All language subtitles for How.It.Really.Happened.S02E06_English

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to
"How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

On February 4, 1997,

8-month-old Matthew Eappen
is rushed to the hospital

while in the care of his
British nanny, Louise Woodward.

Matthew is unconscious
and has stopped breathing.

Doctors suspect child abuse.

Attention
immediately turns towards

the 18-year-old Woodward.

As the story unfolds in front
of a worldwide audience,

the question becomes,

was this just a tragic accident
or is it murder?

What really happened?

[ Telephone ringing ]

Dispatcher: 911,
what's your emergency?

Van Susteren:
On February 4, 1997,

an 18-year-old British au pair
called a 911 dispatcher.

She said the 9-month-old baby
she was caring for

had stopped breathing.

It only takes a moment
for something tragic to happen.

It's the worst nightmare.

This is every parent's biggest
fear when they leave their child

with a babysitter or a nanny.

The caregiver on the end of
that phone was Louise Woodward.

The child, Matthew Eappen.

Debbie, Suni and Matthew
and Matthew's older brother,

Brendan,
were a very tight-knit family.

Deborah: On May 24, 1996,

we gave birth
to a healthy baby boy.

We named him Matthew,
gift from God.

Matthew was a beautiful baby
with black, silky hair

and rich, chocolate eyes.

He was a real butterball.

He was so content.

He made his needs known,

and when they were met,
he was happy again.

Sunil was an anesthesiologist.
Deborah was an ophthalmologist.

Coakley: Both worked very hard,

were trying to develop
their careers,

raise their family.

Life was good for them
until February 4th.

Karas: Matthew Eappen's parents
were both at work

when Louise Woodward notified
them that he was injured.

Deborah: I got a page to our
home number followed by 111,

and that was a sign
to call right away.

She said, "Debbie, it's Matthew.

I think he's choked
on his vomit."

Sunil: Then Debbie called me
and told me

that Matthew was going
to be brought to Children's,

and I ran over there
and actually beat the ambulance

into the bay.

Matthew was unconscious.
He was blue.

Whitfield-Sharp: His brain was
swelling uncontrollably.

The pediatric neurosurgeon
at Children's Hospital

had to perform
emergency surgery.

I spoke to Louise
when Matthew was in surgery.

Louise:
She asked me to search my mind,

think really, really hard.

Was there any time that day
or the day before

that he may have hit his head?

Deborah: "Did he fall
down the stairs?" "No."

"Did he fall in the tub?"
"No."

I was looking for any possible
accident or explanation.

I just couldn't believe it.

Karas: Doctors were examining
Matthew Eappen,

who was nonresponsive.

They weren't quite sure
what happened to him.

There was no obvious, like,
external bruising.

So they called in the police
to help them reconstruct

the last sort of minutes,
hours of Matthew Eappen's life

before he was brought
to the hospital.

I knew that Louise had
to be interviewed.

Leone:
When the police first arrived,

they were thinking
horrible tragedy

that occurred
on this teenager's watch.

Louise: I went downstairs
to go speak to the police.

I saw Sergeant Byrne.

I asked her to explain to me
what she did from the time

she got up in the morning to be
responsible to watch the kids,

right up until she eventually
had to call in the ambulance,

and she explained to me

that Matthew had been
cranky that day,

crying in the morning.

Louise told the police that this
wasn't the norm for him.

Usually, he was much easier
to care for.

He had woken up crying, and he
pretty much cried all morning.

Not eating and being lethargic.

Also, he fell asleep in the
morning, which he never did.

Part of the day involved her
giving the child a bath.

Louise: I was going to go put
him down for his nap.

Debbie had asked me to give him
a bath before his nap.

Byrne: She explained
that she had laid a towel

down in front of the tub

and that she gently laid him
down on the bathroom rug.

I asked if it was a chance that
maybe the child bumped its head,

and she said no.

Louise: And I wrapped him up,
and I put him into his crib.

Jenkins: When she went back
later, he was unresponsive.

His eyes were blank.

Louise: I found him unresponsive
in his crib,

and he wasn't
breathing properly.

He was gasping for breath.

