He rocked a baby 37 years ago and now he would go to jail

American nanny charged with murder at 37 after violently shaking five-year-old baby month, and cause him irreparable mental damage which ultimately led to his death.

The event that marked the life of the victim, identified as Benjamin Dowling, occurred on July 3, 1984. On that day, the boy’s mother picked him up from the home of his caregiver, named Terry McKirchy, and noticed that his son had a limp fist and body. As a result, he took him to the hospital and there he was told that the boy had suffered a brain hemorrhage due to a strong shaking. It was a case of shaken baby syndrome, or abusive head injury, an injury suffered by infants when they are shaken vigorously and which can leave them with serious medical consequences and truncate their development.

Months later, the nanny, who was 22 at the time, was charged with attempted murder and aggravated child abuse. At first he faced a request for a sentence of 12 to 17 years, but this was later reduced after reaching an agreement with prosecutors. So he only had to go to jail on weekends for three months and serve three years of probation. “I know not, my conscience is clear, but I can’t take it anymore, I’m six months pregnant. I wouldn’t believe what this did to my family, ”McKirchy told the Miami Herald at the time.

Now, 37 years later, the woman faces a life sentence after being charged with first degree murder by a grand jury in Broward County, Fla., After coroners determined that the people injury led to Dowling’s death in 2019 at the age of 35. “The time between the injuries and the death of the victim was taken into account by the experts, who carried out the autopsy and decided that the death was directly caused by the injuries of 1984,” said the prosecution.

Without commenting on the arrest, Benjamin’s parents regretted in a statement the serious consequences suffered by their son, left in a state of total dependence after the shock. “He never crawled, he didn’t fully turn around, he never spoke, he never fed himself, he never enjoyed a burger or an ice cream, he could never us tell if it was itchy or something wrong. When he cried in pain, we had to guess what was wrong, ”they said.