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Three weeks before Hurricane Katrina catastrophically changed New Orleans in August 2005, 25-year-old Tiffany Woods gave birth to her fourth child prematurely, a baby boy she named Emmanuel Scott. During his stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), little Emmanuel tested positive for a rare genetic abnormality, but sadly, crucial follow-up testing hadn’t been done before the hurricane hit. Months after the passage of the hurricane, Emmanuel had sadly died & first responders immediately saw just how malnourished he was.
This case raises a number of questions: Where is the line between criminal neglect & a tragic mistake? How much responsibility should parents carry during the crisis of a natural disaster as well as during the aftermath? And finally, did the justice system unfairly punish two young evacuees?
This is the story of baby Emmanuel Scott, one that despite the passage of more than two decades, still divides people.
While growing up in New Orleans East, Tiffany Woods dropped out of high school only months before graduation after giving birth to her first child. After three healthy pregnancies, she realized she was pregnant with her fourth child who was due in 2005.
She went to the hospital two months before her due date when she began bleeding heavily, a time when she later told doctors that she hadn’t been receiving prenatal care. She also admitted to drinking the occasional beer during her pregnancy as well as using marijuana.
At the time, Tiffany was in a common law relationship with 18-year-old Emmanuel Scott & the couple had a young daughter together. She also had two sons from another father & they were all living together in New Orleans.
While a typical pregnancy lasts 40 weeks, baby Emmanuel was delivered prematurely via C-section at 31 weeks & 3 days gestation on June 23, 2005 as a result of placental abruption. This is the sudden separation of the placenta from the uterus. Little Emmanuel was born exactly two months before Hurricane Katrina began forming as a tropical depression over the Bahamas.
At the time of his birth, he weighed 3 pounds, 2 ounces & according to medical records, he was dehydrated. After he was resuscitated, a breathing tube was inserted. Based on a routine screen, his blood was drawn so doctors could screen for genetic abnormalities & diseases.
Emmanuel’s screen for MCAD or medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency, came back positive. Many countries, including the U.S., screen for MCAD deficiency at birth using a heel prick to take the baby’s blood.
MCAD is a rare inherited metabolic disorder that prevents the body from breaking down medium-chain fatty acids & turning them into energy. If left untreated, MCAD deficiency may lead to a severe lack of energy, tiredness, liver disease, coma & other serious health issues. It can also cause dangerously low blood sugar levels, otherwise known as hypoglycemia.
Infants diagnosed with MCAD deficiency require frequent feedings that provide adequate calories from carbohydrates to maintain blood sugars & avoid hypoglycemia. Babies under four months old require feedings every two to three hours & by one year of age, fasting time can be gradually increased to up to twelve hours.
Because blood testing isn’t foolproof, although Emmanuel’s MCAD screen came back positive, he required follow-up testing at a biomedical genetic lab to confirm the diagnosis. In the meantime, he spent 41 days in the NICU, a time when staff fed him a specialized formula on an around-the-clock schedule. On his discharge, a doctor wrote in Emmanuel’s chart, Good luck with this one, he is very CUTE.
As Tiffany Woods was preparing for baby Emmanuel’s discharge, staff taught her how to care for her premature infant. However, the discharge papers said nothing about frequent feedings & she claimed that hospital staff had also made no mention of it. Prosecutors later argued that she had been instructed properly, but had failed to follow through.
At the time of his discharge in early August 2005, three weeks before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, Emmanuel weighed 5 pounds, 6 ounces, having gained two pounds during his time in the NICU, reaching the 10th percentile growth curve.
Tiffany took her baby to the pediatrician for a follow-up appointment & vaccines days later & she had a follow-up appointment to meet with a genetics lab in Tulane on August 29, the very day Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana.
Sadly, the family never made it back to Tulane & baby Emmanuel was never seen by this lab.
Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast early Monday morning, August 29, 2005 as a category four hurricane with sustained winds of about 145 MPH. By August 31, 80% of the city was underwater after all of the levees were breached by flood waters.
The city of New Orleans collapsed into chaos as Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest to hit the United States. An estimated 1,833 people died in the hurricane as well as in the flooding that followed. Millions along the Gulf Coast & New Orleans were left homeless & the hurricane caused about $125 billion in damage, the costliest hurricane on record.
