Dead Only Days After Her Adoption – The Story of Elsie Scully-Hicks

Dead Only Days After Her Adoption – The Story of Elsie Scully-Hicks

“I was just changing my daughter for bed, and then she went all floppy and limp, and now she’s just not—she’s not doing anything. She’s lying on the floor.”

“Okay, you with her now, sir?”

“I am.”

“How old’s your daughter?”

“Um, she’s 18 months.”

“Okay, is she awake?”

“No.”

“Is she breathing?”

“No.”

The story I have for you today is one about a man who was horrible and abusive, but he disguised himself so well to everybody around him—including his husband—that’s until one day he went too far and killed his beautiful baby girl, and everyone around him found out the monster he really was. This is the story of Elsie Scully-Hicks.

Elsie Scully-Hicks was born on November 17, 2014, in Wales, United Kingdom, and she was actually born with the name Shayla O’Brien. Her birthmother had used drugs throughout her pregnancy with Elsie, so she had actually been taken into State care shortly after her birth. Elsie was said to be a very happy, smiley child; she loved having the attention of the entire room, and she always had a smile on her face. Elsie was said to be a very fabulous little girl.

Now, even though Elsie’s mother had used drugs during her pregnancy, Elsie was born healthy, and shortly after she had been taken into State care, she was placed into her first foster home. Elsie’s biological family, including her mother and grandparents, would continue to visit her every week while she was in foster care, and they said that they even tried to gain custody back of the little girl the entire time up until she was adopted.

In September of 2015, Elsie was placed with new foster parents—foster parents who had actually adopted her older sibling and wanted to ultimately adopt her as well. These new foster parents were a married couple named Matthew and Craig Scully-Hicks. Matthew and Craig had met in 2006 while both were living in Swindon, Wiltshire, where Craig was a nightclub owner. The two would start a relationship two years later, in 2008, and then they relocated to South Wales, where they planned their wedding, and they would tie the knot in Portugal in August of 2012.

The couple had discussed having children early on in their relationship, and they decided it was something that they both wanted. So, while they didn’t care if they adopted a boy or a girl, the pair hoped for a baby so they could see and witness as much as they could: the first steps, the first words, their first day of school. And coincidentally, the month that the pair first applied to adopt—November of 2014—is when Elsie was actually born.

After they had applied, Matthew and Craig were subjected to a home check, a background check, personal references, and more, and everything checked out. The men looked like they would be fit to be great parents. It had previously been decided by the couple that Matthew would be the one to give up his full-time job while Craig maintained his job as an accounts manager. Matthew had previously been a fitness trainer.

In September of 2015, the smiling 10-month-old girl named Elsie would then be placed into Matthew and Craig’s home, and they would officially adopt on May 12, 2016.

So, after Elsie was placed into Matthew and Craig’s care, the home seemed to always be filled with love and happiness. Elsie’s new daddies adored her, and Craig said that she was his little princess. While she was known to be fussy at meal times and bedtime, she was a happy baby otherwise. Elsie was tiny and delicate, but was also said to have a brash and bouncy personality.

So even though Elsie was a happy and healthy little girl, she had been slow to reach some of her developmental milestones. By the time she was 18 months, she was not yet walking, and every time that Craig and Matthew had tried to get the little girl to walk, she became completely rigid and would refuse. So either she had absolutely no confidence in herself, or it hurt her when she walked.

A social worker had been going to the home at least every month to check on Elsie since the time she had been placed with Craig and Matthew. They would continue these visits up until the time that she was adopted in May of 2016. None of these social workers ever noted anything to be wrong in the home; Matthew and Craig, in their eyes, were the perfect parents.

Then, on November 5, 2015, Elsie suffered a leg injury while Craig was at work and Matthew was home in charge of the children. Elsie was taken to the doctors four days later, and x-rays at the hospital revealed that she had broken her right tibia above her ankle. Matthew said that he had seen Elsie fall while she had been standing at an activity table that was located in the kitchen, and that’s how she sustained the injury. He told doctors though that she may have fallen while she was standing there, or she might have fallen while she was pushing the table like a walker. Either way, she had twisted her leg in the process.

A little over a month after this injury, on December 16, Elsie would sustain a massive bruise to the left side of her forehead. Craig was again at work, and Matthew was watching the children. This time, Matthew claimed that Elsie was pulling herself up onto her toy kitchen, holding the doors, and when the doors opened, she went face first down into the edge of the toy. The thing was, the bruise on her face was vertical, but given the way Matthew said she had fallen, the bruise should have been horizontal. And even though this bruise was said to be massive, there was no medical treatment sought, though a health visitor a few days later, on December 21, would advise Matthew that he should get Elsie some treatment, and he lied and said that he had.

