Baby 'beaten to death by her nanny' may have been abused for weeks: Family speak of their desperate sorrow



Aisling McCarthy Brady, 34, is accused of killing one-year-old Rehma Sabir

In custody on $500,000 (£316,048) bail after being charged



Brady was hired six months ago when Rehma's mother went back to work

Physicians at Children’s Hospital Boston found evidence of leg and vertebrae fractures that were healing

'Something has happened to her brain’ - anguished text message of dead baby’s uncle



The British baby allegedly battered to death by her nanny may have been abused for many weeks, it emerged yesterday.

Tests on Rehma Sabir’s body showed up injuries that were still healing when she died in an American hospital on her first birthday.

Aisling McCarthy Brady, the child’s 34-year-old Irish carer, has denied violently assaulting her two days earlier.

Parents: Rehma Sabir's mother was Nada Siddiqui, 29, left, a Princeton University-educated financial analyst and her father was Harvard educated Sameer Sabir, right

Family apartment: The building where Rehma Sabir lived in Boston and was cared for by nanny Aisling McCarthy Brady

Rehma’s parents – entrepreneur Sameer Sabir and his wife Nada Siddiqui – were yesterday said to be in ‘unimaginable pain’ at their home in Boston, Massachusetts.



Brady was charged by district attorney Gerry Leone, who oversaw the murder prosecution of British au pair Louise Woodward in 1997.

Accused: Aisling McCarthy Brady, 34,

The nanny, who has a history of violence and was living in the US illegally, could also face a murder charge once the results of a post-mortem examination are known.

Prosecutors say Rehma suffered a violent assault that left spinal injuries ‘consistent with the slamming of a child’.



She was taken to hospital with multiple fractures, bleeding behind her eyes and swelling on her brain, dying two days later.

New court documents gave chilling details about the alleged crime, which left bloodstains all over Rehma’s bedclothes.

According to police, a dent in her bedroom wall suggested it had been ‘damaged by forceful contact with the corner of the changing table’.

The prosecutor’s statement details scans showing up long bone fractures on the baby’s left forearm and left leg, along with compression fractures on her spine.

The report says: ‘The fractures appeared to be two weeks to two months old on initial impression’.

Mr Sabir’s parents were visiting from his childhood home in Thornton Heath, Surrey, on January 14 when Rehma allegedly suffered the injuries in the sole care of Brady.

They and other relatives from Britain are comforting the 34-year-old and his 29-year-old wife, who is an investment banker.

Mr Sabir worked in London for JP Morgan and Commerzbank Securities before moving to the US in 2006 and enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.



He later set up – and then sold to a rival – a company specialising in a pioneering skin graft technique.

In a statement, the Middlesex District Attorney said the family needed ‘time and space to properly grieve’.



It added: ‘The family of this child is going through unimaginable pain and suffering and their well-being remains a priority for us.



‘Very few can fully understand the sorrow and pain that they are enduring, and we all need to allow them the appropriate time and support they require to cope with this tragedy.’



Partner: Brady, got married in September to Irish national Don McCarthy, 38

Union: Aisling Brady McCarthy smiling for a photo on her wedding day last year

A former South London neighbour of the family said last night: ‘Rehma was the first and only grandchild. We are all so shocked. We cannot understand how this has happened.’



The newly-released court documents give Brady’s version of events for the first time.

She says she arrived at Mr Sabir’s apartment at 7.50am on January 14 and that Rehma woke up at 8.15am and was ‘cranky as usual’.

Mrs Siddiqui appears to have left for work at 9.30am and Rehma slept until 1pm and was given lunch, which was a few spoonfuls of potatoes, eggs and some baby formula.



Brady describes Rehma as a ‘fussy eater who sometimes held food in her mouth for up to an hour’ so she stepped out for a moment and came back to find her ‘slouched’ in her high chair with her eyes half open.

She put her down for a nap and woke her up at 4.15pm when she was having an apparent seizure.

Even though Rehma’s fists were clenched and her limbs were stiff she seemed limp, Brady told police, so she called the emergency services and went with her to the hospital.



It is during the ‘nap’ that investigators say Brady inflicted the ‘abusive’ injuries.

Last night it also emerged Brady was in charge of a second child that day as part of a nanny share.



