Aisling Brady McCarthy
Aisling Brady McCarthy, an Irishwoman, was 34 in April 2013 when she was charged in Middlesex County, Massachusetts with the first-degree murder of 1-year-old Rehma Sabir. She had been the child’s nanny for six months and had been living in the Boston area illegally since 2002. The case drew international attention and was compared to the Louise Woodward case from 1997.
On January 14, 2013, Cambridge police found the baby unresponsive. She was taken to Boston Children’s Hospital, where doctors diagnosed bleeding in the brain and eyes and swelling of the brain. The child died on January 16, her first birthday. Brady McCarthy was charged with assault and battery, and then with first-degree murder. Some aspects of the case later raised questions about the evidence, including reports that prosecutors had withheld information, and that a medical expert suggested the child’s symptoms could have been due to an immune disorder known as Job’s syndrome. The child had a history of illness and earlier bone injuries, including spine fractures from a family vacation when she was not in Brady McCarthy’s care.
In April 2015, the medical examiner reversed the earlier homicide conclusion, saying the health problems and bruising could point to other explanations. In September 2015, after about 27 months in jail and a period of house arrest, all charges against Brady McCarthy were dropped because the state could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Brady McCarthy had overstayed her visa since 2002 and was arrested by U.S. immigration authorities, who allowed her to return to Ireland on her own rather than pursue deportation. In 2016, the child’s parents won a civil wrongful-death case for about $4 million, though they said they would not seek payment unless Brady McCarthy tried to profit from the media attention. Brady McCarthy lives in Ireland with her husband, whom she married in September 2012, four months before the child’s death.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 15:28 (CET).