A bloody pillow and blanket were found in the crib of a 1-year old baby who died of head injuries last week in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and police are looking at the infant’s nanny as a suspect.
34-year old Aisling McCarthy Brady, the baby’s caregiver, told police that Rehma Sabir was acting like her normal, happy self on the morning of the day she was hospitalized. Then, after lunch, Brady said, the baby suddenly slouched in her chair with a glazed look in her eyes and stopped communicating. Believing she was just tired, Brady put her in the crib for a nap. But when she returned a few hours later to check on Rehma, she said, the baby was stretched out stiff and was clenching her fists.
Brady’s story doesn’t quite match up with the story a concerned neighbor told police. The woman said she heard Rehma crying in the apartment for over an hour before the cries became urgent and distressed. She knocked on the door, but no one answered, and a few minutes later the cries suddenly stopped.
Baby Rehma was hospitalized that day for severe head trauma and later died. Upon an inspection of her bedroom, police found the pillow and blanket in the bed and bloody baby wipes stuffed into a diaper pail. Doctors say Rehma also suffered fractures in her left ulna, (elbow bone) her left tibia, (her shin bone) and left fibula, another leg bone, that were between two weeks and two months old. And according to a statement by the police, a telltale sign of damage was found in the baby’s room.
“We noted the wall directly next to the changing table had a piece of drywall/plaster missing … consistent with it being damaged by forceful contact with the corner of the changing table,’’ read the statement.
Depending on the results of an autopsy, Brady could be charged with murder. As of now, she’s behind bars on an assault charge.