The seven-month-old boy was dropped off at around 12.30pm and Brady told his parent that Rehma was sleeping. He was unharmed.

Brady entered the US in 2002 on a 90-day tourist visa and has been living there illegally ever since.

She has had two restraining orders taken out against her, the second of which was last March. She has also been accused of assaulting a woman in 2007.

Grave claims: Aisling McCarthy Brady, 34, is accused of hitting a one-year-old girl who was in her care in the head, which resulted in her death

Despite this she is said to have turned her life around after meeting decorator Don McCarthy, 38, an Irishman from Coachford, Co Cork, who had relocated to the US.

The pair married in a church in Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, last September.

A 'CONSTELLATION' OF INJURIES

The injuries suffered by Rehma were so extensive doctors described them as a ‘constellation’ of wounds.

The one-year-old was admitted to the Children’s Hospital Boston with massive brain injuries.

But medics also found fractures to her elbow, shin and another leg bone – all between two weeks and two months old. Her spine had multiple compression fractures.

Prosecutors were quoted by the US media as saying: ‘Dr Alice Newton, the medical director of Children’s child protection team, diagnosed Rehma as a victim of abusive head trauma given the constellation of injuries and the absence of a history of major trauma such as a high impact motor vehicle collision.’

Friends of Brady, who is originally from Lavey, just outside Cavan in County Cavan, have begun rallying to support her and have set up a Facebook page.

She was defended last night by David Furey, an ex-lover she split from in acrimonious circumstances.

He told the US media: ‘She always took care of kids. She was always good with kids. She always played with them, danced along with them - she was a bit of a bigger kid herself.

‘She just didn’t grow up. Her bosses always loved her. She worked every day. She loved kids.

‘I was very shocked to hear that on the news. I do believe that she’s innocent but will have a tough time proving it because of her bit of history.’

Mr Furey added: ‘I heard she got married and was doing good.’



Meanwhile long-time family friend and neighbour Sameena Chaudhary said last night that Mr Sabir's parents Naveed and Seema are by his side in Boston.



They travelled to America to celebrate their grand-daughter's first birthday.



Sameer's brother Osman was at their home in the UK when he was told about what had happened.



Mrs Chaudhary, who lives across the road from the Sabirs' south London home, said: 'His parents phoned and told him to take the next flight to Boston because the baby was not well and was in hospital.



'Osman texted (a) friend and said 'Something has happened to her brain.'

'The family of this child is going through unimaginable pain and suffering and their well being remains a priority for us.'



TIMELINE OF EVENTS ACCORDING TO POLICE FILES

7.30am

Rehma’s father Sameer Sabir left home to take his in-laws to the airport, then went straight to work. 7.50am

Ms McCarthy Brady arrived at the house at

8.15am

Rehma’s mother Nada woke her baby 9.30am

Rehma’s mother went to work

8:30-9:30am

Police were told that a neighbour heard a baby crying in the apartment, starting just after 8.30am and peaking at around 9.30am with ‘extreme crying’.

‘By 8.36am, [the neighbour] could hear the baby crying inside. The crying continued and at around 9.30am, the crying changed to extreme crying.’

1pm

The documents state that in both her interviews Ms Brady told police she fed Rehma lunch at around 1pm, but then noticed she had slouched in her chair with her eyes half-open.

4pm

After 4pm, the nanny told police she ‘became concerned’ that Rehma was still sleeping and she put on the lights in her room to wake her.



Court papers, seen by the Irish Daily Mail, show why Boston police believed there was reason to charge the 34-year-old – who has been working illegally in the US for years – over Rehma’s death.

Officers investigating the death also found a bloody pillow and blanket in the child's cot and bloodstained baby wipes, the ‘Statement of Probable Cause’ in the case claims.

The papers state that Ms McCarthy Brady was, by her own admission, the only person in charge of Rehma at the time of her fatal injuries.



The nanny has said, through her lawyers, that she is completely innocent and has never harmed a child, nor would she do so.

She insists she put Rehma to sleep after lunch and only became aware of a problem three hours later when she could not wake her.



However, the police file states that the injuries sustained by Rehma were consistent with ‘abusive head trauma’, but the child was healthy and well when she was left in Ms McCarthy Brady’s care at 9.30am by her mother Nada Siddiqui.