When I picked him up out
of the crib, he vomited on me.

I tried to help him myself.

I tried to give CPR.

She tried to give him
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,

she said, and she tried
to page Sunil, the father,

but was nervous
and couldn't dial the numbers.

That's when she panics
and calls 911.

At this point, I'm thinking
that this young girl has tried

to do everything
to save this child.

♪♪

[ Monitor beeping ]

Karas:
Matthew is in a coma.

The doctors are working on him,

and the more they're working
on him and looking at him,

the more suspicious they become.

Leone: Well, Matthew was
suffering from bruising

in and around his brain

and a crack
in the back of his skull,

which was 2 1/2 inches long,

which essentially,
according to Dr. Madsen,

who performed the surgery,

caused the brain
to swell out of his skull.

Coakley: He took a piece
of Matthew's skull out,

and he said,
"The brain came out,

rose out like a loaf of bread."

It had been so badly impacted
and was so swollen.

Deborah: It looked like there
was bleeding in his eyes,

and I knew what that meant,
and...

I just couldn't believe it.

She said, "Oh, my God.
She's shaken my baby!"

She had a fussy 8-month-old
baby boy on her hands that day

and a 2 1/2-year-old downstairs
to care for as well.

She said that, at some point,
that she had been angry.

This was no accident,
and there's only one person

that could have
possibly been responsible.

Louise: Around 3:30
on February 4th,

I found him unresponsive
in his crib.

[ Siren wailing ]

Karas: That baby was 8-month-old
Matthew Eappen,

a child that Louise Woodward
had been caring for.

I'll never forget her.

I think it was, like,
8:35 the next morning,

walking into the office,
and we were directed immediately

right out
to Children's Hospital.

Walked into the room where
the baby was and saw the baby

and all sorts of different
medical tubes, bandages.

Karas: What doctors found was
that Matthew

had a massively
swelling brain,

bleeding in the eyes
and a fracture,

a 2 1/2-inch fracture
on the back of his skull.

Leone: The initial reports
were child abuse.

This was a case of shaken
impact syndrome.

Although I had heard
the terminology before,

I had never dealt
with a case like this.

When a child is shaken,
and particularly slammed,

a couple of things happen.

The brain goes back and forth.

The impact with the skull
against the hard surface

causes the swelling,
but it also causes a shearing

of those very delicate
blood vessels

between the eyes and the brain.

Byrne: I asked to show me

how hard a child
would have to be shaken

to see the injuries apparent
with Matthew,

and I just remember his face
going back and forth

in his hands,
and I said, "I understand now."

Coakley: We know he was fine
that morning.

He was fine later
in the afternoon.

We have a fairly small window
of time when, all of a sudden,

we have a child
who's almost dead,

and we only have one person

who had custody and control
of him during that time.

And that was Louise Woodward.

Louise Woodward came to
the United States from England

in June of 1996.

She wanted to take a year
off before going to college.

I knew that I wanted
to take a year out

before I went on to university.

I wasn't sure what I wanted
to do.

Before she came to the U.S.,
she was living in Elton,

which is Southeast Cheshire,
a blue-collar community,

people just working
and getting by,

and she came to the States

looking for a broader experience
in the wider world,

and that is why she went
through EF Au Pair.

Louise:
I came with EF Au Pair.

It's a chance for girls
from Europe

to come over
to the United States

to experience the culture,
the language,

to take care of children,
live with an American family.

That was working with children,
which is something I enjoyed.

The contractual agreement,
if you will,

that allowed her to stay
in the United States

was that she would watch
children,

and in turn, she would be able
to live the social life

of an American teenager.

Jenkins: By all accounts, Louise
was a lovely young lady

who had experience
as a babysitter

in her hometown in England.

The family was well respected.

She was known as
a gentle young lady.

Louise didn't break
any school rules.

She was always
an extremely good pupil.

She was just
a normal teenager,

fun-loving teenager,

but so honest.

Karas: She was working for a
family in Manchester-by-the-Sea,

but things weren't working out.

She had a night life.
She liked to go out at night.

She liked to go to the theater.

It was just a little too hard,

too far away for her
to keep the curfew.