Then another month later, on January 18, 2016, Elsie suffered another bruise to her head; this one was partially overlaying the older one, so Matthew would later claim that he didn’t even notice the new bruise. Okay? And it again happened while Craig was at work and Matthew was home with the children.

Then on March 10, Craig received a phone call while he was at work from his husband saying that he was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital with Elsie because she had fallen down the stairs. Craig was working in Leicester at the time, which is about a four-hour drive from where the family lives in Cardiff, but regardless, he immediately dropped what he was doing, got in his car, and drove back to Cardiff to meet Matthew at the University Hospital of Wales.

Matthew had called 999 to request an ambulance that day, and he told the operator that Elsie was unresponsive, and while waiting for the ambulance she had vomited a number of times.

“Can you tell me exactly what’s happened?”

“My daughter’s fallen down the stairs, she’s not responding to me, she’s—”

“Okay, you with her now?”

“Yeah.”

“How old is she?”

“She’s one.”

“Elsie?”

“Elsie.”

“And what caused the fall?”

“I didn’t push the gate closed properly and she fell down.”

“Elsie, Elsie, is she responding to your voice at all?”

“Her eyes are opening, and they’re rolling around. I think she’s looking at me now, but she’s not moving.”

“Okay. And can you see any obvious injuries there?”

“I can’t see anything. She’s like—she’s responding when I touch her, like her eyes are opening more, she’s just not moving.”

“Okay, look—oh my God, she’s being sick.”

“Okay, she’s being sick.”

“I just need you to just clear her airway, okay?”

“Yep, I’ve got her on her side. Oh, there’s a bit of blood in there as well.”

“Get it out. Get it out.”

“It’s okay. Okay, tell me exactly what happened.”

“I was just changing my daughter for bed, and then she went all floppy and limp, and now she’s just not—she’s not doing anything, she’s lying on the floor.”

“Okay, you with her now, sir?”

“I am.”

“How old’s your daughter?”

“Um, she’s 18 months.”

“Okay, is she awake?”

“No.”

“Is she breathing?”

“No.”

“Listen carefully, okay? I’m telling you how to give mouth-to-mouth with her head carefully tilted back, pinch her nose closed, and completely cover her mouth with your mouth, then blow two regular breaths into the lungs about one second each, just enough to make the chest rise with each breath. All right? So do those two breaths for me now.”

“Yep.”

“All right, tell me when you’re done.”

“Done.”

“Did you feel the air going in and out?”

“Yeah, I saw the chest go up.”

“Okay, oh my God.”

“Right now you’ve done those two breaths, those are 30 pumps—1, 2, 3, 4—oh God, you’re doing really, really well, we’re coming on lights and sirens, okay?”

“Oh my God.”

“We’re almost with you, okay? I’ll tell you when to go open the door, but don’t stop what you’re doing for the moment, okay?”

The injuries to Elsie’s body were thought by doctors to be consistent with the story that Matthew gave about her falling down the stairs, and after only four hours of observation, she was allowed to go back home. Matthew told everyone that when this accident had happened, he had actually been sorting out laundry in his bedroom with Elsie sitting on the floor. He then had to go downstairs for a few minutes and he decided to leave Elsie up there. He then closed the baby gate on the way down the stairs. However, when he was about to go back up the stairs, he noticed Elsie sitting right there at the top, and this time the gate was somehow open. He said the toddler then fell head over heels all the way down the stairs.

The following month, in April of 2016, the family moved to a big, beautiful four-bedroom home in Llandaff, Cardiff. Within 10 days of the family’s move, Elsie had developed a small squint to her left eye. Her parents were concerned about it, and she was taken to the doctor, but the doctor apparently didn’t think it was anything serious or noticed that anything was off because at the time he said that the toddler was happy and normal.

Now, on May 25, 2016, for most of the day Elsie appeared to be happy and well. She attended a toddler gym class that morning, played on swings at the local park, and then she had gone shopping with her dad for a dress to wear to her adoption party that evening. After finishing dinner around 5:45 p.m., Elsie walked hand in hand with Matthew to the living room so that he could change her diaper and put her pajamas on. After changing her, Matthew briefly went back into the kitchen to dispose of the dirty diaper.

