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Murder charges against Irish nanny dropped in Massachusetts Murder charges against Irish nanny dropped in Massachusetts
(34 minutes later)
Prosecutors in Massachusetts have dropped a murder charge against an Irish nanny charged with killing a one-year-old girl after a state medical examiner reversed an earlier decision that the death was a homicide. A murder charge has been dropped against an Irish nanny accused of killing a one-year-old girl in her care after a state medical examiner reversed a finding that the child’s death was a homicide caused by shaken baby syndrome, prosecutors announced Monday.
Middlesex district attorney Marian Ryan announced Monday that the murder charge against Aisling Brady McCarthy was dropped because a medical examiner issued an amended ruling changing the manner of death to “undetermined”. Aisling Brady McCarthy, 37, was charged with killing Rehma Sabir in Cambridge in 2013. McCarthy insisted she was innocent and her lawyers vigorously challenged the medical examiner’s findings that Rehma died of complications of blunt-force head injuries.
The state had earlier found the infant, Rehma Sabir, died of traumatic head injuries and that her January 2013 death was a homicide. In a written statement, Middlesex district attorney Marian Ryan announced that the murder charge was dropped because the medical examiner issued an amended ruling changing the manner of death to “undetermined”.
Her lawyers had challenged the medical examiner’s findings that Rehma died of complications of blunt-force head injuries. Ryan said the medical examiner found Rehma had past medical issues and may have had some type of undiagnosed disorder. Ryan said the medical examiner found Rehma had past medical issues and may have had some type of undiagnosed disorder.
McCarthy was arrested in January 2013 after the death of Rehma Sabir, who was hospitalised with severe head injuries on her first birthday and died two days later. “Based on an assessment of the present state of the evidence, including the amended ruling from the Medical Examiner who performed the autopsy, the commonwealth cannot meet its burden of proof,” Ryan said.
She was charged with murder in the death of Rehma in Cambridge in 2013 and was set free on bail in May as authorities reviewed the medical evidence. McCarthy came to the US about 13 years ago under a visa waiver program that entitled her to stay 90 days. She has been living illegally in the United States. It was not immediately clear if she would be deported. Her lawyers did not return calls seeking comment, but they planned a late afternoon news conference.
The baby’s parents, Nada Siddiqui and Sameer Sabir, told police McCarthy had been a nanny for their family for about six months. She spent almost 2½ years in jail until she was released on bail in May.
Immigration officials have said McCarthy is in the United States illegally after entering in 2002 from Ireland under a tourist program that allowed a 90-day stay. McCarthy had been Rehma’s nanny for about six months at the time she died in January 2013.
In the new ruling, the medical examiner said the decision to change the cause and manner of death came after additional materials were reviewed, including expert witness reports from both the defense and prosecution, additional transcripts of police interviews, transcripts of grand jury testimony, additional medical records and additional lab testing related to the girl’s death.
“These additional materials put forth several different and often conflicting opinions about the cause of Rehma’s death,” the report states, according to excerpts contained in Ryan’s statement.
“In particular the overall state of Rehma’s health and her past medical issues raise the possibility that she had some type of disorder that was not able to be completely diagnosed prior to her death,” the report states.
The report said that Rehma had a history of bruising and that she might have been prone to easy bleeding with relatively minor trauma.
“Given these uncertainties, I am no longer convinced that the subdural hemorrhage in this case could only have been caused by abusive/inflicted head trauma, and I can no longer rule the manner of death as a homicide,” the medical examiner wrote in the report.
“I believe that enough evidence has been presented to raise the possibility that the bleeding could have been related to an accidental injury in a child with a bleeding risk or possibly could have even been a result of an undefined natural disease. As such I am amending the cause and manner of death to reflect this uncertainty.”