The parents of Mathew Eappen, the baby whom Louise Woodward has been convicted of killing, refused to comment after the news of the sentence was announced yesterday. Drs Debbie and Sunil Eappen left their home in Boston with their new-born baby son, Kevin, and three-year-old son, Brendan.
Matthew Eappen had lived for only 262 days when his parents, both medical doctors, took the heart-breaking decision to take him off the life-support machine at Boston Children's Hospital.
Deborah and Sunil Eappen married in 1990 after meeting at medical school in his native Chicago, where his father is a paediatrician.
When the couple's first son, Brendan, was born in May 1994 they decided not to have a full-time carer but to take on an au pair, while Deborah Eappen continued with her part-time career as an ophthalmologist and her husband worked as an anaesthetist at a Boston hospital.
They took on Louise Woodward - their fourth au pair - in November 1996.
Matthew's mother, a 32-year-old graduate of the University of Illinois, had returned to work in September after the baby's birth the previous May.
She admitted the couple's hectic life-style was a "balancing act", juggling their professional careers and home life with two children.
The two doctors had finishing their training only two years before. Deborah Eappen, one of seven children whose parents are a teacher and a nurse, passed up a chief residency at the New England Medical Centre and a fellowship at Boston's Children's Hospital because she was pregnant with Matthew.
Instead she took on her part-time job, leaving her more time with the children.
Her job, five minutes from the couple's home, involved eight-hour shifts, three days a week.
Following the tragedy she received hundreds of letters of condolence. But she also became the target of hate mail which accused her of being responsible for her son's death. It has been commented that the couple put ambition ahead of their children's welfare.
One commentator said Dr Eappen had been "transformed by personal tragedy into a public symbol of maternal neglect and yuppie greed".
Yet all the evidence was that she lavished attention on both her sons and gave detailed instructions about their care.
The couple's separate testimonies about the moment of their son's death as he lay in hospital with irreversible brain damage moved many in court to tears.
They both told how, with close relatives and a priest gathered round, they played children's music and prayed. Then each held the little boy before his respirator was switched off.