A STUNNING VERDICT

By TERRY MCCARTHY/BOSTON

The two women sat in the Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge, Mass., refusing to look at each other. But both would have to hear. Deborah Eappen, 31, came forward and for several minutes read her victim's statement, repeating the horror that had engulfed her family since Feb. 4. "Our Matty had been hurt," she said, referring to her eight-month-old son. "We soon learned our baby Matthew was dying. We couldn't believe it. It was all inconceivable, and it was beyond us to comprehend that our Matty was dying because someone we trusted had hurt him." She recalled in stark detail the hopelessness of the situation: her son, who was on life support, was brain dead. On Feb. 9, she said, "we made the most painful decision in our lives. We had to let Matty go, be free of this life's pain." And then it was Louise Woodward's turn to speak. The night before, a jury of nine women and three men had found her guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Matthew Eappen. She too repeated her story of the past nine months--but in just four sentences. Almost breathlessly, she said, "I'd just like to maintain my innocence. I would never hurt Matty, and I never did hurt Matty, and I don't know what happened to him. I'm not responsible for his death. I didn't kill Matthew Eappen. That's all." And then, as she did when she first heard the verdict, Woodward collapsed in sobs.

The jury's decision had confounded legal experts and, it seems, most of public opinion, which had been formed by televised images of a cherubic, well-groomed Woodward calmly testifying from the stand. Her defense team, featuring Barry Scheck, who had been part of O.J. Simpson's "dream team," had been so confident of its case that it had turned down a last-minute offer by the prosecution to include manslaughter as an option to present to the jury. Instead, with Woodward's assent, the defense persuaded the judge that the verdict should be all or nothing--murder or acquittal. It was a gamble that went terribly wrong. "It was stunning," said Alex MacDonald, a local trial attorney. "I do not know any lawyer in the Greater Boston area who has any reaction other than shock." The verdict brings a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, with no possibility of parole for the British teenager until 15 years have been served. Woodward's defense will petition Judge Hiller Zobel to set aside the verdict this week and, if that fails, will appeal the case.

Late Saturday, the defense found ammunition in its bid to have the judge set aside the verdict in statements made by Jodie Garber, one of the jurors, to the Mail on Sunday, a British newspaper. "Nobody thought Louise intended to kill the baby," Garber was quoted as saying, explaining that it was done in the heat of the moment. She said that the jury was simply following Zobel's instructions that guilt should be determined by the fact "that a reasonable person would have known the actions she took would have resulted in the baby's death." Said Garber: "This was the verdict we had to reach." She added, "We'd rather have had a chance to consider a manslaughter option. Nobody liked the finding we felt compelled to reach."

The case had swung dramatically in and out of Woodward's favor ever since she dialed 911 in February and said to the dispatcher, "Help. There's a baby. He's barely breathing." Shortly after the infant was taken to the hospital, police arrived at the home of Deborah and Sunil Eappen in Newton, Mass. Officers later said that the au pair told them she may have been "a little rough" with the baby, tossed him on a bed, and "dropped" him on some towels on the bathroom floor. In testimony, she denied making the statements. Woodward was arrested the following day and, shortly after the baby's life-support system was turned off, charged with murdering Matthew by shaking him violently. Legal opinion saw an open-and-shut case, with Woodward the loser.

However, over the summer, as lawyers working for Woodward did extensive tests on blood and tissue samples from Matthew Eappen and re-examined X rays and photographs of the damaged skull, an alternative hypothesis began to emerge: that the baby had been suffering from a fractured skull for some weeks and a jolt was enough to restart the bleeding that finally killed him. Evidence of a three-week-old fracture of the wrist as well as signs of apparent healing of the skull fracture appeared to support the scenario. The argument seemed so compelling that most observers thought the medical testimony for the prosecution and the defense canceled each other out--or that at least the defense had introduced a sufficient element of doubt to ensure the jury would have to acquit.

And then there was Woodward's testifying in her own defense. Despite tough questioning by prosecuting attorney Gerard Leone Jr., she stuck to her story, denying that she hurt Matthew. With a smile often threatening to break out on her face, she showed no sign of anger or malice that might support a murder charge. "I don't think any of us really believed this was a murder case per se," said Laurence Hardoon, former head of the child-abuse prosecution unit in Middlesex County. "It would have been different if she had dropped him from a three-story building or stabbed a knife into him. But shaking--that's a real gray area."

From the beginning, the case was more than a private domestic tragedy. For one thing, there was the overseas audience in Britain, watching for the very first time a fellow citizen being tried in a legal system that had previously been reserved for such spectacular but very American melodramas as the O.J. Simpson saga. When the guilty verdict was announced, an audience watching in a pub in Woodward's home village of Elton, in northern England, was so taken aback that for a time all that could be heard was the amplified sound of the teenager crying in the courtroom 3,000 miles away. The American justice system came under attack. Alarmed by Leone's masterful summation, some complained that the defense should have had the final word, as it does in Britain. Furthermore, says British legal expert Stephen Jakobi, "Massachusetts, home to the witch-hunt--we have a lot of problems here."

Back in America, though, as the case proceeded through court, it was Deborah Eappen who was popularly demonized, stereotyped as the "do-it-all, want-it-all" workingwoman and part-time mother, becoming an unwitting defendant in the murder of her own baby. The public saw her and her husband Sunil as rich doctors selfishly pursuing their careers to the detriment of their children. Worse, they were said to be cheap. Didn't they know that Woodward was an au pair and not a nanny? Au pairs are young women brought over to the U.S. under a cultural-exchange program and then expected to work as full-time child minders with little supervision. They cost $125 a week, in contrast to about $400 for a trained nanny, but can stay no longer than 12 months and typically have little training in child care. In Newton, the Eappens' upscale leafy suburban neighborhood with a high proportion of professionals, women were critical of the couple's reliance on an au pair to look after Matthew and his two-year-old brother Brendan. "I wondered how she could leave two kids alone with an 18-year-old. One is hard enough," said Amy Ebersole as she pushed her young son in a stroller through the farmers' market in Newton last week. Ebersole said she gave up a Ph.D. program to stay at home to care for her son. "An 18-year-old is just a child. What do you expect?" said Rita Tobias, who employed professional nannies to look after her growing children as she continued her job with a finance company. "You have to set your priorities. If proper child care costs more, you have to find a way to afford it." Calls to radio talk shows were rougher. "Apparently the parents didn't want a kid," said a caller to WRKO talk-show host Howie Carr. "Now they don't have a kid."

In fact both Eappens were still in debt from medical school. Their house was modest by Newton standards. And Deborah Eappen worked only three days a week, coming home at lunchtime to breast-feed her baby when she could, otherwise preparing her milk for Woodward to bottle-feed him. "Everyone has child care in Newton," says Ellen Ishkanian, editor of the local News Tribune, who is sympathetic to Deborah Eappen. "This cuts to the quick. People have to assign some blame" and be able to exclude themselves from the guilt. "If she were a perfect mother, then it could happen to anyone."

In his victim's statement, Sunil Eappen was willing to say that while "I think that Louise has done a brutal thing, I truly hope that she may someday find the peace of God in her life again." Deborah Eappen chose not to address Woodward in court. She had already hinted at a deep rancor. Two days earlier, speaking to Bryant Gumbel on CBS's Public Eye, she recalled how Woodward had "once told me she didn't want to have children," and added, "Part of me really hopes she doesn't have that joy in her life."

--With reporting by Kate Noble/London

With reporting by KATE NOBLE/LONDON