1994

AU PAIR HELD IN DEATH UNTRAINED IN CHILD CARE JOB APPLICATION CITES NO FORMAL INSTRUCTION
Washington Post-Tuesday, August 9, 1994

'EVERYTHING WAS GOING WELL' FOR AU PAIR IN LOUDOUN, RELATIVES SAY
Washington Post-Wednesday, August 10, 1994

AU PAIR TO STAY WITH VA. FAMILY BEFORE TRIAL
Washington Post-Saturday, August 13, 1994

ARLINGTON PROSECUTOR CALLED IN TO TRY AU PAIR DEFENDANT'S LAWYER ALSO REPRESENTS BURCH
Washington Post-Thursday, August 18, 1994

The 19-year-old Dutch au pair arrested Saturday in the shaking death of a Loudoun County infant had no formal training in child care and had not previously been a babysitter for a child younger than a few months old, according to her job application. But Anna-Corina Peeze, in an introductory letter to the Ashburn couple who hired her to care for their newborn son, wrote, "I like and love small children. ... My future plans are to have a great job with small children or become a great au pair."

Peeze was ordered held on $50,000 bond yesterday in the Loudoun County jail. She is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of 8-week-old Brenton Scott Devonshire, who doctors said suffered severe brain damage when someone violently shook his body the afternoon or early evening of Aug. 2. Peeze's attorney, Rodney G. Leffler, said Peeze denies shaking or otherwise harming the baby. Leffler has asked Judge Jean H. Clements to release his client pending trial, saying she is bewildered and traumatized by the arrest.

A hearing is scheduled for Friday. The baby's father, Stephen Devonshire, found the infant asleep in his swing when he arrived home at 4:20 p.m. last Tuesday, according to a criminal complaint filed in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. About two hours later, the child's mother, Sharon Devonshire, came home, then left with Peeze to go to the supermarket. At that point, according to the criminal complaint, Stephen Devonshire tried to wake the baby for his evening feeding. The infant responded lethargically and his skin felt unnaturally cool. The Devonshires consulted with a neighbor, then rushed their son to Fairfax Hospital, where he was placed on a life-support system.

Doctors said he was suffering from "shaken baby syndrome," an often-fatal condition in which the infant's brain is knocked against its skull. Brenton died late Saturday. The criminal complaint said that the Devonshires noticed unexplained bruising on Brenton's buttocks the week before the shaking incident and that on July 29 Peeze called Sharon Devonshire at work to say Brenton was "crying excessively." Dana Friedman, co-president of the Families and Work Institute in New York, said the case underlines the need to better screen and train those who take care of children. "Child care in this country is a crap shoot. It's really the luck of the draw," Friedman said. She added that anyone trying to become a nanny or au pair should have to take a course in child care, "to learn the developmental stages, to learn how to deal with screaming, crying babies."

Au pairs are young adults from Europe who come to stay with American families for as long as a year. They baby-sit and do housework 40 to 45 hours a week, in exchange for room, board and about $100 a week. No specialized training is required, but applicants are expected to have worked with children before. Although nanny agencies, whose employees are more experienced and often better trained, have questioned au pairs' credentials, proponents of au pair programs say they match a growing need for affordable child care with the desire of young Europeans to see this country. The number of au pairs in the United States climbed from 300 in 1986 to 8,000 in 1992. About 1,200 au pairs work in the Washington area.

Peeze was hired through ASSE/EurAupair, of Laguna Beach, Calif., one of eight agencies licensed by the U.S. government to recruit au pairs. Neither officials at the company nor their Washington-based attorney returned phone calls yesterday. According to Peeze's job application and letter, she began babysitting at age 12. She lived alone with her parents in Amsterdam before coming to the United States on July 19 to work for the Devonshires. In the Netherlands, Peeze had completed secondary school and worked for three weeks in a retirement home.