Nobody else saw Rehma in the flesh until the emergency services were called at around 4.30 that afternoon.

The nanny herself told officers that Rehma was well and happy until 1.30pm, when she came over tired and was put back to bed.



However, detectives pointed out a discrepancy in her account of the day between her first and second police interviews.

And in the absence of any other explanation for the injuries, the investigating officer concluded:



‘Based on my training and experience and conversations with the medical team... I believe I have probable cause to believe that Aisling McCarthy Brady committed the crime of assault and battery on a child causing substantial bodily injury.’



The documents set out clearly for the first time the apparent timeline of events on January 14, the day of Rehma’s first birthday.

Futile efforts: The child was rushed to Children's Hospital in Boston suffering from a devastating head injury and bleeding from the eyes, and she was later pronounced brain dead

'DEFENCE ATTORNEYS LIKE TO SEE OLD INJURIES'

Louise Woodward at her trial in the 1990s

'Defense attorneys like to see old injuries' said Dr. Eli Newberger, a pediatrician and founder of the child-protection program at Boston Children’s Hospital to Boston.com. 'It introduces the idea of another person.'

Mr Newberger was involved in the widely publicized trial in 1997 of British au pair Louise Woodward. The 19-year-old was accused of killing eight-month-old Matthew Eappen while he was in her care in his home in Newton, Massachusetts.

Upon learning of an old wrist injury Matthew Eappen, her defence team raised the possibility that a previous major injury caused a brain trauma, but the devastating effects took weeks to show.

Jurors convicted her of second-degree murder, though a judge later reduced the verdict to manslaughter. Woodward was deemed the 'most notorious criminal convicted in Massachusetts' by Boston law magazine Exhibit A ten years after the death.



The Statement of Probable Cause says that Rehma’s father Sameer Sabir left home at 7.30am to take his in-laws to the airport, then went straight to work.

Ms McCarthy Brady arrived at the house at 7.50am and Rehma’s mother Nada woke her baby at 8.15am.



Nada and the nanny then sat together and fed her blueberry oatmeal, although Ms MCarthy Brady told officers the child had awoken ‘cranky as usual’.



The infant’s mother told police that she went downstairs but returned shortly afterwards to find Rehma crying.



Nevertheless, she went to work just before 9.30am. Police were also told that a neighbour heard a baby crying in the apartment, starting just after 8.30am and peaking at around 9.30am with ‘extreme crying’.

At this point the neighbour became so concerned that she hammered on the door: however Ms McCarthy Brady, who – according to the statements given – would by this stage appears to have been the only adult there, did not answer.

The documents state: ‘By 8.36am, [the neighbour] could hear the baby crying inside.



The crying continued and at around 9.30am, the crying changed to extreme crying.’



After her knocking got no response, the neighbour went back to her own home.



‘From her apartment, she heard the baby cry for ten more minutes,’ prosecutors wrote.



‘It started to slow and settle down before stopping completely.’



No other adult saw or held Rehma until that afternoon, the police say – although she was later observed sleeping on a baby monitor.

Various other people were in the apartment, including the parent of another baby who Ms McCarthy Brady also looked after during the day.



Police say that, in her first interview, Ms McCarthy Brady said that this second child was brought after Rehma had had lunch.



However, in her second police interview she allegedly said that the other child was brought in before lunch, as Rehma was still asleep.

The documents state that in both her interviews Ms Brady told police she fed Rehma lunch at around 1pm, but then noticed she had slouched in her chair with her eyes half-open. Ms McCarthy Brady told officers she therefore put Rehma back to bed.

Troubled past: Brad had been accused of assaulting a friend and harassing her ex-boyfriend and a rival nanny



Sometime after 4pm, the nanny told police she ‘became concerned’ that Rehma was still sleeping and she put on the lights in her room to wake her.

When this had no effect, she and another person who had recently arrived went into the room.



Ms McCarthy Brady told police that she then noticed Rehma was clenching her fists and that her arms and legs were stiff: when she picked her up, the child was limp.



She fetched a wet cloth and put it on Rehma’s head.



In the following moments, the records appear to show that Rehma’s father was contacted, and that he told them to dial 911, and that Rehma’s mother returned from work.



The next day, the records state, police returned to the house.

DAVID FUREY'S AFFIDAVIT: On March 20, 2005 the defendant intimidated a lady friend of mine for speaking with me and told her to keep away from me or she was going to get hurt.