Louise:
I was very isolated, didn't feel

I was getting to do everything
that I had come here to do.

That's my thought, that maybe
I would have to look

for a host family that was
more suitable to my needs.

Karas: The Eappens were looking
for somebody new in November.

They found Louise Woodward.

Deborah: We thought she looked
like a great candidate.

She seemed to love children.

She had a lot of experience
with a large family.

She seemed very lively.

Karas: They lived in Newton,
a Boston suburb.

Much easier for Louise
to get to the theater at night,

but things started breaking down
in that household,

as well, within weeks.

We had issues that came up
slowly over time with her,

but not pertaining to, so much,

the care of the children
as her hours,

her being tardy in the morning,
her keeping late hours at night.

Louise: There were, possibly,
I think, two occasions

where I stayed out
past midnight.

Sunil was furious with me.

I think I did normal things.

I would never have done anything
to endanger the children.

Leone: As of late January,

she's on thin ice
with the Eappens.

Debbie and Suni
have both addressed her.

"You're not doing what we want
you to do with our children.

If this doesn't get better,
this is over."

It means she's going back
to Elton,

and she doesn't want
that to happen.

♪♪

Woman: And although
she did not throw him,

she was rough with him
in putting him on the floor

of the bathroom on top
of some towels.

Whitfield-Sharp:
I heard it on the radio

that a young British woman
had been arrested and accused

of assaulting and battering
an 8-month-old baby.

And that she was going
to be arraigned

in a district court
in Massachusetts.

Louise: Within 24 hours,
I was arrested.

Within 48 hours, I was in jail.

Karas: Louise admitted
to the police

that she had been in a rush

when she gave Matthew
a bath that day.

Maybe I wasn't as gentle
with him as I could have been

because I was trying to get
the bath over with

fairly quickly
because he was tired.

Jenkins: The prosecutors
contended that Louise Woodward

was discontented with her job
and that, in the frustration

of dealing with a fussy,
cranky 8-month-old baby boy,

she lost control and essentially
slammed him

down onto the bathroom floor.

Whitfield-Sharp: People couldn't
believe that a British nanny

would injure a child

because this was like
Mary Poppins gone wrong.

This didn't make any sense.

She didn't look
scary to us.

Right.
We thought we were safe.

We had no clue whatsoever

that she would ever
harm our children.

[ Monitor beeping ]

Coakley: Matthew is being kept
alive on oxygen,

but many of his functions,

because of this severe,
severe brain damage,

are not working on their own,

and it became clear,
I think, to the family,

Matthew was not
going to recover,

could not survive
on his own,

and they made a decision
at that stage

to take Matthew
off the ventilator.

♪♪

Deborah: And we lit my
grandmother's candle,

and we were holding Matthew.

We prayed.

And Matty died.

The Eappens' lives
were devastated.

After he died, the prosecution
upped the ante

and charged her
with first-degree murder.

I think she was very frightened,
very, very frightened.

I'm innocent, and I didn't
do anything wrong,

and there was the whole thing
that somebody has to pay,

and that somebody
had to be me.

Scheck:
It wasn't just believing her.

We had science showing that
everything they said

just didn't happen.

Sunil:
This was no accident,

and there's only one person

that could have
possibly been responsible.

Louise Woodward was not
the face of a murderer.

Louise Woodward is being held

in the Massachusetts
correctional Institute

at Framingham,
20 miles outside of Boston.

It is the state's

only maximum-security prison
for women.

Prosecutors charge that Woodward
shook the child

and struck his head
against something.

Leone: She hit him against
something hard to cause

a 2 1/2-inch crack
to the back of his skull.

It happened that day, and it
happened on one person's watch,

and that was Louise Woodward.

The client told us that she
absolutely didn't do this.

Louise: I'm innocent.

I didn't do anything wrong.

If anything, I tried to help him
as best I could.

I didn't do anything to hurt him
or harm him in any way.

It wasn't just believing her.

We had science showing that
everything they said

just didn't happen.

We could prove that it's
consistent with accident.

The reputation of Barry Scheck
preceded him

because of his prominent role

in the O.J. Simpson
murder trial.

