Louise Woodward Part Two: First Impressions

What do her words say?

Jan 12, 2022

This is the second part in a series looking at the case of Louise Woodward and trying to see if there’s anything we can learn from the words she used.

The first part is here

Daily Mail Femail @Femail

Viewers slam 'cold' and 'extremely emotionless' Louise Woodward in documentary revisiting the 'killer nanny' trial

dailymail.co.ukViewers of The Killer Nanny slam ‘very cold’ Louise WoodwardViewers of Channel 4′s The Killer Nanny: Did She Do It? slammed the ‘very cold’ and ‘extremely emotionless’ British teenage nanny Louise Woodward who was jailed over the death of an American infant in her care in 1997.

Louise has only given one in-depth interview, which was broadcast on the BBC in June 1998 following her return to the UK.

Here, she speaks about the events overall and her situation with the Eappen family.

MB is Martin Bashir, the interviewer.

Can I start by asking you the central question. Are you responsible for the death of Matthew Eappen?

No I’m not. No, I’m innocent. I didn’t do anything wrong. If anything , I tried to help him as best I could and didn’t do anything to hurt him or harm him in any way.

The prosecution said you had shaken Matthew violently and banged his head down against an immovable object, that is why on February 4th they found that Matthew Eappen had a two and a half inch skull fracture, internal bleeding, these injuries were caused by you that’s what the prosecution said.

It didn’t happen, that didn’t happen. I felt sure that the presented case would at least pose reasonable doubt and I think that I did more than that I would be believed I just knew that hadn’t happened at least not by me and not on that day and I just felt sure that the evidence proved that..

We’ll come back to that, in detail, later on. Let’s start with - What were the Eappen’s like ?

Well, I liked them. When I was living there, particularly Sunil. I think we got on pretty well. We had our ups and downs. I mean I’d only been living there 10 weeks. And I was 18 and there were the normal friction that you might expect when somebody comes to live in your home. I mean overall I think we got on pretty well and I thought things were going OK.

Did you like them?

Yes..

What were their children like?

Well they were adorable. Brendan was very advanced for his age. You could hold a conversation with him he was very talkative and Matty was a very sweet baby. He was smiley, playful and they were just beautiful children

As far as you could observe, what did you think of the Eappens as parents?

I think that they felt guilty about leaving their children throughout the day and I think that they possibly overcompensated a little when they came home. They were pretty devoted parents when they were there, but they worked very long hours. Usually there was only one parent in the house at a time. They would take turns to come each night, to come home and take the children from me. So I think there was certainly a lot of guilt on their part that they were leaving the house and not being with their children as much as they should.

I think there were a lot of stresses put upon them.

And you could see those stresses?

Well Debbie told me about it. I mean she complained to me that she didn’t see her children as often as she’d like that she didn’t see her husband as often as she’d like. I complained once that I’d gone over my 45 hours and she was quite upset that I’d even brought it up and said you know I don’t get to spend the time and you know. I need you.

Did you fell equipped and capable to handle the responsibility that was given....?

Absolutely. I enjoyed it and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have stayed.

Let’s break it down.

It opens with a strong denial. “No I’m not. No, I’m innocent. I didn’t do anything wrong.” She takes the question head on and provides a simple and straightforward reply. She has built hardly any wiggle-room in her words and doesn’t launch into an over-explanation of what happens. The reply is typical of what we hear from people with nothing to hide.

There’s much more that gives credibility to her words. Everything she talks about is in past-tense, this suggests it’s all remembered events rather than made up one.

Her directness is evident all the way through this extract. She deals with every question head-on. Her answers are simple, not overly complex, it seems she doesn’t feel the need to explain herself. Again, this is typical in the words of people who have no need to deceive.

Louise doesn’t try to avoid answering any question or to move the subject away from something sensitive and towards something she feels more comfortable talking about. Another indicator of truthful words.

Throughout this extract Louise owns everything she says using “I” all the time (apart from once, we’ll look at that later). She refers to both the children and the parents by their first names, so there is no indication she was very distant from them or harbours a deep dislike.

There’s more

When Louise is asked to describe the parent's thoughts, she frames her answers with “I think”. There is no attempt by her to pass off her opinion as fact. This is especially worth noting, as she could have framed them as “facts” that would be in her favour.

In this extract, there are only a couple of places where I can dig deeper and see that things may not have been how she tries to portray them. This is when she is describing the children and the parents.

When Louise describes the children, she doesn’t put herself in there at all. She uses fairly generic terms to paint a picture of their character, with words like “adorable” and “sweet”. These may be true, but they could be used to describe almost any young child.

Louise says, “you could hold a conversation with Brendan”. The “you” is at odds with her use of “I” everywhere else. She doesn’t say she had many conversations with Brendan, only that “you” could.

When she describes the parents, Louise starts to use much vaguer language than elsewhere. “I think that possibly they overcompensated” is not very strong or direct. “They were pretty devoted” is used rather than the stronger “they were devoted”.

Given she uses first names to refer to them, but indicates distance here I wonder if she was sociable with them but didn’t grow close to them or feel any attachment to the family.

The last line of the parents answer is revealing, “I think there was certainly a lot of guilt on their part that they were leaving the house and not being with their children as much as they should.”

“I think there was certainly a lot of guilt”. Which is it? You only “think” there was a lot of guilt or there was “certainly” a lot of guilt?

“Guilt on their part that they were leaving the house and not being with their children as much as they should”. This is much more certain. She’s saying that they were not spending as much time with the children as they should be.

Conclusion

Louise’s denial is very credible, her account of facts feels very reliable. However, there’s more than enough to suggest that Louise and the family members had some distance between them.

That does not make her a killer, not even close. But her words around the events on the day the child was taken to hospital appear very revealing.

I’ll look at those in the next post. Subscribe to receive it in your inbox.

There are other things to spot in here, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.