e-chatter

This conversation about the Louise Woodard murder case in Massachusetts took place in the WBS-Talk political chat room last week. A judge this week is to rule on a defense request to reduce or overturn her second-degree murder conviction.

Jayne: I didn’t watch any of the au pair trial. I have quite a bit of faith in polygraph tests, which she supposedly passed, but respect the jury’s decision. I would lean toward the manslaughter charge, however, rather than murder, if I were the judge.

Abbrb: Hmmm . . . as a Brit (she is also a Lancashire lass, like me) I have an obvious interest. However, at first I was ready to see her swing, but as I watched the trial I began to see there was much more than reasonable doubt. She can be accused of being a silly kid, but as for a murderer . . . there was no positive proof.

Stowngo: A doctor at the time mentioned that the child lost “clear” fluid from the base of his brain, proving beyond doubt that the injuries were much older. From all other reports, [Woodward] was a placid person.

Mommachrissie: Child abuse is a measure of immaturity and few coping mechanisms, not age. It’s just that younger mothers are more likely to be immature. Funny thing, that some of the most responsible mothers I’ve seen, though, have been teenagers. And some of the most horrid were “mature” by official standards of age and social respectability.

Sanf10907: After you have walked a baby, rocked a baby, fed it, burped it, sung to it and tried in every way to soothe it and it still yells and screams for hours and the neighbors were complaining to the landlord, it is pretty hard not to slap and shake it. All mothers have had those nights, even with a healthy baby. And if you are a young woman alone with the screaming baby, with no support and no witnesses, you want to scream yourself. It is pretty hard not to snap. I remember those times. It by the grace of God that I didn’t kill my own sometimes. By the way, they grew up just fine. Being at your wits’ end with a cranky baby is not a factor of age or education.

Jayne: You know, I’m the eldest of seven grandchildren. All my life there have been babies. I have cared for children since I was 10 years old, and I have two of my own. Even at 5 a.m., I never once felt like hurting any of them.

Compiled by AARON DAVIS