As the storm was making its way to the coast, Tiffany & her partner, Emmanuel, packed up their four children & left their home, driving northwest to Shreveport, cramming into the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum, a multi-purpose sports arena. By this time, the arena had been converted into a shelter with rows & rows of cots for evacuees to sleep. From there, they checked into a motel until they eventually rented a house in the Shreveport area. While Emmanuel worked at McDonald’s, Tiffany stayed home with the children.
When baby Emmanuel was four months old, the young couple ran out of government vouchers in late October, a time when they made the fateful decision to transition him to organic cow’s milk. According to the CDC, when a child under 12 months old is given cow’s milk rather than infant formula or breast milk, they may be at risk for intestinal bleeding as well as kidney issues due to higher protein & mineral levels.
While cow’s milk provides excessive amounts of sodium, potassium & protein, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, it’s lacking the proper amount of iron, linoleic acid & vitamin E.
Not only was Emmanuel only four months old, but he had also tested positive for MCAD deficiency which required frequent feedings & close monitoring. By this point, his discharge was weeks behind them & Emmanuel hadn’t had consistent pediatric follow-up.
Because of the chaos of the hurricane, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants & Children, otherwise known as WIC, was disrupted. Paperwork hadn’t transferred across parish lines & evacuees were trying to re-enroll in benefits while living in highly unstable situations.
According to Tiffany, after the hurricane tore through, Emmanuel began struggling with holding his formula down. Since he was often spitting up, paired with the fact they’d run out of vouchers for formula, she decided to make the switch to organic cow’s milk.
Initially, Tiffany claimed that Emmanuel seemed to be doing better after the switch with less vomiting. But tragically, on November 27, 2005, nearly three months after Katrina made landfall & a little over five months after Emmanuel’s premature birth, Tiffany Woods called 911 after she woke up to find her infant unresponsive in his crib.
When paramedics arrived, it was too late to help the sweet infant boy while Tiffany & Emmanuel reported that they’d each performed CPR on him by that point. A death investigation began & everyone who saw him was able to recognize just how emaciated he was.
An autopsy concluded that baby Emmanuel Scott’s cause of death was malnutrition & it would have taken an extended amount of time for his condition to deteriorate to this extent.
On his discharge from the hospital on August 2, 2005, Emmanuel weighed 5 pounds, 6 ounces while at the time of his death 117 days later on November 27, 2005, he weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces. Despite the passage of nearly four months, Emmanuel had gained only 7 ounces.
According to the Mayo Clinic, in the first few months of life, babies gain about 1 ounce or 28 grams per day, which is exactly what was happening while Emmanuel had been hospitalized. At 4 months old, this slows down to a gain of about 20 grams a day.
Had Emmanuel been gaining the average of about 24 grams per day, in those 117 days from discharge until his death, he should have gained about 2,800 grams which is a little more than 6 pounds. Instead, he’d gained less than a half pound during that time.
By the time Corporal Patrick McConnell arrived at Tiffany & Emmanuel’s rental home, the house had been encircled with yellow crime scene tape. The detective, who was with the Shreveport Police Department, viewed Emmanuel’s body in the medic unit that was parked outside.
The infant was visibly very thin with mucus on his face. Once inside the home, he found it to be clean & tidy with the refrigerator well-stocked with food, organic milk, condiments & a few large cans of Natural Ice beer. Jars of baby food were stored on top.
The bedroom held a full-sized bed, a play pen with one empty bottle inside & an infant bed that held two bottles of milk. A heart monitor was found in a closet.
Although Tiffany claimed that both she & Emmanuel had performed CPR before paramedics arrived, McConnell felt this was inconsistent with the mucus found on the baby’s mouth which would have been wiped away before or during CPR.
When Beverly Hunter, a now-retired social services worker, arrived at the home after 1 pm, she noticed that the three other children appeared very unkempt, describing one child as being very dirty. After about 3 ½ hours in the house, she never saw anyone change the child’s diaper so she took it upon herself to do so. In addition to the spots on the little girl’s bottom, she also noted dried mucus on her face while the child seemed very lethargic.
Beverly went on to describe Tiffany as having a very flat affect. When she broached the subject of grieving, Tiffany responded, I’m not grieving. She went on to say, When I found it, it was stiff. It was going to die. I didn’t kill it, it was going to die anyway.
Beverly spoke with law enforcement at the home & based on the details of their initial findings, she became suspicious about Emmanuel’s death. This, paired with the unkempt appearance of the surviving children, she made the decision to take the three children into custody. She couldn’t help but notice that they were ready to leave their home, something she rarely ever sees.
