Late last year Whittle was convicted in their brutal injuries and sentenced to life in an Arizona prison, serving consecutive maximum sentences which add up to no possiblity for parole.
The prosecution's case hinged on two factors: one was an "earwitness," a woman with a prior theft conviction whose own children had been involved with the protective services system, who claimed that on the night Anthony Whittle was rushed to Valley Hospital with seizures, she overheard Whittle tell her husband, Anthony Whittle Sr., "I think I shook him too hard this time."
The other factor was the contention that even though Elizabeth was living in a one bedroom apartment with the quadruplet infants, her husband, her brother, her mother, and her six year old daughter, Erika, who has Down's Syndrome, that Elizabeth was the only person with opportunity to have committed these horrendous acts of abuse.
In the course of the testimony, the prosecution and defense called a number of expert witnesses, among them, social services and mental health professionals who had worked with Elizabeth and her family.
A social worker who visited Elizabeth in the hospital two days after she delivered the quadruplets testified that Elizabeth seemed withdrawn. When she asked Elizabeth how she felt, Elizabeth replied that she wanted to kill herself, but then quickly dismissed the ideation as a joke. The social worker's notes also included reference to Elizabeth's diagnosis with bipolar disorder.
The social worker's notes contained no mention of referrals to follow up services to regulate Elizabeth's bipolar medications, which she said she had not taken in the last three months of her pregnancy, or to observe and treat her for possible post-partum depression.
The defense case rested on the theory that others could have harmed the infants. Others were present much of the time at the family's tiny home. Because there was no forensic evidence linking any other individual to the abuse, Elizabeth Whittle was found guilty.
On a recent Dateline interview, Elizabeth unwaveringly maintained her innocence of causing any harm to her children. The point here is not whether she is guilty or innocent of the abuse. If she is guilty, surely bipolar mood swings played a large part in her inability to cope. Yet with the intense media coverage, scrutiny by social workers who had claimed even before the children were born that they doubted Elizabeth's emotional strength to deal with four infants, I found no mention on any news report or website I found of any attempt to treat Elizabeth's underlying mental disorder.
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