Au Pair Trial Juror Denies Scheck Influenced Outcome

Much of the speculation about how jurors arrived at their verdict convicting teenage English au pair Louise Woodward of murder is absurd, a panel member said Saturday.

She said the most ludicrous comment was that animosity toward Barry Scheck, who also handled the medical side of O.J. Simpson’s defense, weighed heavily against Woodward.

“The craziest thing I heard someone say is that we came to our decision because of Barry Scheck, that we hated Barry Scheck and that’s how we came up with the verdict,” the juror said. “That is just crazy.”

The juror, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she was talking to another juror about issuing a possible statement explaining key points of how the verdict was reached.

“But I have to say it looks like a no-win situation. We’ll say, ‘We decided on the basis of this, this and this,’ and someone will say, ‘No, it was because of Barry Scheck’ or some other crazy thing,” said the juror, one of the nine women on the panel.

A source close to the defense said there had been some concern that Scheck’s forceful style might have caused problems. The juror rejected that: “I don’t think his name even came up.”

The jurors had refused to talk to reporters after their verdict Thursday night that the 19-year-old Woodward murdered 8-month-old Matthew Eappen by shaking and slamming him in a fit of frustration.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Mail of London, a juror said the panel felt cornered into convicting Woodward of second-degree murder.

“We’d rather have had a chance to consider a manslaughter option,” Jodie Garber of Cambridge told the paper. “Nobody thought Louise intended to kill the baby.”

Woodward’s attorneys eliminated any chance of a manslaughter verdict when they took a gamble that failed: asking the judge to limit the jury’s choices to just first- and second-degree murder or innocence.

On Tuesday, Middlesex Superior Court Judge Hiller Zobel will consider defense motions to throw out the verdict, reduce the charge or order a new trial.