LOUISE WOODWARD gained worldwide infamy six years ago as the cold-hearted “Killer Nanny” who shook an 8-month-old boy to death.
Now she has her heart set on a new life that many will find unnerving: doting and devoted mom.
Convicted of killing the infant son of two high-powered Boston doctors she worked for in 1997, Woodward today insists she’s a changed woman who’s supported by a loving boyfriend and is ready for motherhood.
“Hopefully, we will get married someday. And we want kids,” Woodward, now 24, tells the London gossip magazine Closer.
“Nobody who knows me and loves me believes I did it and that is important to me.
“I know that to some people I will always be a hate figure. But I also know that there will be plenty of people who will always be there for me.”
Thirty pounds lighter, the notorious Woodward is a far cry from the pudgy, pouty English teen who worked as a nanny for Drs. Sunil and Deborah Eappen and was convicted of murdering their infant son.
A jury determined that Woodward was guilty of purposely shaking little Matthew Eappen so violently that the tot slipped into a coma and spent four days on life-support before the plug was finally pulled.
Prosecutors said the then-19-year-old nanny was responsible for causing a 21/2-inch skull fracture in Matthew’s head and internal bleeding throughout his body.
In a sensational trial in Cambridge, Mass., that received worldwide attention, she was sentenced to life behind bars.
But in a controversial move, the judge in the case reduced her conviction to involuntary manslaughter after Woodward’s defense argued that a pre-existing medical condition may have led to Matthew’s death.
And after 279 days in jail, she was allowed to return to her hometown of Elton in northern England, where residents so firmly believed in her innocence that they created a Louise Woodward Defense Fund.
She has since enrolled in law school and obtained a degree.
WOODWARD says her world was in chaos – until she met Richard Colley, 31, a salsa dancing instructor she calls her “soul mate.”
“Sometimes if I was down, I wondered if I’d every find anyone. I can count the number of men I’ve slept with on one hand,” she tells the mag.
“And I would say I had only had two proper boyfriends until Richard – he’s the best ever and the most thoughtful, kind man I’ve ever met. I love him to bits.”
The feeling is mutual.
Colley said he’s not at all concerned about Woodward’s reputation.
“The fact she is Louise Woodward has never been an issue for me. I decided at the time of the trial that she was innocent and, knowing her like I do, I know she would never harm a soul,” he says.
“I asked her out straight away because I thought she was so beautiful – and a good mover.”
The two now share a house in Chester, close to where Woodward grew up.
Because of her criminal record, Woodward must still gain approval from Britain’s Law Society to practice as an attorney – and it appears there’s a good chance that will happen.
Her dedication to the study of law reportedly impressed members of the society’s Exceptional Applications Casework Committee.
Still the prospect of Woodward defending anybody has Deborah Eappen, who believes her former au pair slammed Matthew’s head against a bathroom wall, enraged.
“How can she be a lawyer when she is a convicted criminal? How? I’m surprised that this can happen at all,” Eappen, 38, told an interviewer last month.
And in a subtle slap at the Eappens, Woodward says while she wouldn’t think twice about hiring a nanny to take care of her own kids, “I’ll want to spend as much time with them as I can, so I probably won’t need one.”
ALSO concerned about Woodward’s new bid at respectability is Alison Mackay, Colley’s ex-lover and mother of their daughter, Georgia, 3.
Mackay has reportedly warned her former boyfriend that she never wants Georgia left alone with Woodward – even for a minute.
“Louise might be around, but Georgia is there only to be with Richard,” she told London’s Sunday People newspaper.
“I trust Richard and he is a good father, but there is an understanding that when Georgia visits it is to be with him.”
Still, Mackay insists, she has no animosity toward Colley’s newfound happiness.
“I am happy Richard is in a relationship. There is no animosity . . . We’re still friends,” she says, adding, “I don’t know Louise, so cannot say if this is the real thing.”
What does remain real is Deborah Eappen’s fury toward Woodward.
“She didn’t look scary to me. She didn’t seem like a child abuser, or a monster or a murderer. We had no idea that she would harm our kids,” Eappen said after the trial.
“These questions haunt us forever: How? What exactly happened? How long did Matty suffer? Why?”
She has also hoped that, somehow, Louise will get her comeuppance.
“I hope that there is justice eventually,” she said in a 2000 interview.
“Nothing will bring back Matthew, but the fact that she was set free is so disillusioning.”
During the trial, Woodward’s defense team hinted the Eappens themselves may have contributed to Matthew’s death – a charge that still irks her.
“They could have provided her with a defense without going to that level,” she says.
Woodward has never admitted any responsibility toward what happened, but did confess to the BBC in a 1998 interview: “Maybe I wasn’t as gentle as I could have been.”