little sense. If you're shaking a little baby hard enough to cause brain damage, wouldn't the baby's little neck be a hot mess? But the "triad" doesn't include any neck injuries.
What a terrible ordeal for your brother and your family! He did everything right, and got blamed for it. So sad and totally unjust. I remember, not long ago, people were getting charged with Shaken Baby Syndrome quite often. Every time they could've explain an injury, or death, of a baby, they would say it was SBS. I wonder how many people went to jail because of an over zealous doctor's opinion? Sad, all around.
I was a young law clerk for another judge in the same courthouse during this trial. I spent a lot of time watching the proceedings. Memories!
What are your thoughts on it harrylook?
@@MaybeTheBest Dr. Grande's analysis is very good, especially re the charges the jury considered. The defense team was incredible, and I remember being convinced that whatever happened, Ethan wasn't shaken to death by Woodward. Also, I remember being turned off by the parents.
Perhaps the criteria used to diagnose shaken baby syndrome aren't clear enough. Cuz no matter who you ask, the general consensus is that shaking a baby can kill or permanently injure it.
There was evidence of a significant 'previous injury,' and given that Louise Woodward was the only nanny to the children, the begging question is whether she contributed to that 'old injury.' I think so. The fresh round of rough handling of the child could have exacerbated the old injury. The child may have been afraid of her. She admitted to 'popping and dropping' the child; was the towel on the floor? I believe she was annoyed with this child; at the time she was an immature individual who acted out her frustrations
I very much agree with you however I can attest to the fact that what “pop“ and “dropped” can mean, colloquially, in Britain is something different from what it may well mean elsewhere…
just sayin’👍
Well your assertion that she caused the old injury isn't based on anything. Plus as mentioned "popped" means "placed" (and not "punched") to a British person.
And his parents? They were right there with him.
@@eadweard. "old injury isn't based on anything" I did mention the fact that she was the only nanny... assuming the family per se won't hurt the child; and I 'popped' the idea that the child most probably was afraid of her
I agree with you we know the child weighed 22 pounds which is extremely heavy for a child of his age and she probably was laying him hit his head on things didn't care and his dumb parents weren't noticing the thing that really upsets me also is that he had a wrist sprain how did the parents not notice that their child's wrist was sprained???
I need these in a podcast, no commercials. His house is so soothing, I could sleep.
Dr Grande, I think the baby had a sub duRal hematoma not subderMal hematoma. Even your medical terminology is usually very on point so I am quite surprised at this misuse of a term. I enjoy your videos very much thank you for all your hard work!
They should have fired her long before this ever happened.
If someone's going to be paid to look after my kid, they can go by my rules or bye, bye.
Congratulations on hitting a million! Excellent video, thank you
I don't know Dr. Grande if SBS exists as described and obviously many parents and caregiver have been wrongfully accused and convicted on the "triad" of symptoms, but the one thing I do know is Louise admits to physically handling an 8 months old infant in a dangerous way, and 8 month old infants have a horrible habit of being fragile and requiring care that does not include being thrown, popped, slammed or shaken. And Congrats in a million subs!
She didn't say "dangerous", she said "I was a little rough with him". And she said "shaken" (when trying to wake him from what turned out to be a coma), but I don't for a minute believe she said "thrown", "slammed", or "tossed". And "popped" is an ordinary English word which apparently doesn't mean the same thing in parts of the US.
There are more than a few cases of other witnesses being present when a baby's being shaken and having the symptoms or so I have recently read.
She was in charge of the baby, the absolute Minimum that is required by a caregiver is to keep him alive. She failed. And to top it off, she actually physically killed him. It was not just negligence.
His fussiness and month old wrist fracture, along with her defiant/ unprofessional behaviour and possible resentment as motive makes for a strong case against her, imo.
As a parent I would expect a Minimum of 10 years imprisonment. She didn't even get a year?! What about a child abuse charge? Get her on that at least.
Hell, this one makes me angry.
He didn't die from being shaken. He died from blunt force head trauma, almost certainly on the day he died. LE and the prosecution got the shaken baby stuff wrong which damaged their case against her, but in frustration and anger she caused his head injury which lead to his death.
You're right about the cause of death, but I question your "almost certainly on the day he died". He had a skull fracture dated to mid-January. He was rushed to hospital on Feb 4. He died on Feb 9.
