Word: eappen
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Dates: during 1997-1997
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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...
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...
...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...
...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...
Remember the horror movie The Hand that Rocks the Cradle? Most mothers do. A real-life sequel played out in Massachusetts last week, when a mild-mannered British au pair was convicted of murdering Matthew Eappen, an eight-month-old left in her care. As it turns out, there was another woman in the docket: the Working Mother. A banner outside the courthouse read DON'T BLAME THE NANNY, BLAME THE MOTHER. And observers of the trial who wrote, called talk radio and clogged the Internet did indeed blame the mother, ophthalmologist Deborah Eappen. Eappen became the embodiment of yuppie...