She has no relatives living in the United States, although her father and cousin arrived Saturday shortly before her arrest and are staying at a local motel. Her father, Stephan Peeze, said last night the first thing his daughter said to him when he visited her in jail was: "Daddy, I didn't do anything." He said that when he spoke to his daughter by phone shortly after she arrived in the United States, she said everything was going well. Alan Carter, an executive with a Vermont-based company that recruits au pairs, said accusations of misconduct by au pairs are extremely unusual.

Au pair agencies generally check references and interview candidates extensively to make sure they are suited for the job, Carter said. "It's just tragic," said Jean Lynn, a Capitol Hill mother of two who hires teenagers every summer through a Michigan program for live-in help. "You always have in the back of your mind how fortunate you are that nothing like this has ever happened. You do everything you're supposed to do -- check the references, ask the appropriate questions. Nothing is foolproof, I guess."

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.
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A day or two after his 19-year-old daughter left the Netherlands and began her dream of working as an au pair in this country, Stephan Peeze picked up the phone to see how she was doing. Anna-Corina Peeze told him that the Ashburn couple who hired her had greeted her warmly. They lived in a lovely house with a big garden, she said, and they seemed impressed that, on her first night there, she woke up as soon as the baby cried. The infant's father, Stephen Devonshire, "loved it that she was so fast -- that she had the instinct to do this immediately," Stephan Peeze said.

Peeze, 55, a former gas station attendant who lives on a disability pension, did not speak to his daughter again for two weeks, until he arrived at Dulles International Airport on Saturday after being told she was in trouble. She was crying and shaking, Peeze said. Eight-week-old Brenton Scott Devonshire was dying in a hospital 15 miles away, and authorities were finalizing plans for her arrest. "Daddy, I didn't do anything with the baby," Peeze remembers her saying. "I don't know what's going on." Police say that on Aug. 2, two weeks after she began caring for Brenton, Anna-Corina Peeze shook the infant violently enough to damage his brain fatally. The injury allegedly occurred in the afternoon, as Peeze spent the day alone with the baby in the Devonshires' house.

Brenton was on a life-support system for four days before he died. The Devonshires' attorney yesterday declined a reporter's request to interview the couple and would not discuss the events leading up to the baby's hospitalization, saying it would be inappropriate during the criminal investigation. Peeze's attorney turned down a request to interview her at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center, where she has been held since her arrest late Saturday. But in an interview with a Dutch newspaper that was to be published in the Netherlands today, she said Brenton started crying in his crib in the morning on Aug. 2, while she was in the shower, and continued crying after she changed his diaper, offered a pacifier and made other attempts to calm him.

"He didn't stop crying, whatever I tried," Dutch journalist Harry Lensink quoted her as saying. Lensink accompanied Peeze's father and cousin on a visit to the Loudoun jail to see her late Monday night. Peeze, a high school graduate who baby-sat frequently back home but has no formal child care training, did not explain what eventually quieted the baby, who police say was sleeping when his father arrived home at 4:20 p.m.

Her lawyer said she denies doing anything to harm him. To those who have studied child abuse, the chronology fits the pattern of "shaken baby syndrome," in which a baby is shaken hard enough to bruise his brain against the skull. Most cases occur when parents or caretakers grow frustrated after hours of trying to quiet a screaming infant. The baby then often falls into a sleeplike stupor, during which the brain bleeds and swells dangerously.

Stephan Peeze and his niece, who spoke for two hours with a Washington Post reporter after leaving the jail, said it is unimaginable that Anna-Corina would have harmed the baby or failed to seek medical help if she had noticed something wrong with him. "When she was in Holland, she was so very sweet with our children," said the 35-year-old niece, Ada Kelder, a mother of two. "If something had happened to the baby, Anna would have called the doctor or brought the baby to the hospital." Kelder also said that when she telephoned the Devonshires' home two days before Brenton was injured, Sharon Devonshire answered and told her that Anna-Corina was doing fine. "I said, 'How is she?' " Kelder recalled. "She said she was happy, sweet for the baby. She thought everything was going well."