Velez-Mitchell: Barry Scheck
was hated by many

after the O.J. case,

where they felt that
the so-called dream team

really conspired to get
a guilty man

off of a vicious
and violent double murder.

So many people may have felt
that Barry Scheck would be able

to get this young woman
off the charges.

Scheck: The defense was being
paid for by the au pair company

and, you know,
they told us right away

that we would be able to go out
and get all the best experts

and really dive into this.

The experts the defense hired

were not examining
Matthew himself,

but they were looking
at the records.

They were looking at x-rays,
medical reports,

police reports,
everything that was available

so they could make
their own evaluation

that this was
a pre-existing injury.

In other words, it didn't happen
on February 4, 1997.

It happened weeks earlier.

One of the key points
that the defense made was that

there was a lack of swelling
on little Matty Eappen's head.

That would have indicated that,
perhaps,

his injuries
were caused earlier.

Leestma: There was no,
as I recall,

any injury to the scalp.

Now, if somebody is going to
be -- have their head bashed,

you would expect a goose egg,
and there was none.

Scheck: Dr. Leestma,

in his examination of the brain,
found osteoblasts,

a healing cell at the site
of the skull fracture.

That doesn't happen
unless it's old.

The defense also says there was
evidence of healing,

not just of the skull fracture,
which indicates

it would have been much earlier
than February 4th,

but also of
the subdural hematoma,

the injury on the brain.

It had a somewhat
layered appearance,

like it had been there
for a while

and wasn't causing
too much trouble.

And that meant that this little
boy had had some problems

for quite some time.

And something small caused
his brain to rebleed.

Relatively minor trauma
can trigger a bleed

in a pre-existing
subdural hematoma.

I've seen this phenomena,
certainly, in junior high

and high school
football players.

They'll -- they've died
on the field

from what looks like
a relatively minor hit.

Leestma: It could have been
an innocent fall.

Kids are falling all the time.

There was a bouncy chair.

All right?

So that was one way that
this could have happened,

that the child fell off
the bouncy chair.

It could have been that
kind of short fall

that caused the skull fracture,
the formation of the subdural,

and then about 3 weeks later,
it rebled.

And the results didn't show up
until Matthew woke up that day,

as Louise Woodward
described it.

Matthew basically slept
the entire day,

and he didn't enjoy his bath
like he usually did.

It was almost impossible
to get him to eat anything.

I decided I'd try and feed him
a bottle.

He didn't want it.

He was crying, pushing it away
and screaming.

Signs and symptoms
of an evolving brain injury.

That became kind of the soul
of the case.

Coakley:
That was their theory.

They didn't really have a lot

other than that this was
an old injury.

It just didn't make any sense.

Anything could have
ruptured that.

Anything could have started
a rebleed.

I know, in my heart,
that I did nothing wrong,

and the people I love,
and the people who know me

know that
I'm not capable of that.

Byrne: Once she's arrested,
her hometown had formed

all these groups, you know,
for justice for Louise.

Reporter: The case has turned
this quiet

Northwest English village
of about 3,000

into a magnet
for media activity.

There are almost as many
cameras here

as there are ribbons
on the trees outside.

There is not even a shadow
of a doubt

that Louise Woodward
has been the victim

of some very terrible
miscarriage of justice

among the people here in Elton.

The news broadcast came over,
and it was quite a shock to me

because we think, "Is she ever
going to get a fair trial?"

Karas: It's not surprising that
Louise Woodward

had a lot of support in England,
in her home country,

but in New England,
she also had her supporters.

Kahn: Louise Woodward,
some has kind of regarded

not so much
as a murder suspect,

but as a --
almost a political prisoner,

if you will,
a latter-day Angela Davis.

-Free Louise.
-Free Louise!

-Free Louise!
-Free Louise!

Everybody had an opinion,

and I received
a lot of hate mail,

you know, from people
that knew nothing about it,

suggesting that I was
the villain in this case.

All of a sudden, every day,
you come to work,

and there's hundreds
of people out.

They close off the street
and set up fences.

The whole world is watching!

All:
The whole world is watching!

The whole world is watching!

The whole world is watching!

It helped a lot.