When he went back into the living room, it was then that Matthew noticed something was wrong with his daughter. Elsie was laying in a similar position to where he had left her on the floor, but when he walked in, she did not respond like she normally would do. As he got closer, he noticed that she was completely unresponsive, and had called 999 for an ambulance. Paramedics and police arrived to the scene to find that Elsie was not breathing and in cardiac arrest.

At the time, Matthew supposedly told a paramedic when nobody else was listening—and he would later deny this—that Elsie had screamed out in pain, then she had collapsed. At Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales, where Elsie had been brought, Matthew would tell doctors about his version of what had happened to her: that he had found her unresponsive after only being out of the room for a couple minutes, but had heard no loud bang, no crying, nothing.

A pediatrician spoke to both Matthew and Craig while their daughter was being resuscitated, and the pediatrician would later say that while Craig was very visibly upset and crying, Matthew seemed way too calm.

Then four days after Elsie had been brought to the hospital, on May 29, 2016, she died after the decision was made to turn off her ventilator.

A postmortem examination of the little girl’s body found that Elsie had previous and recent bleeding on both sides of her brain. She also had hemorrhages in both eyes, rib fractures, a fractured left femur, and a fracture to her skull. It was also noted in her autopsy that the leg fracture Elsie had sustained in November was not just one fracture, but actually two fractures. The missed fracture had been right above her knee, and had this been seen, Social Services would have been notified right away, as it is extremely unusual for two breaks to occur from one fall, especially in a baby.

It was determined that Elsie had suffered from cardiac arrest and had been hit with a blunt object; she had then died from lack of oxygen to her brain. A pathologist said that her injuries were that typically seen in a shaken baby, and her leg injuries looked like those sustained in major trauma incidents like a car accident.

And it for some reason was not until about a month later, on June 27, that Matthew Scully-Hicks was officially interviewed by police, and then in December Matthew was arrested on suspicion of Elsie’s murder, as it was clear that these injuries had not been accidental.

And just days prior to Matthew’s arrest, Craig had confronted his husband after they had received back the medical examiner report in regards to Elsie’s death. Matthew continued to deny that he had done anything to the little girl, but the reports did not lie. Completely shocked and in utter disbelief that his husband had been the one to do this, Craig ended the marriage.

Now, Craig was devastated, not only because his daughter Elsie had died, but also because the man he had loved had committed such a horrific crime. Craig had never, ever suspected that Matthew would do anything even close to this. Matthew had always been quiet and well-mannered, Craig claimed; the person who did this, he said, had no resemblance to the man that he married. And a judgment would officially exonerate Craig from any blame in his daughter’s death, with the judge finding that he did not fail to protect Elsie because even though Craig had wondered why Elsie had so many accidents, especially compared to her sibling, multiple professionals had accepted all of Matthew’s excuses for Elsie’s injuries. So who was Craig to not accept them as well?

Now, the odd thing was that Elsie seemed to be bonding with Matthew; she didn’t even show any fear of him, she would gladly go to him.

During police’s investigation, they examined the electronic devices belonging to Matthew, and they found multiple messages making it clear that Matthew was struggling to cope with caring for the children on his own. In one message sent 11 days after Elsie had been placed with the family, Matthew said that she was having a proper “diva strop,” which is slang for a bad mood. Matthew would say that she would always throw tantrums when she didn’t get her way, and this seriously irked Matthew—yeah, that’s literally a toddler’s approach to life, though.

He also sent a text message at one point saying, “I’m going through hell with Elsie. Meal times and bedtimes are like my worst nightmare at the minute. She’s been up there screaming for 10 minutes nonstop.” In another message, he described Elsie as a “psycho” and “Satan dressed up in a baby grow.” One day when Matthew had been asked by a friend how he was doing, he replied back in text saying, “Yo, yo, well on the whole it was okay, minus lunch and tea time when she turned into Satan. Then again at bedtime, she screamed in her cot for 10 minutes.”

In October of 2017, Matthew Scully-Hicks would go to trial. The prosecution believed that Matthew had killed his daughter by gripping her hard by the ribs and squeezing; he then shook her and struck her head. It was said in court that Elsie had been likely shaken so violently that her head had rocked backwards and forwards, so that her head flexed all the way down to her chest and then all the way back again.

Prior to his trial, Matthew had actually been examined by two psychiatric experts, and it was found that he did not suffer from any psychiatric illness or personality disorder, and he actually had no criminal past.

