Court documents reveal baby Rehma’s last few hours
Emergency services were called to her parents’ home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just after 4.20pm on Monday, Jan 14. When they arrived, the 1-year-old was found breathing but unconscious. As she was rushed to hospital she stopped breathing for up to five seconds at a time and her heart stopped for brief periods.
Over the next two days, as well as making all attempts to save the baby’s life, doctors carried out a barrage of tests which showed she had suffered, among other things, bleeding of her brain and her eyes and “massive” brain swelling. Scans revealed she had a number of “healing fractures” including spinal compression fractures, and fractures of her elbow, shin, and calf bone. It was estimated those fractures were between two weeks and two months old.
She was later found to have also suffered bruising behind and on top of her ear, on her buttocks and around her shoulder blades.
Two days after she was rushed to hospital, the infant was pronounced brain dead.
For the previous six months, Rehma had been looked after by her nanny, Aisling McCarthy Brady while her parents worked.
The “statement of probable cause” reveals that, earlier on Jan 14, Rehma’s father, Sameer Sabir, had left home at about 7.30am to take his parents-in-law to the airport before going to work.
Ms Brady arrived at 7.50am and the child’s mother, Nada Siddiqui, went to wake Rehma at 8.15am. It is claimed Ms Brady said Rehma was “cranky as usual”. After the two women fed the child, the mother left and walked downstairs but came back when she realised Ms Brady had inadvertently brought a neighbour’s newspaper upstairs. When she re-entered the apartment, Rehma was crying. She left for work again shortly before 9.30am and called her husband at 9.37am.
During interviews with police, Ms Brady said that after Ms Siddiqui left for work, she played games with the baby for about 30 minutes and that Rehma appeared to be her usual self. However, the nanny said the child began to get “whiny” so she put her in her crib for a nap.
A group of people arrived at the apartment at midday and could see the baby was sleeping on the baby monitor so they did not go to her bedroom. Another person who “nanny-shared” with the Sabirs arrived to drop off her seven-month-old just before 12.30pm. The unidentified group went for lunch.
Ms Brady said that, at 1pm, while playing with the other baby, she heard Rehma stirring and saw on the monitor that the child was sitting up and that her eyes were open. She said she put the other child down for a nap in the spare room, not Rehma’s room.
She said she took Rehma out of her cot and sang to her, that the child seemed happy, and was making normal eye contact. Ms Brady said she put the child in her highchair for lunch, that Rehma was a fussy eater but ate two to three spoonfuls of potato and eggs before being given a bottle which she held and drank from herself.
The nanny said she went to get herself a fizzy drink and a bar and when she returned Rehma was slouched in her chair with her eyes half open. Ms Brady said she believed the child was tired so she put her back into her crib.
At 3.45pm, Mr Sabir rang to check on his daughter. Ms Brady said she told him Rehma had napped from 10am-1pm and was sleeping at that point. The other child’s mother returned to pick him up just before 4.15pm. Ms Brady told officers that Rehma was still sleeping and she was a little concerned about that.
The other mother did not go into Rehma’s bedroom. At that point the unidentified group of people returned from lunch. Ms Brady said she then went into the bedroom, turned on the lights, and turned up the music to try to get Rehma to wake up on her own. She said Rehma was grinding her teeth, something she had not seen before. She spoke with one of the others about the afternoon and she said a member of the group went to get the child up.
Ms Brady said she noticed Rehma was clenching her fists and that her arms and legs were stiff. Rehma appeared limp when Ms Brady picked her up. The other person took Rehma and brought her to the living room. Ms Brady got a wet cloth and put it on the child’s head.
The other person, a male, rang the child’s father. He rang back and told them to ring 911. At the same time, Nada Siddiqui returned home and was buzzed into the apartment. Ms Brady met her on the stairwell and told her Rehma was not waking up. She called 911.
Information was then given on evidence provided by a neighbour about what she witnessed on the day in question. The woman said she was doing laundry and walked past the kitchen door of the Sabirs’ apartment. She said by 8.36am she could hear the baby crying inside. She said the crying became “extreme” at about 9.30am.
She went downstairs and knocked on the front door of the apartment for about 90 seconds, timing her knocks between the baby’s gasping so they would be heard by someone inside.
When the knocks went unanswered, she went back upstairs to her own apartment where she heard the baby cry for 10 more minutes. It then slowed and stopped completely and she did not hear the baby cry after 10am.
Police went to photograph the Sabirs’ apartment on Jan 15. They noted that plaster had been knocked from the wall beside the baby’s changing table and the corresponding remnants were on the floor. They said the location of the missing plaster was consistent with it “being damaged by forceful contact with the corner of the changing table”. A parent told the officers damage had not been there earlier and they did not know how it happened.
During a subsequent visit by officers to the apartment on Jan 17, baby wipes found in a nappy bin next to the changing table and a blanket and pillow in the crib were found to be stained with blood. The parents said they did not put them there nor knew how they got there.
An expert told police that Rehma had been a victim of “abusive head trauma” including injuries “caused by violent shaking, as well as impact to the head either by directly striking the head or causing the head to strike another object or surface”.
The injuries were such that the child would not have been able to track people with her eyes, sit on her own, play with toys, hold a bottle, drink a bottle, or eat food.
In the conclusion of the statement of probable cause, investigators said they believed Ms Brady had been responsible for the “substantial bodily injury” because, according to all witness interviews, including with Ms Brady herself, she had sole custody of and contact with Rehma after 9.30am until she was found seizing in her crib at 4.30pm.
“By Ms Brady’s own account,” they said, “Rehma continued to play, eat, track her with her eyes, and appear otherwise happy and normal at least until the 1.30pm feeding.
“Based on this reported history, the fatal injuries were inflicted sometime during or after this feeding and prior to finding Rehma seized in her crib at 4.30pm.”
This is the second time in 15 years that a European nanny has been implicated in the death of a Massachusetts baby.
In 1997, English nanny Louise Woodward was found guilty by a jury of the second-degree murder of Matthew Eappen at his parents’ home in Cambridge, the same area where the Sabirs live.
X-rays on the eight-month-old showed his injuries had been caused by sustained violent shaking and a blow to the head, which had resulted in a skull fracture and bleeding behind the eyes.
The judge overturned the murder verdict and found the then 19 year-old guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He sentenced her to the time she had already served in prison — 279 days — in effect releasing her immediately.
Matthew Eappen’s mother Deborah was interviewed by the Boston Herald yesterday. She said: “I feel such sympathy for the family and so sad that this continues to happen. It’s horrific and devastating and unpredictable and such a violation of trust.”
The assistant district attorney who prosecuted Louise Woodward was Gerald Leone. He is now the district attorney whose office has charged Aisling McCarthy Brady with causing the injuries sustained by 1-year-old Rehma Sabir.
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