It really did, just to know
that people realized

that this was wrong,

that even Bostonians
could see that this was wrong.

They thought they had
that case won.

I'm outside the Cambridge
courthouse where,

a little more
than an hour ago,

Louise Woodward took the witness
stand in her own defense.

I was numb at that point.

I thought, "Did that just
destroy our case?"

In the fall of 1997,
the world was wondering

who and what caused the death
of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen.

Was British nanny Louise
Woodward guilty of murder

or was it a tragic accident
on her watch?

Inside and outside the
courtroom, emotions ran high.

People across the globe
were divided

as to who was the victim
and who was to blame.

♪♪

Reporter 2: Millions of viewers

were glued to their TVs
this week

as Louise Woodward's
murder trial unfolded.

Move it!

It was like being in
the Super Bowl,

and your trial is your game.

Reporter 3: The crime --

the killing of
8-month-old Matthew Eappen.

The defendant --
the family's nanny,

a 19-year-old British au pair,
Louise Woodward.

This is the only case
of child abuse

that I will ever do
because it was so dramatic.

I've never seen anything
like this, cameras everywhere,

people everywhere.

The coverage was all over
the map,

depending where
on the map you were.

In England, they were very pro
Louise Woodward.

And there were also groups
which were anti-The Eappens.

They didn't like the fact
that Deborah Eappen

was a working mother.

Criticism was aimed
at the parents,

that they were derelict
for leaving their child

in the care
of an au pair.

How dare they?

People grumping and saying,

"You know, if you hadn't left
your child,

this would have never happened.

She's only 19 years old,
no experience.

Is that something
that the parents

of a 2-year-old and an infant
would think

is the best childcare situation
for their child?

How do you react, Doctor, to
this maybe unusual criticism

that, since you both
go to work,

you're partially responsible
to pay a price for this?

I think it's ludicrous.

I mean, that's like --

To me, it's like blaming the
rape victim for being raped.

We should be able to have
an expectation

that someone is
not gonna kill your child.

Did Matthew Eappen suffer a
skull fracture on February 4th,

or did it occur,
as the defense contended,

some time before that?

The defense's position was that
this skull fracture was not new.

It had happened maybe
a few weeks earlier

and that there was evidence
it was actually

starting to knit together.

Matthew Eappen did not suffer
a violent impact to the head.

But, of course,
the other side says,

"This child would not have been
living normally for two weeks

with a fractured skull."

It is not possible that a gentle
toss could cause these injuries.

It was a medical case.

It became, in some ways, a
battle of the expert witnesses.

It was, in that sense,
complicated for jurors.

They had to listen to some
very difficult testimony

about Matthew's condition,
what the doctors found,

what their expert opinions
were on both sides.

Bilateral retinal hemorrhages.

The superimposed hypoxic
ischemic --

We're pointing towards
the Sylvian fissure.

Epidural hematoma.

-A subdural hematoma.
-Subdural hematoma.

-Subdural.
-Hematoma.

Do you think there were
two subdural hematomas?

Jenkins: It was somewhat tedious

for the spectators
in the courtroom,

including the news reporters.

So it must have been tedious
for the jurors.

I felt that the jury got it

at every step
of the prosecution's case.

I did feel that, when the
defense medical piece

of the case was done,

that they may have injected some
reasonable doubt into the case.

If you're a layperson,
how are you supposed to discern

what's right
and what isn't right?

One group of doctors
in this case is dead wrong,

and I choose
those words carefully.

They are dead wrong.

And we're asking a group
of jurors

to look at that
and decide which one it is.

Karas: After a few weeks

of conflicting
and complex medical testimony,

both sides are ready to rest,

but then the defense
had a decision to make.

The case was over,
other than one issue,

and the judge brought a sidebar,
and he said,

"Is the defendant
going on the stand?"

At that point, Barry Scheck
gave me a little elbow,

and we moved back
from the others,

and Barry leaned over to me
and said,

"Would you put her
on the stand?"

I said, "Absolutely not, Barry."
I said, "How about you?"

He said,
"Not in a million years."

But Barry wasn't making
that decision.