In September 2006, the Caddo Parish DA’s office charged Tiffany Woods & Emmanuel Scott with second-degree murder. Prosecutors would need to prove that they were negligent for not taking their baby to a doctor since under Louisiana law, cruelty to juveniles is a felony that allows for a murder conviction in an accidental death rather than manslaughter.
They were each defended by court-appointed lawyers who advised them to opt for a bench trial together rather than a jury trial. Judge Jeanette Garrett would hear the evidence & decide the outcome.
During his opening statement, prosecutor Brady O’Callaghan argued that Tiffany & Emmanuel should have sought medical help for their baby boy. Instead, they watched him slowly die of starvation & dehydration in a city that was doing everything it could to reach out to evacuees & in a place where medical care was available for all who needed it.
According to Dr. Frank Peretti’s testimony, the expert in forensic pathology who performed the autopsy, he immediately noted that Emmanuel looked severely malnourished. His blood urea nitrogen or BUN level was elevated, indicating that the baby had been in kidney failure as a result of malnutrition.
His body contained no fat or muscle & there was no food found in his stomach. He had no evidence of pyloric stenosis, a narrowing at the outlet of the stomach into the small intestine, which can cause vomiting in infants. His intestines were also normal, meaning there was no defect that prevented nutritional intake or absorption.
Most notably, based on the examination of his liver, Emmanuel did not have a metabolic disorder of any kind, including MCAD deficiency. According to experts, a false positive occasionally occurs with a premature child.
However, according to a biochemical geneticist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, Dr. Irene Chang, a witness for the defense, a pathologist such as Dr. Peretti wouldn’t be able to determine if a baby had died from MCAD deficiency by examining his liver. Genetic testing was the only surefire way, something that was never completed.
According to Dr. Gerald Whitton, an expert in pediatrics & neonatology who reviewed Emmanuel’s medical records from Tulane Medical Center (TMC) as well as the autopsy report, the baby’s lack of nutrition would have resulted in noticeable changes such as irritability, decreased activity as well as lethargy. He went on to say that medical intervention would have avoided his death & emergency medical care is never refused based on the inability to pay.
Therapists who had worked with Emmanuel in the NICU noticed no great difficulties with his suck & swallow techniques & according to their opinion, it was clear he was thriving in the hospital based on his weight gain as a result of receiving proper nutrition.
According to Dr. Whitton, after reviewing Emmanuel’s medical records during hospitalization, based on the goals set by the dietitian, there were no indications that he was predisposed to malnutrition. Emmanuel was sadly the worst-off baby he had ever seen in his career.
Later testimony indicated that the night before baby Emmanuel had been found unresponsive, Emmanuel, his father, worked until about 1 am. Once home, he watched a little TV before going to bed in the room he shared with Tiffany & their two younger children.
When he woke up the next morning, he went out to smoke a cigarette & although he saw baby Emmanuel, he didn’t touch or check on him. It wasn’t until later that he noticed something wrong with his mouth & as he grabbed him to begin CPR, Tiffany called 911. He later attributed his lack of emotion at the scene to his assumption that their son would survive since he’d gasped for air during CPR.
Emmanuel had a 9th grade education & hadn’t completed GED classes. He said that he loved his children & never intended to harm their baby. The family had enough money to buy food, but they made the decision to switch to watered down organic cow’s milk partially to help reduce the frequency of Emmanuel spitting up. As far as they were considered, the baby never deteriorated after the switch.
Emmanuel claimed that they hadn’t noticed anything alarming in their son’s condition & felt there’d been no reason to seek medical attention for him prior to finding him unresponsive that morning.
Dr. Shalinee Singh, an expert in pediatrics, testified after reviewing Emmanuel’s medical records, including his discharge summaries. She indicated that these records lacked lab results as well as social service notes. She believed, in referencing the dietitian’s notes, that even at the hospital, Emmanuel was meeting only the low-end of his estimated nutritional needs which was not enough to properly grow. Although the attending physician recommended that his intake be increased, even with around-the-clock feeds, the nurses had been unable to meet his needs.
However, according to the clinical dietitian’s assessments, Emmanuel had been deemed low nutrition risk & he was gaining weight. The occupational therapist noted that he had been feeding well prior to discharge.
Dr. Singh was surprised that Emmanuel was discharged seeing that if the nurses had been unable to meet his needs with 24/7 care, the parents would certainly be unable to do so at home. She also testified that the physical therapist had been unable to evaluate Emmanuel’s ability to suck since each time she went to work with him, he’d been sleeping.