I can tell you from a lifetime of experience, I had three older sisters who all got pregnant at 18 and had their first children while staying at home for the first few years. I spent alot of time with my nephews. After I left home at 19 I eventually found my partner and instantly had three children, they are grown now and gave us four grandchildren, two girls and two boys. Babies and toddlers do not get significant injuries from being tossed on a mattress(unless from more than 2-3 feet and with force) or light roughhousing. Toddlers especially are inquisitive and the cause of most of my gray hair, they climb and fall and jump off things and usually never get more than a light bruise. Those injuries to that child were likely done out of anger and frustration. Don't be lackisdasical on your children's care, they should have fired her and I can only imagine why two Dr's would not have noticed their child had a brain bleed for some amount of time. Tragic when violence is done to children. Not everyone is mentally capable of caring for children under two years, don't let just anyone be in that position, you may regret it for the rest of your life.
Thank you! No way that something didn't happen to that poor baby the day i don't believe her the child had to have his his head on something to cause the bleeding again in his head. Don't get me started on the two negligent parents!! That poor baby also had a few weeks old wrst pain! He was in alot of pain but never noticed wtf???
A few years ago, we had a case, that a few month old baby was rushed to hospital and the parents were accused of shaking the baby according to brain swelling the baby had. During its stay in hospital, they found out, that baby had an illness (some kind of a metabolic desease when I remember right) that leads to brain swelling, as it got other swellings while being in hospital. Although the parents did nothing wrong, they wouldn't want to give the baby back for months, until it got public.
This dead baby had no past illnesses.
Interesting analysis and listener comments.
I was employed as a summer girl between junior and senior year of high school. Very boring job. But I never wanted to hit or shake anyone. That seems like a personality issue -- someone who would be volatile and act out, like that.
I was a mother's helper, she did not work outside the home, so I guess that's different, too.
The children's father never spoke a word to me the whole summer.
That was huge news back then. I lived in the area, it was on local Tv channels constantly. For a long time.
Please analyze the current trending case of the Merril Lynch banker's smoothie tantrum.
He claim's he's not really racist and "regrets his actions'"
Are people that do these things fundamentally bad people that hide their true character. Or decent people that have out-of-control anger issues.
Dr. Grande, congratulations on your 1M subscribers!
Thank you! At the very least she was a terrible - and distracted - nanny. Babies require 100% focus. She did not intent to harm him but she was casual and likely reckless. Hence....
Matthews parents were physicians who went to some care and expense to hire a private nanny for the home. Most of us have difficulty affording any child care, but it’s apparent that they wanted the best for him. And still this happened. It’s no comfort to the parents that Louise did not intend to hurt their son. I agree she was guilty of being inexperienced and immature. In 1989, before we vetted people on the internet, I answered an ad in the newspaper, an older woman willing to watch children in her home for a reasonable fee. I left my 8 month old baby with these perfect strangers. They turned out to be lovely people. That family watched my daughter until she went to school. They remain friends to this day. I think about how fortunate I was
She was an Au Pair and not a Nanny
Hello Dr. Grande. I feel both parents failed miserably to protect their son. Their career and selfish needs came first. Louise should have been fired. She is not a “Nanny” She is a teenage high school babysitter loser.
Real nannies have college degrees, versed in CPR & First Aid. I feel she got away with a crime and abused both children. KARMA will catch up with her eventually. Rest In Peace to the baby🙏👼
What pisses me off about Louise Woodward is she's never taken any responsibility. She should never have been charged with first degree murder, but she was responsible for his death. I remember all her supporters convinced of her innocence, never questioning why they believed she was innocent accept to say, they know her and wouldn't do that. Naivë!
SHAME on those who let her go!!!!!
I watched the whole trial at the time, and I remember that it wasn't revealed until the very end that the head injury was not a fresh one.
A very important piece of evidence, but one that seems to get overlooked in every retrospective on this case!
I never tire of your content- I might even get a little too excited when I get the alert - like give the people around a heat attack with my squeel
I'm surprised I haven't seen this one of yours Dr. Grande. Anything that was on Court TV in the past I know about and followed each case.
4:52 "Prosecutors filed an appeal."
The defense filed an appeal as well. They had a pretty good case, too, because they were able to point to exculpatory evidence that the state medical examiners had tried to hide. But the SJC decided that "the medical examiner's negligence in failing to produce in a timely way the two closer, more sharply focused photographs of the skull fracture and the prejudice from their belated availability to Woodward were not so great as to justify dismissing the indictment." So both appeals were dismissed and the trial judge's verdict and sentence were allowed to stand.
1) it was outrageous for the parents to expect a teenager to be in sole charge of two very young children for the hours they were absent. There should have been at least two trained nursery nurses working shifts.