Scheck:
There are certain decisions

that are up to the client
in the final analysis,

and one of them is whether to
take the witness stand or not.

She was clear --
"I didn't do this.

I don't want to do any time
for this.

I don't want to be stigmatized
for this."

That's why she insisted
on testifying,

and that's why she wanted the
best chance of being acquitted.

I'm outside the Cambridge
courthouse where,

a little more
than an hour ago,

Louise Woodward took the witness
stand in her own defense.

It was very crowded
in the courtroom.

People were waiting to see
what she had to say.

Jenkins: Louise Woodward seemed
so calm and innocent

on the witness stand.

She had a cherubic face
that made it difficult

to see her as a monster
who would kill a child.

Scheck: Miss Woodward,
did you ever

shake Matthew Eappen
violently?

No.

Did you ever hit Matthew?

No.

I didn't think there
was gonna be

any Perry Mason moment
in this case.

I didn't think she was going
to break down and cry

or admit that
she'd done something

which led
to the death of Matty.

Louise:
I tried to help him myself.

I tried to give CPR,
and then I called 911.

Did you see Matthew Eappen's
head become injured?

No.

Christian:
I think people thought

that she was telling
a believable story,

that she was telling it well,

and then, just before the end
of her direct examination,

she was asked a question
that, perhaps,

she may have misunderstood.

My co-counsel, Andrew Good,
asked her a question,

and the question he asked her,
with faltering voice,

because, for him,
it was very emotional.

Good: And did you slam
Matthew Eappen?

And she could hear his voice
was breaking,

and Louise thought
that he was joking,

and she kind of laughed
and said no.

No.

I have
no further questions.

I was numb at that point.

I thought, "Did that just
destroy our case?"

We were all thunderstruck.

You're gonna win
or you're gonna lose.

Man: Members of the jury,

is the defendant guilty
or not guilty?

I was surprised.

A young British nanny
accused of murder

takes the stand
in her own defense.

Jenkins: Louise Woodward
generally came off

as serious, calm
and composed in her testimony.

I tried to help him myself.

I tried to give CPR.

At one point, when her own
defense asked her

if she had shaken
or hit Matthew,

she almost kind of giggled

and sort of ridiculed,
even, the question.

Good: And did you slam
Matthew Eappen?

No.

And I think that played
very badly with the jury.

And now the jury is left
with deciding

whether or not Louise Woodward
was responsible.

Owen: I think when all is said
and done,

jurors are gonna use their
common sense

and they're gonna say,
"I believe her."

Van Susteren: Both sides talked
to the jury this morning

in their respective
closing arguments.

Lawyer Barry Scheck concentrated
on the medical evidence.

This is a reasonable doubt.

This is the end of the case.

This is the bone window.

This shows you that
the prosecution is 100% wrong

about what happened
in this case.

Every medical part
of this case was disproven.

It didn't happen this way.

It couldn't have happened
this way,

and it didn't happen
during this time.

If there had been a violent slam
on February 4th,

you'd see some soft tissue
swelling on the bone window,

end of case.

We were trying the science case,

being that it, you know,
made a lot of sense.

This bone window is impossible
because it never happened

because it's an older injury.

Science had spoken
definitively, I think,

and I think the prosecution
would agree with that.

Scheck: All she ever tried to do
on February 4th

is save this child's life.

Leone: When Barry had sat down
after presenting

his part of the defense case,
he had done his job.

He had probably injected
some doubt into the case

by putting together
what was a very good theory,

but you had to continue
to bring this back

to why we were
in that courtroom.

Matthew Eappen will never
take his first step.

Matthew Eappen will never say
his first word

because Matthew Eappen is dead.

It was all about Matty.

Let's go.

Let's get you justice,
and let's have 12 people say

that we're right about
what occurred.

Matty is having an off day.

Matty is cranky.
He's fussy.

He's crying.

Well, an off day for Matty --

An off day for Matty means
a bad day for Louise Woodward.

Ladies and gentlemen, this
became a formula for disaster.

He spelled the case out
from "A" to "Z"

as to why it was Louise Woodward
that committed the crime.

Jenkins:
He was pacing the floor.