When the text messages that Matthew had sent were brought up in court and he was questioned about them—specifically the one where he called Elsie Satan—Matthew said it was just “text talk” and taken out of context with other messages in the conversation. I don’t know what just “text talk” means, but Matthew was also asked if he could provide any explanation for Elsie’s injuries; he simply replied, “No.” Matthew then offered the same answer when he was asked if he had caused her injuries. He insisted he had told the truth about what had happened, so Matthew maintained throughout the trial that he was not to blame, he had never done anything to even hurt Elsie.

But neighbors of Matthew and Craig had spoken up. They said that they would hear Elsie crying at times, as well as Matthew screaming, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut the f*** up!” On one occasion, he even screamed, “Shut up, you little fing brat!” and “Shut up, you silly little c!”

Though it was unclear exactly what had happened to Elsie on the day she collapsed, the defense had some theories. Matthew’s lawyer tried to say that the girl’s rib fractures were caused by CPR, but a doctor would testify that while CPR could cause rib fractures, not in the place that Elsie had suffered hers.

The defense also claimed that Elsie’s bone fractures could have been caused by a lack of vitamin D or rickets, which left her bones weaker and more susceptible to break. A witness for the defense, Professor Michael Holick, who is an American endocrinologist, gave evidence via video link from Boston; he said that he believed Elsie was deficient in vitamin D and showed signs of possibly having rickets. He said that he had looked at Elsie’s x-rays that had been taken in November of 2015.

A bone and joint pathologist, however, said that there was nothing at all to suggest that Elsie’s bones were anything but healthy. He said that when he had looked at her bones under a microscope, he had found no evidence of vitamin D deficiency or rickets. How two medical professionals can have such a different opinion on the same thing is actually kind of scary.

Another witness for the prosecution, Dr. Sarah Harrison, said that there was no evidence at all that Elsie had bone disease, and Dr. Harrison also said that she had never seen fractures like that in the bones of a child, only in an adult. In her opinion, these injuries were definitely the result of some kind of trauma.

Matthew was questioned about the accident that had happened shortly before Elsie’s death, when she had supposedly fallen down the stairs. He was asked why he had left her unattended at the top of the stairs like he had said, and it was also pointed out that even with the gates shut, there were large gaps in the banister that Elsie could have fallen through and gone down the stairs. Matthew said he didn’t consider this.

The defense’s medical experts said that Elsie’s injuries were consistent with the fall down the stairs, but the prosecution strongly disagreed, not believing that Matthew’s accounts of what had happened to Elsie added up.

Later in the trial, the jury was read statements from friends of Matthew which described him as an honest, loving, and calm man. His friends said that Matthew was the kind of person to go out of his way to help anyone, he was never angry, and one of his friends even said that they were impressed with Matthew’s patience and ability to play with his children. I’m sorry, I don’t care how good of friends we are, if you have all this evidence against you looking like you murdered a child, I am not going to say that you’re a good person in court. No, no.

The jury would not deliberate long before they unanimously found Matthew Scully-Hicks guilty of murdering Elsie only two weeks after officially adopting her. He was then sentenced to serve at least 18 years behind bars before he is considered for parole.

Now, Elsie’s biological family was only told about her death seven months after it happened. Many of them showed up to Matthew’s trial, and Elsie’s biological grandmother would reveal in her Victim Impact Statement that she had fought to become the legal guardian of the little girl, and she had already adopted two of Elsie’s older siblings. She said that Elsie was very much loved by the family and wanted, however Social Services had decided that she was to be adopted out somewhere else.

And at least three different Social Service agents had gone out to the home 15 different times from the time that Elsie was placed with the Scully-Hicks to the time that she died, but none of them had ever noticed any signs of abuse. Due to this, an extended child practice review was ordered to be done. It would find that the professionals who had seen Elsie’s injuries lacked professional curiosity, as they had all accepted Matthew’s answers for what had happened. The men had been perceived as very positive parents for the child, and given how strongly this view was held, the injuries that Elsie had sustained were never considered to be anything more than mere childhood accidents. The conclusion of this review was that some systems and practices need to be improved—yeah, you think? Social Services also offered an apology to Elsie’s biological family.

Well, thank you for listening to all of Elsie’s story today. I wish there was more to the story; I tried to find something about her funeral or any memorial events that were dedicated to her, however I could not find anything. This little girl had multiple serious injuries within the first few months that she lived with the Scully-Hicks, but medical professionals didn’t do their jobs. Had they, Elsie might still be alive today.

And it’s always so scary to hear about a person such as Matthew who seems so loving and so caring, and then without warning they turn into a monster. It makes me wonder if there were any missed red flags—there was nothing ever said about Elsie’s sibling being hurt, so why Elsie?