2) one of the jurors was subsequently interviewed. From her didactic attitude irtwas obvious she was the prime jury influencer ( through being loud and self righteous). She stated that they did not think matthew had been murdered by louise, but that “she wasn’t innocent” so they couldn’t find her not guilty. A clear case of the jury acting ultra vires. If she was not guilty of murder, they should have found her not guilty.
Obviously conducting experimental research on this subject would be unethical and illegal, but I guess I would have thought that there were cases either where the parent/caretaker admitted that they had shaken the baby or cases where the baby was medically examined, and video evidence viewed later showed the caretaker shaking the baby. I guess I just assumed that's how this syndrome was discovered. Incidentally, growing up my dad (as a greeting to me or my mother or my sister) used to put his hand on the top of our head and violently shake our head until we had a slight headache. He didn't mean anything by it, but of course we hated it. My dad used to do stupid shit like that sometimes. Fortunately, none of us were brain damaged by it, but whenever I hear about "shaken baby syndrome" I always remember that awful sensation.
That ended up being more complicated that I expected lol
Are you kidding me?????!!!!! Not even a year for murdering a baby?!!! What a slap in the face to the parents and justice
I remember watching this trial on TV! I was fourteen.
Since it wasn't specified how old these old injuries were, I'm wondering if Louise inflicted the old injuries. It is entirely possible she didn't have the temperament to be watching young children and had been abusing the little one for quite a while. Was this addressed at the trial?
It was entirely possible that she inflicted the old injuries, but there was no way to find out for sure.
Dr Grande always coming in clutch boi
Well she sure doesn’t seem to feel that guilty about it. Smh
Thank you Dr. Grande, always enjoy watching and listening to your video. I think some, just some, fault lay with the parents. I say this because they should have notice early on of any abuse that may be happening. They are both Doctors themselves. Just another point of view, I guess.
I dont think there's any way she DIDN'T do at least SOMETHING to harm that baby but murder is a stretch for somebody so young and immature. Manslaughter is about right, negligence. She wanted to be here to have fun, not work, was easily frustrated and impatient, like most 18 year old are. The parents should've opted to a different mode of care for thier kids, especially being doctors who were hardly there. Not blaming them, as they lost their precious baby, but I would never put my kids in the care of an 18 year old from another country..but that's just me. May baby Matthew rest in peace and hope his parents have found the ability to move on. Great video Doctor as always!
Thank you doc 🥰
No disrespect to this wonderful man. It felt like to me she was breaking rules out of malice for the parents. She was on thin ice and mad at them for it. She wanted to purposely be on the phone, show up late, and the ultimate pain you could cause a parent which is abusing their baby when they thought they could trust you. This poor baby had injuries already healing at his time of death so seems to me she had been taking her anger out on the only child who didn’t have a voice for a good deal of time… There’s no redemption for ppl who hurt/murder children. If you can violently shake a baby cause you’re upset, well that seems pretty voluntary to me. I really hope she is never around any child ever again.
Now, I'm curious how she is handling life today with her own children. Hopefully, she matured, and her "experiences" taught her to be a good parent.
I wonder this as well.
Extremely doubtful
@@EasternDreamer615 to all accounts she is an excellent mother and productive member of society.
Suggestion for a video: Nicholas Fernandez - he disappeared and was found living a new life.
She had NO business being a babysitter!! Bad karma towards her!!!!!
The whole thing hit a flaw in the system. She was clearly responsible for the death but it wasn't second degree murder, and while the judge was probably right to reduce the conviction it swung way too far to the other side.
Congratulations Dr. Grande.
With all due respect. We know that concussion happens in football and other sports. So, if a baby's brain is jarred back and forth, while that isn't "concussion" it would certainly cause harm to the brain, especially in an infant. If you're not a medical doctor I don't think it's reasonable (even if many people question the syndrome) to assert that the syndrome doesn't exist.
Her body language she did it and got of with a slap on the wrist,
The UK was celebrating popping champagne was absolutely disgusting and disrespectful, when a baby is dead, now she has her own kid and those parents will never have theirs back,
I honestly believe the reduced sentence was the right amount of time for her. I think she deserved what she ended up getting, not the 15 years plus she originally was given. I really, highly doubt she decided to kill or injure that baby. It’s tragic, but it was an accident. Babies are so fragile, I’m still afraid to even pick one up even though that’s part of my job. I accidentally made an umbilical cord wound bleed just by slightly lowering the newborn’s diaper during an exam. I could see this happening if somebody young, inexperienced, and not careful could be too rough with a baby.
