Wrongly convicted mother to speak about Shaken Baby Syndrome at Innocence Project event

WHAT: The Illinois Innocence Project will welcome Audrey Edmunds to the University of Illinois Springfield campus to tell the story of her exoneration for a conviction based on Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). In 1996, Edmunds was wrongly convicted of first degree reckless homicide after a child she was babysitting died in her care. Her conviction was later overturned after science proved her innocence.

WHEN: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Public Affairs Center (PAC), Conference Room G

DETAILS: Audrey Edmunds was a happily married young mother of two with a baby on the way; the neighborhood soccer mom in a small Wisconsin town provided casual childcare when the unthinkable happened. An infant died in her care at the same time the unknown science of Shaken Baby Syndrome was being accepted within the medical community. Based on the diagnosis of SBS by local doctors, Edmunds was accused of killing the child by shaking it to death. She was stripped from her children and husband and sent to prison where she would fight for freedom for 13 years before she was finally exonerated after updated science demonstrated her innocence.

Edmund’s story is similar to that of Pamela Jacobazzi who the Illinois Innocence Project is representing. Jacobazzi, too, was convicted of shaking a baby to death based on SBS, again at a time when there was limited awareness of questions about the diagnosis.

Edmunds’s story has been featured in many national newspapers and television programs. She recently released the book It happened to Audrey: A Terrifying Journey from Loving Mom to Accused Baby Killer and will have copies available to sign at the event.

Edmunds will also speak at U of I College of Law, 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. in Champaign, on November 13 at Noon.