Finally, Louise Woodward saw firsthand the yellow ribbons and "Justice for Louise" banners that have bedecked this quiet village for so many months. But the streets were empty - contrary to expectations that hundreds would line the roads to welcome her home Thursday.
Declaring the Woodward family needed privacy with their daughter, convicted of manslaughter in the death of an 8-month-old baby in her care, villagers went about their business as normal - or as normally as possible with dozens of reporters and TV crews around.Christine Gray, a member of the committee campaigning for Woodward's freedom, said residents wanted to avoid the champagne street celebrations so criticized when a Massachusetts judge reduced the au pair's conviction from second-degree murder to manslaughter in November, sentencing her to the 279 days she already had served.
"I just feel very happy and I feel tearful," Gray said. "It's been a privilege to have been able to help an innocent girl."
Woodward flew into London's Heathrow Airport and rode 180 miles to Manchester to hold a news conference. She proclaimed she didn't get a fair trial in the United States and that she has no plans to sell the story of her conviction in the death of an 8-month-old baby.
"I'm very pleased to be home, back on English soil - I've really missed the place," Woodward said at the news conference, where she thanked her supporters and maintained her innocence in the face of her Massachusetts manslaughter conviction.
"I feel great sorrow for the death of baby Matthew (Eappen)," she said, looking nervous as she faced a barrage of cameras. "But like I've said time and time again, I had nothing to do with his death."
Woodward, 20, then traveled the last 30 miles to Elton in a mini-van with her parents at her side.
She walked up the drive to the family home, where her younger sister, Vicky, stood in the doorway. They hugged and went inside for a private moment before coming back out to pose for a pool of photographers.
A "Justice for Louise" poster was still visible in a downstairs window.
Woodward still has a lingering connection to the United States: a civil lawsuit and a judge's order limiting what she can do with her money.
A federal judge on Wednesday said the parents of Matthew Eappen had a strong wrongful-death case against Woodward and issued a temporary injunction prohibiting her from spending any money she earns from selling her story.
"We're going to do everything we can to ensure Louise Woodward does not become a millionaire because she killed an 8-month-old baby," said Frederic Ellis, the lawyer for Sunil and Deborah Eappen.
The order by U.S. District Judge William Young also applies to Woodward's parents and anyone representing her. Young said he could extend or repeal the injunction after 12 days.
Meanwhile, a review of recent research on shaken baby syndrome lends support to prosecutors who argued that baby Matthew died after his head was shaken or knocked against a hard surface by Woodward.
The report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine contradicts the defense argument that an earlier head injury caused no symptoms for up to three weeks, then suddenly began to re-bleed, leading to the baby's death.
In children with severe head injuries, "there is no evidence of a prolonged interval of lucidity between the injury and the onset of symptoms," four University of Pennsylvania researchers wrote.
"Thus an alert, well-appearing child has not already sustained a devastating acute injury that will become clinically obvious hours to days later," the researchers wrote.