Louise Woodward Part Four: The Fallout
Louise Woodward Part Four: The Fallout
The conclusion
This is the final part of my look at the Louise Woodward case. Before reading this, have a look at the first three breakdowns.
Again, the words come from Louise’s only in-depth interview from the BBC Panorama programme in June 1998.
MB
What happened next ?
LW
Well he’d fallen asleep in my arms, so I wrapped him up in a blanket and I lay him in the family room, put him in the playpen to sleep. And he slept for a little while. In the meantime I’d woken Brendan up and given him a snack. And then Matthew actually woke up on his own after a little while. So I decided I’d try and feed him a bottle, which I usually did after his nap. And again he didn’t want it, he was crying, pushing it away and screaming - he just didn’t want it. So I decided to give up on that and asked Brendan if he would wait for me in the family room while I went and changed Matthew’s nappy and I put him in his crib, so that I could go and dispose of the nappy and wash my hands.
I was a couple of minutes doing that.
MB
When was your first inkling that something serious was wrong ?
LW
When I came back he’d stopped crying. And when I looked into the crib he was just lying there, the way…. and that’s when I realised there was something seriously wrong, because his eyes seemed glassy, they were half-closed, and he seemed to be, he was barely breathing and I knew there was something seriously wrong.
MB
What did you do?
LW
Well my first assumption was that he may have choked. He used to spit up now and again like babies do, and my first assumption was he must have choked. So I picked him up and -
MB
Where there any signs of vomit or anything like that nearby?
LW
Something fell out of his mouth onto me. So there was something in his mouth and that, you know, further made me think that he must have choked. And I tried rubbing his back - I tried mouth-to-mouth, I tried, I swept inside his mouth to feel for anything, and I couldn’t find anything.
MB
What were you feeling like?
LW
Well, I was in a panic, because I just didn’t know what was wrong with him.
MB
Did you shake him at all?
LW
I did. I was trying to revive him for several minutes.
MB
Did you shake him quite hard or - ?
LW
No, I couldn’t get any kind of response from him. I lay him on the bed and I tried to get some kind of response from him. He - I waved my hand in front of his face, I clapped, I shouted his name, and I just, I couldn’t get any kind of response from him. So I tried shaking him lightly to try and get him to regain consciousness or to get some kind of reaction from him - and there was none, he was limp.
MB
Were you beginning to panic?
LW
I was very frightened, and I just, I gave him mouth-to-mouth, I tried to breathe for him. After several minutes I was very scared that he wasn’t breathing, that he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. So I picked him up and I went downstairs with him, I ran downstairs. I laid him on the floor in the dining room, and I went to the phone. And my initial response was to call his parents I tried to page them, and I couldn’t - I guess my fingers were just, I was fumbling I didn’t dial it correctly, and the pagers didn’t go through. So after maybe three or four attempts I gave up and I dialled 911 and I called the emergency services.
Let’s break it down
Louise is still talking in past tense. This has been consistent through every extract I’ve looked through. She doesn’t slip into present tense, which is often a giveaway when someone is telling a deceptive story.
That’s about the only comforting thing I can note in this extract. Everything else raises concerns.
Louise is very succinct and factual about how frightened she felt, she is vividly remembering the panic she had here and expressing it truthfully. This is at odds with other parts of her words which are more vague and long-winded.
As with the last extract, there is a lot of explaining and justifying with her continual use of the “and… so…” pattern of speech.
The use of “so” is to suggest that there can be no other explanation or excuse as to her decisions. In a lot of deceptive use, “so” is designed to cut off any argument or questions about why things happened as they did.
Compare her first answer here:
Well he’d fallen asleep in my arms, so I wrapped him up in a blanket and I lay him in the family room, put him in the playpen to sleep. And he slept for a little while. In the meantime I’d woken Brendan up and given him a snack. And then Matthew actually woke up on his own after a little while. So I decided I’d try and feed him a bottle, which I usually did after his nap. And again he didn’t want it, he was crying, pushing it away and screaming - he just didn’t want it. So I decided to give up on that and asked Brendan if he would wait for me in the family room while I went and changed Matthew’s nappy and I put him in his crib, so that I could go and dispose of the nappy and wash my hands.
I was a couple of minutes doing that.
With this answer from later on in the interview:
Within 24 hours I was arrested, within 48 hours I was in jail, and I’d barely spoken to my attorney. They arrested me on the basis of that 20 minute interview which it then became my word against four policemen because they didn’t tape the interview they never asked me to go to the police station and make a statement.
When they typed up the report it read like I’d confessed and that was on all the news reports that I’d confessed to it, that I’d shook him out of frustration, that I’d dropped him on the floor.
The second answer flows much better and feels more complete. It doesn’t follow the “and… so…” pattern. She’s very explicit about timings, and she doesn’t try to convince us what she is saying must be logical with the word “so”.
The second answer feels like a recounting, not a justification.
Business as usual
As with the earlier answers dealing with the day Matthew took ill, Louise is again keen to stress what was “usual” for a normal day. This is interesting.
If you go back to my first part in this series, dealt with Louise’s 911 call. I said that her repetition of vomit to the dispatcher, could be seen as an attempt to control the narrative as to what was up with the baby.
In that call she says twice, at least, “I think he choked on his vomit”. Here, she says twice, her “first assumption” was he had choked.
Her justification, when pushed, for these thoughts and assumptions is that “something” fell from his mouth. It’s a weak and vague description.
Conclusion
I’ve based these thoughts on all four extracts I’ve looked at.
At the very start of the BBC interview, Louise is asked “are you responsible for the death”. She answers, “No, I’m not. No, I’m innocent. I didn’t do anything wrong”.
I said, in my first analysis, that this is a strong denial. I believe that Louise did not intentionally cause any injury, and she believes she is not responsible for causing any harm.
Louise was accused of shaking the baby to cause the injury that killed him. She deals with the question of shaking fairly straightforwardly. She does offer justification and mitigation around shaking Matthew, but that is understandable given how sensitive she is to the subject. I believe she did not excessively shake the baby.
From the words I’ve looked at, I don’t believe that is the end of the matter.
Her insistence on talking about what usually happened on any other day, but the one in question raises a warning sign. She is eager to show that she is typically diligent and nurturing. This suggests she is sensitive to being accused of neglect.
Parts are missing from her recounting of the fateful day. When she gets to Matthew’s bath-time, her telling of events becomes less flowing and more disjoined. This suggests something happened around this time, which is not being disclosed here.
Given the words used throughout, it is possible there was an accidental event and this is being hidden here, maybe caused by a momentary lack of attention which Louise feels was not typical of her.
Is Louise Woodward a monster? No. However, in this interview, in my opinion, she didn’t tell the full story in this interview.
Do you have any further thoughts? Leave them in the comments below. Also, if there are some words you’d like to take a look at, leave them in the comments too.