One week prior to discharge, he was termed a poor feeder & Tiffany hadn’t had the opportunity to practice & prove to the medical team that she was able to successfully feed her baby. The medical records had no documentation indicating that the father Emmanuel had been educated on infant care. She indicated that had she been the attending physician, she would not have discharged the baby.
It was her experience that when parents prematurely switch their baby from infant formula to cow’s milk it is normally done from a lack of education rather than a desire to intentionally harm their baby.
Tiffany, who testified on her own behalf, began taking over her son’s care right before his discharge & had been shown a video on CPR the night before they left the hospital. She was supervised feeding her son, but had only fed him one bottle at the hospital. This had been the extent of the training she received.
She said she’d been told to give Emmanuel his prescribed medication each day, to utilize his heart monitor & to feed him every 3-4 hours. Immediately, she had issues using the heart monitor & hadn’t received the help she requested.
She indicated that Emmanuel wouldn’t take much of his offered bottles & she fed him every four hours, but he’d slept through the night. This in itself wasn’t in accordance with the discharge instruction which instructed feeds every 3-4 hours. At each feeding his consumption varied, but he normally consumed only 1-2 ounces. Sometimes he would vomit as much as he’d just consumed.
She believed that the feeding issues she was seeing were expected with a premature baby. As her partner Emmanuel had indicated, Tiffany confirmed that at the end of October, when they ran out of WIC vouchers, they switched the baby to cow’s milk at Emmaneul’s suggestion.
After the switch, she felt he was vomiting less, but she was aware that his weight hadn’t changed since his discharge from the hospital nearly four months previously. She said that since she was unable to drive & had been unfamiliar with the Shreveport area, this prevented her from taking their baby to the doctor.
While they’d been previously staying in shelters, all of their children had seen medical experts, none of whom expressed any concern or suggested she take Emmanuel to the hospital.
Prosecutors argued that Emmanuel had died 90 days after the storm & at that point, the devastation of Katrina shouldn’t have been a factor, saying, He didn’t starve while he was trapped in an attic in New Orleans, surrounded by flood waters. He starved in a house in Shreveport, a house with a refrigerator full of beer & food & baby food & two healthy parents.
Prosecutor O’Callaghan, who is now a judge in Caddo Parish, indicated that the photos from little Emmanuel’s autopsy were a clear indicator of the slow death sentence he suffered. They depicted him with an open mouth, thin arms & a shrunken, hollow stomach.
Judge Garrett was haunted by these photos & as the testimonies ended, she came back with a verdict, finding Tiffany Woods & Emmanuel Scott guilty. In her ruling, she went on to say that the parents had the money to purchase beer & cigarettes so they could have bought formula. She also felt there were inconsistencies in their timeline & testimony & the law required her to sentence both to life in prison without parole.
According to baby Emmanuel’s family, the photos that are now preserved in the court file are the only known pictures of him.
After their convictions, Tiffany’s three surviving children were taken into state custody, any sense of stability in their lives crumbling as the children were separated. Her two eldest children, sons she had with men who were later incarcerated, were eventually sent to live with a cousin in New Orleans. At the time of her conviction, Tiffany was pregnant with her fifth child & went on to deliver a baby girl while she was behind bars. Her two daughters were sent to two different foster homes.
Now adults, Tiffany’s two oldest sons have gone on to say that their brother’s death defined their childhoods. Her younger son, Troy’John indicated that some of his earliest memories were of fighting classmates who taunted him & called his mother a murderer.
Nie’John Woods, Tiffany’s oldest son who was about 8-years-old when his baby brother died, had the goal of proving people wrong about his family as well as himself. According to statistics, up to 70% of children who have at least one parent in prison are at risk of going through the prison system as well. However, after graduating from Southeastern Louisiana University in 2019, he went on to become an Airman 1st Class in the U.S. Air Force & he now works as a contract worker.
Troy’John will soon be a father while Nyla is pursuing a career in nursing. Although he & his sister Elisha don’t often speak, he said she’s doing great.
Although Tiffany was accused of lying about performing CPR on baby Emmanuel, Nie’John, a then 8-year-old, indicated that he clearly remembers the chaos on the morning of his baby brother’s death. While his mother spoke with the dispatcher, he remembers her panicking & doing CPR on him before the police & paramedics arrived.