I remember this case when it occurred (in late 1997); the report at the time said that she held the baby up by his feet in the bathroom and dropped him on his head on the floor between one and two weeks prior to his death; I also remember that they found out that the child's brain had turned to mush, which they discovered when they made an incision into his head and a stream of thick pink liquid jettisoned out.
I'm not sure which reports gave such distortions. There was no evidence that she ever held the baby by his feet. Nor was there evidence that she dropped him head first. The only suggestion that she ever dropped the baby came from Sgt. Byrne, contradicting his own written summary (and his colleague's detailed written notes) from the interview. When the emergency surgery team cut through Matthew's dura, a stream of partially-clotted blood came out, but it was the haematoma, not the brain. Matthew did suffer a lot of brain death over the next few days, though.
I'm stunned that two highly educated in the medical field parents didn't remove this irresponsible and careless Brit at the first sign of incompetence instead of keeping her on and risking what happened in the end.
Agreed!
Why did no-one ever question the parents over leaving an infant with an 18 year old foreign stranger?? In the UK it was accepted that there was every chance she could have injured that poor baby, but what were the parents thinking? Especially with a child that young.
Must disagree for once....a clear case of abuse over a sustained period by an out of control nanny, who got away with it.
Why by the nanny? The other babysitter that they interviewed was not happy with the behaviour of the older brother who was violent, the parents obviously valued money and jobs over child contact time. Could it have been the family doing it?
She hasn’t even been working for them that long at the point of the incident!
@@lauraradford7970 Long enough to cause them concerns about her reckless behavior. She took her self entitled resentment against the parents, out on the baby.
@@macaodh4348 nice theory but where is the evidence?
And you are basing this on what?
What a terrible tragedy. Excellent case analysis which may help prevent the same from happening to other parents and children.
An important reason for this kind of video!
I literally was talking about this earlier today randomly
Thank you for another informative video. I had always wondered what if anything the parents of the baby had anything to do with it, considering the injuries presenting on the baby were from an earlier incident. Maybe the parents were setting the nanny up to cover their own culpability? Food for thought. Looking forward to your next video.
I don't think it's very plausible that they effectively booby-trapped the child to die at a certain time.
Me neither!
It's unlikely, but possible, that Matthew suffered a fall while in the company of one of the parents, who decided not to report it because the kid seemed fine. I'm sure that, when the parents learned about Matthew's fractures from one of the hospital doctors, it was too late for anyone to step up and admit what happened without inviting serious repercussions.
Think the judge was right in this case to reduce murder to involuntary manslaughter, but she should've served a few years in prison!!
The baby was surrounded by incompetent care all the way around. Its injuries were real but the question was, how did they occur? Why did the parents allow her to remain in their house one minute longer after they noticed red flags? Were they so busy with their professions that they didn't act immediately? Worse still, was one of them abusive or at minimum neglectful?
I passed on a similar job from U.K. to Orange Co, even though the 2 kids were a bit older. I know me and long days of sole childcare provider, all day alone, may have frustrated me at 18. I am not really cut out for domestic servitude either……You also never know about the parents, if they loose their temper and blame the nanny, how do you defend that? Perhaps I missed an opportunity to broaden my horizons? Later, I was just so horrified by this case, but glad I made the right decision, for me. The parents were taking a huge risk with anyone other than most trusted family, looking after the baby, as it can’t talk and tell. Not something I’d do. Sad preventable case.
These types of crimes are the ones that actually make my stomach turn. A person doing this to a child is like someone doing that to one of my own children which would make me really lose it for sure. She popped him on the bed? Wow...I'm surprised the parents didn't pop her!!!!! Such a tragedy.
She harmed that baby and it lead to his death. I watched the whole trial in real time. I was sick at what the judge did.
If you watched the whole trial in real time, what did you think of the medical examiner's finding that Matthew had not been violently shaken at all? And what did you think of the assessment by Dr. Baden of the age of the skull fracture, based on his examination of the photographs which were withheld by the Commonwealth until Oct 24?
good stuff as always Grande. congrats on a million minions!
This is a good one! Haven’t heard about this case in years, always found it interesting.
As someone who has worked at three different day cares throughout my 20s, I personally wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my kid with strangers all day. It's extremely tragic that parents in the United States get so little time with their newborn child (and legally are not required by employers to receive any). In addition to that though, even at ages 2-4, I wouldn't want my child with strangers (in a daycare setting or with an au pair), but very few couples can afford to have one parent take literal years off work to stay home with their kids. All that leads to very stressful decisions that I would not want to make.
And millions have to make it EVERY DAY!
Hey doc. I live in needham right next to Newton. Great video bud