According to court papers, the Devonshires noticed unexplained bruises on their son the week before the shaking, and Peeze called Sharon Devonshire at work that week to say the infant was "crying excessively." The case has drawn widespread media attention in the Netherlands, according to Peeze's attorney, Rodney G. Leffler. He said he received 10 calls from Dutch journalists yesterday asking where citizens could donate money for Peeze's legal costs. Peeze, charged with involuntary manslaughter, is being held on $50,000 bond until a hearing Friday. Leffler has asked a judge to reduce the bail. Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.
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AU PAIR TO STAY WITH VA. FAMILY BEFORE TRIAL
By Debbi Wilgoren Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 13, 1994 ; Page D03

A Dutch au pair charged last week in the alleged shaking death of an infant was released yesterday from the Loudoun County jail on $10,000 bond after an unidentified family volunteered to house her until she is brought to trial. The family, which has lived in Loudoun for 19 years, has been host to international exchange students over the years and wanted to do something to help Anna-Corina Peeze, 19, her lawyer said.

The family has opened its home to her relatives as well. It is one of many gestures of support that Peeze (pronounced PAY-zuh) and her family have received since she was arrested Aug. 6 and charged with involuntary manslaughter. A Dutch native who lives in McLean volunteered to be her interpreter. Several Northern Virginia families offered to let her stay in their homes. People in the Netherlands, where the case has drawn widespread media attention, have donated thousands of dollars to her family, the Dutch media have reported. "There are no words," Stephan Peeze, the woman's father, said through the interpreter. "They have made possible that which I have not dreamed of."

Peeze, a former gas station attendant who is in poor health and lives on a disability pension, flew here with a niece last Saturday. He said he must return to the Netherlands briefly to be with his wife, who is also ill, but will use the donated funds to rejoin his daughter. Just before noon, Anna-Corina Peeze emerged on the courthouse lawn, dressed in her own clothes instead of an orange prison jumpsuit for the first time since Sunday. Her father threw his arms in the air and ran to greet her. They embraced, sobbing, surrounded by a clutch of American and Dutch photographers and camera crews. "I'm very glad that I can close her in my arms, that she will be with me and my niece," Stephan Peeze said. His daughter made no comment, on the advice of her attorney, Rodney G. Leffler.

Yesterday, a preliminary hearing in the case was scheduled for Aug. 31. Prosecutors said they will present testimony from at least one doctor from Fairfax Hospital, who examined 8-week-old Brenton Scott Devonshire Aug. 2 and diagnosed massive brain injuries. Police say that Brenton was asleep when his father returned home from work and that the father did not notice anything amiss until he tried to wake the baby for a bottle two hours later. The infant had been in Peeze's care for two weeks.

Stephen and Sharon Devonshire, who moved to the rapidly growing Ashburn section of Loudoun from Pennsylvania about a year ago, have declined to speak with reporters. EurAupair, the California-based group that hired Peeze, has refused to discuss how she was screened for employment. But according to forms obtained yesterday by The Washington Post, the company had little information about her child-care experience. People who provided references were asked whether Peeze had cared for their children or whether they would trust her to do so, but not for the ages of their youngsters or the amount of time Peeze had spent with them, according to a copy of Peeze's application released by the U.S. Information Agency, which oversees au pair programs. Nowhere did the application delve into how Peeze might care for an infant of 6 weeks, Brenton Devonshire's age when she arrived in his home.

After yesterday's hearing, a Loudoun detective, Jay Merchant, approached the only Dutch reporter who has interviewed Anna-Corina Peeze and handed him a subpoena. Harry Lensink, of the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, spoke with Peeze briefly Monday, when he accompanied her relatives to the jail for a visit. Lensink quoted her as saying that the baby cried for a long time on the day of the alleged shaking and that several attempts to calm him failed. Now the prosecution wants to present that information in the preliminary hearing. Lensink, a graduate student here for a summer internship, said he would consult with his employer about how to deal with the summons.

Loudoun investigators have been unable to interview Peeze, in part because the Loudoun Department of Child Protective Services, which is required to notify law enforcement authorities immediately in cases of suspected criminal child abuse, did not contact the sheriff's office for more than 36 hours after the case was reported. By that time, Peeze had an attorney. On his advice, she refused to answer questions. According to sources close to the case, Child Protective Services has begun an internal investigation. Robert Chirles, county social service director, would not comment, citing confidentiality rules.