When he & his younger brother, Troy’John were placed together, their younger sisters, Nyla & Elisha were placed together elsewhere. He described their time in foster care as chaotic. After they were sent to live with relatives, they felt that they were only tolerated because of the state funding their family received. At the time, his relationship with his mom was strained because of his relative’s strong opinions about the case.
As they entered their teens, a cousin encouraged them to start talking with their mom on the phone & visiting her in person. Nie’John indicated that the first time he went to see his mom in prison was the first time he felt like a child again. He was able to see how positively she changed & they began writing letters to each other while Tiffany sent him things she crocheted. It was obvious to him that she was taking accountability for her actions.
During her time in prison, Tiffany earned a bachelor’s degree & began working toward a master’s degree. She later indicated that despite being in prison for the rest of her life, she wanted her children to see something different. She wanted them to know that no matter what situation you’re in, you can change yourself for the better.
As the years passed, she also took on mentorship roles & maintained a clean disciplinary record. In the meantime, her children grew up, graduated & began living their lives as adults. During a parole hearing, one of her sons testified from California saying, We all serve the sentence with our mom.
On the other hand, in 2017, Emmanuel Scott was transferred to a maximum security housing prison after being accused of attempting to escape. He claimed that he’d somehow ended up on the roof after smoking synthetic marijuana & experiencing hallucinations.
In 2023, eighteen years after Emmanuel’s death, former Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards heard Tiffany’s story & decided to commute her sentence which reduced her life sentence to 36 years
During a parole hearing in February 2026, supporters spoke in favor of parole, discussing her exemplary behavior during incarceration as well as her education. The only person present that spoke against Tiffany’s release was Leone Fitzgerald, Director of the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Victim Assistance Program. She said she was tired of hearing about Hurricane Katrina, something that gave her no excuse not to feed her baby.
She painted a picture of Tiffany as a neglectful mother who had options but ultimately chose neglect.
According to a Harvard Medical School study published in October 2007 titled, Katrina Victims Increasingly Depressed, Traumatized & Suicidal as Relief Efforts Drag On, 84.6% of participants experienced significant financial, income or housing loss. 36.3% experienced extreme physical adversity while 22.8% experienced extreme psychological adversity
When she was given time to speak, Tiffany explained the events that led up to her baby’s death. She discussed evacuating New Orleans to Shreveport, a place she was unfamiliar with. She & her young family faced uncertainty & homelessness when they arrived in north Louisiana.
She recalled how Emmanuel would vomit large volumes after consuming formula & after they ran out of WIC vouchers that are provided to low-income families to purchase infant formula, she made the devastating choice to purchase whole milk which they diluted with water. She admitted that during that time, they had been in survival mode & didn’t know what to do.
Although two of the board members voted for her parole, one voted against it, saying that he was swayed by the images presented as evidence at trial. Because a unanimous vote was required to be granted parole, she will remain in prison & cannot reapply for parole for five years. A now 46-year-old Tiffany currently faces a projected good-time release date of January 29, 2036.
It can be noted that according to data compiled by ProPublica, in the two years that Governor Jeff Landry took office in January 2024, Louisiana has paroled the fewest number of inmates in 20 years & there have been a 78% drop in paroles.
Baby Emmanuel Scott never had the chance to live beyond five months of life. He never got to take his first steps, say his first words or experience a world beyond his first fragile months of life. His story unfolded during one of the most chaotic & painful times in Louisiana’s history in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But even in the midst of the devastation, Emmanuel deserved safety, love, protection & care.
Today we can remember Emmanuel Scott as a child who mattered, no matter how short his life was. Even now, more than 20 years after his tragic death, his case continues to stir debate. Some people believe that Tiffany Woods’ punishment is justified for the suffering Emmanuel faced while others feel that because this tragedy happened in the midst of Katrina’s devastation, a lifetime behind bars is just another layer of heartache in this already horrific story.
References:
- Mayo Clinic: MCAD deficiency
- Mayo Clinic: MCAD deficiency
- Mayo Clinic: Infant & toddler health
- George W. Bush Library: Hurricane Katrina
- Medline Plus: Cow’s milk & children
- KTAL News: Parole denial stuns oldest son of Tiffany Woods, ‘She’s a different person than before’
- Facebook: Louisiana mom denied parole after baby dies from cow’s milk during Katrina chaos
- Medium: The hurricane, the baby, the life sentence
- State v. Woods (2009)
- The Marshall Project: Her baby died after Hurricane Katrina. Was it a crime?
- American Academy of Pediatrics: The use of whole cow’s milk in infancy