My friend Caroline laughed at her and then she threw an empty beer bottle at her missing her face. The bouncers then escorted her from the premises.

In May 2009 she made a threatening phone call to another female friend saying to stay clear of me as I belonged to her this person has now left the country. In April of this year she slander another girlfriend calling her a home wrecker and saying that she stole her husband and she was going to pay.

She told me in I think it was April or May of 2009 that I was making her life hell and that she was going to make my life a living hell, and since then every female I talk to gay or straight get abuse from talking.

On mid-June 2005 the defendant attacked me in a bar room for talking to a lady friend. This time hitting me and scraping me in the face with closed fists and her finger nails repeatedly.

I'm afraid of the day that it's going to be a beer bottle she hits me with or worse.

OLIVE SCANLON'S AFFIDAVIT:

On or about 5th August 2011, the defendant texted me and accused me of taking her student that was arriving from Ireland in a week.

Sat. 6th Facebook page set up in my name

Sun. 7th Facebook page taken down

Monday 8th text msg from Aisling Brady saying sorry about Friday text msg and she tried to call me, but I didn't answer her call.

Thurs. 29th Sept. there was a posting on a web site called ******* saying she saw me abusing the kids in the playground.

Monday 17th Oct. 9:20 p.m. a marriage councilor called me to make an appointment.

Aug. 25th Magazine arrived in my name.

Sept. 18th she harassed me in front of the Irish student that were leaving to go home.

Nov. 1st My boss Michael got a harassing phone call about me.

Nov. 2nd she tried to call me and I didn't answer.

Thurs. 1st March call from ****** called to make funeral arrangement.

Monday 5th March ****** called me to make funeral arrangement.



They noted, ‘The wall directly next to the changing table had a piece of drywall/plaster missing and the corresponding remnants were on the floor.

The location of the missing drywall was consistent with it being damaged by forceful contact with the corner of the changing table.’

Police added the parents said they had not seen the damage before and did not know why it had happened.



Rehma died in hospital the following day, January 16.



State police say that on January 17, the day after Rehma died, they inspected the bedroom and found the bloodstained items in the room and in the cot.



When the investigative team went back to the apartment with a chemist from the crime lab on the second occasion, the bloodstained items were discovered.

Police state: ‘Observed during that search were baby wipes, found discarded in the “Diaper Genie” next to the changing table, with red-brown stains that tested positive in the screening test for blood, as well as a blanket and pillow in the crib in the same room with red-brown stains that tested positive in screening tests for blood.’

Grief: Flowers addressed to the parents of Rehma Sabir are seen in the entryway of their apartment building in Cambridge, Mass

The parents told troopers they did not know why the bloodstained items were in the room, the records state.



A post-mortem found that Rehma had been subjected to severe trauma, the documents state.

Ms McCarthy Brady’s lawyer Melinda Thompson, has said her client had no role in the baby's death.



She said the nanny of 18 years would 'never hurt a child'.

According to the lawyer, the child has traveled all over the world, and that 'anything could’ve happened' during those visits overseas.

After a lengthy trip to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the child was 'very sick' and diagnosed with malnutrition, Thompson said.



Arrest: Brady, seen in the back of a squad car, was arrested and charged in connection to Rahma's death

Legal process: Defense attorney Melinda Thompson addresses the judge at the arraignment of Aisling McCarthy Brady in Cambridge District Court, in Medford, Mass., on Tuesday

Ms McCarthy Brady has no criminal convictions but has had two restraining orders filed against her at Dorchester District Court, in Massachusetts in recent years.

It is understood the nanny was married in Massachusetts last September to Donald McCarthy,38, a painter originally from Cork.

As recently as last year, Olive Scanlon, a nanny from Dorchester, got a restraining order against Brady.



According to court records, Ms McCarthy Brady allegedly set up a fake Facebook account with Scanlon's name and used it to harass the woman's employer.



Scanlon also claimed that Ms McCarthy Brady wrote on a Boston parenting website that she saw her rival 'abusing the kids in the playground,' and contacted funeral businesses to get them to offer Scanlon flower arrangements.

In 2007, the Irish immigrant got into an altercation with a friend after the two came home from a bar, and the women ended up biting one another. Assault charges were later dropped against the pair.