Staff writer Michael D. Shear contributed to this report. Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.
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ARLINGTON PROSECUTOR CALLED IN TO TRY AU PAIR DEFENDANT'S LAWYER ALSO REPRESENTS BURCH
By Debbi Wilgoren Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 18, 1994 ; Page V02

An Arlington prosecutor has taken over the case against a Dutch au pair charged with manslaughter in Ashburn, because the suspect's lawyer also is representing Loudoun Commonwealth's Attorney William T. Burch Jr. in an unrelated misconduct probe.

Loudoun officials said it would have been a conflict of interest for Burch's deputy to face off against defense attorney Rodney G. Leffler in the au pair case at the same time that Leffler was defending Burch in the other matter. Instead Barbara Walker, deputy commonwealth's attorney in Arlington, will work with Loudoun sheriff's deputies to try to prove that Anna-Corina Peeze, 19, shook 8-week-old Brenton Scott Devonshire Aug. 2, fatally injuring him.

Peeze was arrested Aug. 6 and charged with involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. She was released on $10,000 bond and is staying with an unidentified Loudoun family. Leffler said Peeze has denied harming Brenton, who had been in her care for two weeks. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 31. The Peeze case is expected to last well past the Sept. 23 Virginia State Bar hearing in which Leffler will defend Burch against charges that he ignored evidence and told a witness to conceal information in a 1987 shooting.

Burch's accuser is William Douglas Carter, a former telecommunications executive from Middleburg who was convicted of the near-fatal shooting of his ex-wife, then acquitted four years later after a judge ordered a new trial because Burch allegedly ignored key evidence. Carter lodged a complaint with the State Bar, which investigated last year and decided the case warranted a hearing. Burch, who denies wrongdoing, waived the normal procedure of appearing before a State Bar committee in confidential proceedings and asked to have the case decided in public before a three-judge panel. The panel will consist of Circuit Court Judge Perry Sarver, of Winchester, and retired Circuit Court judges Lewis H. Griffith, of Fairfax County, and H. Selwyn Smith, of Prince William County. Burch said he expects to be cleared and wants his exoneration to be public. If he is found to have acted wrongly, the State Bar could repri- mand him or suspend or revoke his law license.

In the meantime, Arlington's Walker will prosecute Peeze, who came to Loudoun from Amsterdam to work as an au pair. Walker's job may have been made tougher by a breakdown in communication between Loudoun's Child Protective Services and the Sheriff's Department, officials acknowledged this week. Although Child Protective Services was notified shortly after Brenton reached Fairfax Hospital that the child likely had been shaken -- a criminal offense -- the agency waited about 36 hours to notify the Sheriff's Department. As a result, sheriff's investigators did not speak to Brenton's parents, Stephen and Sharon Devonshire, until Aug. 4, two days after he allegedly was shaken. And when Detective Jay F. Merchant tried to question Peeze Aug. 4, she already had consulted a lawyer and refused to answer questions.

"The fresher a crime is, the easier it is to investigate," said Sheriff John R. Isom. Isom said detectives are building a strong case against Peeze, but added that so far it is based on forensic evidence -- the condition of Brenton's body -- rather than on Peeze's account of what happened. "These forensic cases are difficult to prove to a jury. We knew that going in," Isom said. He added that his department had consulted with Child Protective Services about the incident and that "we've taken steps to make sure it doesn't happen again." Robert Chirles, the director of the Loudoun Department of Social Services, which oversees Child Protective Services, said the caseworker spent a day gathering facts about the case and ensuring that Brenton's injuries did not appear accidental before notifying authorities.

"She acted in good faith," Chirles said. He declined to identify the caseworker. "In hindsight, we might have made the call sooner to enable the sheriff's office to proceed more quickly with their investigation." Chirles said that the error affected only the criminal investigation, not the fate of Brenton Devonshire. "In terms of the safety of the child, his wellbeing, the call {to the sheriff's office} had no impact," he said.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.

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