He had set aside his notes
and was speaking from the heart.

Matty Eappen is still crying.
He's fussy.

He's cranky,
and she can't stand it.

So she grabs Matty Eappen,
and she shakes him.

"Stop crying."

So she shakes him a little more,
and Matty Eappen keeps crying.

He keeps fussing,
and she keeps shaking,

but it ain't working,
and Matty Eappen

is still crying and fussing
until she now takes him,

and she slams his head down.

Matty Eappen is not crying
anymore.

Coles: It was a piece
of Oscar-winning theater.

He spellbound the jury.

Now, up until then,

Mr. Scheck hadn't really taken
the prosecution seriously.

He was so convinced
of his client's innocence.

Halfway through
Mr. Leone's testimony,

Mr. Scheck started
looking at him,

and his face began to change.

The verdict was one of the most
dramatic verdicts of our time.

Byrne: There was hush
in the courtroom.

Bailiff: All rise!

As the jury came out,
they seemed quiet, serious.

Man: Members of the jury,

is the defendant
guilty or not guilty?

Foreperson: Guilty.

Guilty of what?

Guilty of murder
in the second degree.

There was a pause,
and then a wail.

[ Louise wails ]

There was an outburst,
an outcry, from Louise Woodward.

[ Louise crying loudly ]

It was actually a horrible
moment when the verdict came in.

We were all thunderstruck.

He says to me, to this day,
"Yeah, I thought we had it won

after we finished
the medical case.

But after you sat down
after your closing,

I really felt worried."

Why did they do that to me?
Why did they do it?

Shh.

I didn't do anything.

All of her supporters
were equally outraged.

They were watching in England,
on television.

Man: Ladies and gentlemen...

Foreperson: Guilty.

-Ah!
-No!

They just erupted in rage
when she was convicted.

Man: Guilty
of second-degree murder,

so say you, Madam Foreperson?

Leith: When it come she had
been found guilty,

it was just
sort of devastation,

that we couldn't believe it,
just heartbroken.

It's quite unreal, really.

I was sick to my stomach.

I just -- I couldn't believe it.

Leestma: Shock.

I knew we put forth what we
should, said what we had to say,

and it apparently
fell on deaf ears.

Too bad, way too bad.

I'm really happy
with the verdict.

Louise is guilty.

Louise killed Matthew.

They thought they had it beat,
and they didn't.

Scheck: It was horrible.

Take a look at the press
conference afterwards.

I...

It was hard to keep it together,
but I felt good that I did.

We are stunned by this verdict,

mortified by this verdict,
to be frank,

but this fight is not over.

Louise Woodward is not guilty.

The judge knew she was innocent.

She was innocent.

You could see it
in that man's eyes.

He was gobsmacked.

It's the most bizarre series
of events that I have ever seen.

♪♪

If you just joined us,
about an hour and a half ago,

the result was in in the jury
trial of Louise Woodward.

The jury came down guilty,
and at that, she screamed.

Why did they do that to me?

Why did they do it?

People didn't expect her
to get convicted.

I thought they would
believe her.

Whitfield-Sharp:
It's terrible.

All I could think of was Louise
going back to that lockup

and facing this life sentence.

Coakley:
There were hoards of media.

I recall that Jerry and I
were out

talking to different
cameras and folks

until about 2:00 in the morning.

The jury has spoken.

That we had the truth
and common sense on our side.

We went back to talk to then
D.A. Tom Reilly.

Tom brought us back in
and said, "We have work to do

because I'm concerned
about this verdict."

He was concerned that
Judge Zobel might do something.

There were rumors that,
after the verdict came in,

he went off the bench
and threw up in the back.

That's because the great weight
of the evidence

doesn't support a conviction.

One of the court officers
came over, and he says,

"Judge Zobel has set
aside verdicts before."

King: Judge Zobel has scheduled
a hearing for next Tuesday.

Do you worry that, Tuesday,
that judge may change things?

I'm not sure worried
is the word,

but we'll wait and see.

It's a fairly unique rule
in Massachusetts

that allows the judge
to take a verdict away

and reduce it
or just disagree with it.

For a judge to throw out
a verdict is almost unheard of.