Character witness: Neighbor Tommy Collins described Brady as a hot-headed and aggressive woman

Two years prior, Ms McCarthy Brady 's former boyfriend, David Furey, got a restraining order against the woman, claiming that the hot-headed Quincy resident attacked him in a bar 'for talking to a lady friend,' hitting and scratching him in the face.

According to Furey's affidavit, Brady also told him that she would make his life 'a living hell.'



'I'm afraid of the day that it’s going to be a beer bottle she hits me with or worse,’ he wrote in the affidavit obtained by WCVB.

However, this week Furey told the Herald that despite his history with Ms McCarthy Brady , he believes she is innocent in little Rehma's death.

'She always took care of kids. She was always good with kids. I was very shocked to hear that on the news today,' he said. 'I do believe that she’s innocent but will have a tough time proving it because of her bit of history.'

Furey added that during her time in Quincy, she has always worked hard as a nanny and her 'bosses always loved her.'

Native land: Aisling McCarthy Brady's family home in Lavey, County Cavan, Ireland, where the nanny lived before coming to the U.S. in 2002 on a now long-expired work visa

Yesterday Fr Kevin Fay, priest in Lavey, Co Cavan in Ireland where Ms McCarthy Brady was raised with her family of nine brothers and sisters, said they were well-known and respected.



He added: 'Allegations are allegations - there's no foundation to them, no foundation at the moment to any of them.'



A local man, who knows the family well but did not want to be named, spoke of the shock in the community in Lavey.



'Aisling was a brilliant person, like the whole family,' he said.

'Everybody is in shock. Nobody in the area would believe it. There's great respect for the family, everyone in the area has



But other people who who knew Ms McCarthy Brady in Ireland, have described her as aggressive and violent.

Neighbor Thomas Collins told the Boston Herald than when he heard that the woman worked as a nanny, it even crossed his mind to tell her employers about her past.



Collins, an ironworker, said that he has lived above Brady and her new husband for at least five years on Beale Street, during which time he has got into numerous confrontations with her.

'She's all 90lbs and she'd literally be in my face yelling at me,' Collins said.

Immigration authorities said Brady arrived from Ireland in 2002 and was only permitted to stay for 90 days, but never left.

ICE spokesman Ross Feinstein said Ms McCarthy Brady will be turned over to immigration authorities after the local case is adjudicated, and she could be deported back to Ireland.

A spokeswoman for Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said: 'We are aware of the case and have been in contact with the family.'

Rehma Sabir was the daughter of Sameer Sabir, 34, a London-born, Harvard and MIT-educated businessman who started a company in medical technologies.



In a 2011 profile on the entrepreneurship site TiE Boston, Sabir was described as the CEO and co-founder of MoMelan Technologies, a Cambridge-based medical device company focused on the development of minimally invasive approaches to skin grafting for acute and chronic wounds.

Sabir was born in London and completed his undergraduate degree in immunology at University College of London. He later was hired by JPMorgan's Health Investment Banking practice and continued working in the sphere of finance for six years.



In 2006, Sabir moved to Cambergide, Massachusrts, to enter Harvard-MIt Biomedical Enterprise Program, earning an MBA from MIT Sloan and a Master of Scienece degree from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Duing his studies, Sabit took a course with Dr Rox Anderson, an inventor of laser hair removal who came up with a novel approach to skin grafting.



When Sabir graduated in 2009, he and his professor launched MoMelan Technolgoeis, which in 2011 received a $750,000 award from the Mass Life Science Center.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Rahma's mother, Nada Siddiqui, 29, is a Princeton University-educated financial analyst.

Siddiqui Graduated from Princeton in 2004 with Bachelor of Science and Engineering degree majoring in operations research and financial engineering, with a minor in finance.

She was hired right out of college by industry giant Wellington Management first as a research assistant, then as an equity research associate.



In August 2001, she was promoted to global industry analyst specializing in American and European auto suppliers, trucking and shipping companies.



It is believed that Brady was hired by the family six months ago when Rehma's mother decided to go back to work.



Dao Lee, a local Laundromat owner who would often see Brady with little Rehma, told the Boston Globe that the nanny seemed very attentive to and protective of the child, whom he described as very well-taken-care of and showing no signs of distress on their daily walks.