The jury in the British au pair murder trial was sent to a hotel last night after failing to reach a verdict during five and a quarter hours of deliberations. The trial in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, court ended yesterday.
Ms Louise Woodward faces life imprisonment without parole if found guilty of first-degree murder of the nine-month-old baby in her charge. A finding of seconddegree murder would bring a mandatory life sentence with the possibility of parole after 15 years.
However, she rejected the prosecution's attempt to give the jury the choice of manslaughter if it refuses to convict her of first- or second-degree murder. Observers believe that a jury is unlikely to convict her on a murder charge.
The case has aroused huge interest in Britain where the court proceedings have been shown live on TV. In the US it has sparked off a debate on whether American parents are abusing the au pair system by leaving young girls in charge of babies all day.
The prosecution has maintained that Ms Woodward caused fatal injuries to Matthew Eappen by shaking him and slamming him against a hard surface last February. The prosecutor sought to portray Ms Woodward as a frustrated teenager more interested in having a good time and enjoying nightlife in Boston than in looking after two young children.
The defence case was based largely on medical evidence showing that the injuries from which the baby died may have happened several weeks before the alleged shaking incident on February 4th. Ms Woodward said that she had shaken the baby in a non-violent way when his breathing seemed to be impaired and he turned blue. She denied repeatedly that she had dropped the baby on the floor or that she was angry.