Hiller Zobel has
done it at least twice.

And we're all thinking that,
given this evidence,

he'll do it again.

At 10:00 this morning
Eastern time,

Judge Hiller Zobel
made his ruling

in the Louise Woodward case.

I think, when people went into
that hearing that day,

they didn't really expect
Judge Zobel to do what he did.

Guilty of involuntary
manslaughter.

In a stunning reversal
of fortune,

the 19-year-old Woodward
sees her

second-degree murder conviction
reduced to manslaughter.

Under authority granted under
the laws of Massachusetts,

the judge stepped in

and threw out the conviction
for second-Degree murder,

saying there was not
enough evidence.

He said, "I find there's
so much evidence

it reaches manslaughter,

and so that's the verdict
that I issue," essentially.

Woodward will be resentenced.

The possibilities range
from probation only

to a maximum
of 20 years in prison.

Reporter 4: It'll be a major,
major story

if Louise Woodward is allowed

to just walk free
and go home.

Chen: This morning, she was
serving a life sentence.

Tonight, though, British
au pair Louise Woodward is free.

Zobel: Taking all of the
circumstances into account,

I regard a proper sentence
to be 279 days

in the house of corrections
being served.

The judge says, "You can
leave with time served.

Go on your merry way."

Boy, did that cause an uproar.

[ All cheering ]

[ Singing indistinctly ]

-We won!
-Yeah!

Time served, go home.

That was the one resolution
of this

that was best calculated
to avoid a second trial.

It was all about science

and, let's face it,
the judge knew that,

and that's why the judge
did his very best to fix it.

Velez-Mitchell: I question
the decision of the judge,

not so much
to reduce the charge,

but to reduce
the amount of time served.

I mean, my God, a child
is not worth

more than 9 months
behind bars?

She inflicted these injuries
on an 8-month-old baby,

and she should be held
accountable for them.

We had an innocent victim,
who was an 8-month-old child,

that did not deserve the
injuries that were inflicted

on that child.

That gets lost, I think.

I am sickened by what happened.

I'm saddened by what happened.

Leone: We did our job.
We prepared.

We executed in
a very disciplined way,

and we prevailed in that
we found her responsible

for killing Matthew,

but to have it end
like this was disappointing.

Van Susteren: The parents
of baby Matthew Eappen

are said to be devastated

by the court's decision
to free her.

We will never know

what great things Matthew
might have accomplished.

We will never know the joy
that Matthew

would have continued to bring
to our family.

We will never know this

because Louise Woodward
took Matthew away from us.

We'd like to know what happened
to Matthew,

how long he suffered.

It's just -- you just want
to know what happened

to your child.

Cossack:
Louise Woodward's attorney

picked up his client's passport
this morning

in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The passport opened the door
for Woodward

to return home
to Elton, England.

She was, in fact,
deported, I believe.

I want her out of this country.

The case is over now, and so she
should leave this country

and leave this country
as soon as possible.

Karas: Even with a manslaughter
conviction,

she is a convicted felon.

She is responsible
for Matthew Eappen's death.

I feel great sorrow
for the death of baby Matthew.

[ Camera shutters clicking ]

But, like I said
time and time again,

I had nothing to do
with his death.

Of course I'm upset
that I've got a conviction,

but it's a conviction
I don't deserve,

and I think that, in time --

The truth will come out,
I think, in time.

I'll be cleared.

An estimated 1,300 cases
of shaken baby syndrome,

now known as abusive head
trauma, are reported every year.

It remains the leading
cause of death

from child abuse
in the United States.

In the time since the trial,
some experts have questioned

the signs of diagnosing
shaken baby syndrome.

Some claim that what had been
thought of

as its hallmark symptoms can now
be caused by something else,

not just violent shaking.

After her manslaughter
conviction

for the death
of Matthew Eappen,

Louise Woodward
has gone home to England

and become a mother herself.

She gave birth to a daughter
in 2014.

Doctors Deborah
and Sunil Eappen

have started
the Matthew Eappen Foundation

to bring awareness to shaken
baby syndrome and child abuse.

I'm Hill Harper.

Thanks for watching.