Byline: JULIE WHEELWRIGHT

When I met Caroline Beale, the London civil servant who was caught in September 1994 at New York's JFK airport attempting to fly home with her baby's corpse, it was on Riker's Island. She was then facing a murder charge and had spent almost eight months in America's most notorious prison. I had already spoken at length to her family and friends, who assured me that Caroline was charming but very normal, even ordinary. My only other image had come from a television interview, where she appeared so shattered by fear and grief that she was rendered virtually speechless.

Neither expectation of Essex girl or victim proved accurate. Caroline appeared much younger than her age (she was then 30), almost endearingly naive and emotionally fragile. But she was normal enough that I struggled to match the softly spoken woman playing with her mike wire with the one who had notoriously traipsed through Manhattan carrying her baby's corpse in a bag like a tiny coffin.Whenever our interview skirted around difficult topics, words froze in mid-sentence, stuck fast in her mouth. Since my own daughter was born only four...