Outline

Shaken:  A Diagnosis on Trial tells the true story of Stephanie Olsa, a suburban wife and mother convicted in 1997 of shaking a neighbor’s baby nearly to death. Shaken interweaves Stephanie’s story, the medical and legal history of SBS, and enough infant physiology to let the reader follow the action.

While I figure out how to publish, I’ve posted the first third of the book outline and a few chapters of different types. The full book proposal is available on request:  suelu at ix dot netcom dot com.

Prologue

 1.  ”I think she has a touch of the flu”

• The infant Dinah  seems to choke and quit breathing in the arms of an adult woman babysitter.

 2.  ”The most incredible thing has happened to my niece”

• The babysitter, Stephanie Olsa, is accused of shaking the infant.

 3.  ”California’s nightmare nursery”

• The history of child protection is shockingly short.

 4.  ”They must have got it wrong”

• The police question Stephanie.

5.  ”Never, not once”

• Child-abuse prosecutor Rob Parrish teaches at an SBS conference that the symptoms of an infant shaking are obvious immediately in all cases.

6.  ”My dad will raise whatever it takes”

• Stephanie gets feisty at the county jail.

7.  ”They must have found something at the hospital”

• A physician friend of the author’s provides an introduction to infant brain physiology.

8. “Why don’t you tell me everything that happened that day?”

• Stephanie meets her attorney, David Dodge.

 9.  ”On the theory and practice of shaking infants”

• Pediatric neurosurgeon A. Norman Guthkelch and radiologist John Caffey postulate infant shaking as a mechanism of producing subdural hematoma.

10.  ”There would be no interval”

• Dr. Dominic Sanfilippo testifies at the preliminary hearing.

11.  ”Whiplash injury and brain damage”

• The SBS research of the 1980s raises more questions than it answers.

12. “I told you not to take that baby back”

• Stephanie’s marriage feels the strain.

13.  ”No one would listen”

• The mother of a shaken infant tells how she was turned away twice at the ER over several hours before her son stopped breathing in the waiting room.

14.  ”Nobody can believe it”

• Stephanie’s first trial ends in a hung jury; a second trial is scheduled.

15.  ”The British nanny, it’s just like my niece”

• The Louise Woodward case bring SBS to national attention.

16.  ”It’s really interesting how it works”

• A neonatal intensivist explains run-away cerebral edema.

17.  ”It’s possible the emphasized point is inappropriately diversionary”

• The author begins reading the trial transcripts, despairs at the inscrutability of the medical testimony.

18.  ”After a variable time, the infant will develop signs of cerebral irritation”

• The author takes an SBS bibliography to the medical library.

And more.