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Arthur and
Marie Noe had ten children that died, the following is a
small report on each child, it is taken from an online
newspaper that I unfortunately can't remember the title, or
URL, of so cannot give credit to, but I tried, so if you
wrote this, don't sue me please.
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Richard Allen, born March 7,
1949. Died a month later. His mother told police she last
saw him alive, sleeping in his crib, where his father found
him dead when he got home from work. No autopsy was
performed. Death attributed to congestive heart failure.
Elizabeth Mary, born Sept. 8, 1950. Died five months later.
Mother said she found her in her crib vomiting milk and
blood. An autopsy was performed, but not clear whether she
was examined internally. Cause of death ruled as
bronchopneumonia.
Jacqueline, born April 23, 1952. Died 21 days later. Mother
said she found her blue and vomiting. Autopsy performed;
coroner ruled she choked on vomit.
Arthur Jr., born April 23, 1955. Twelve days later, mother
brought him to hospital saying he couldn't breathe. He was
found healthy and discharged. The next day, he died. Cause
of death ruled as bronchopneumonia.
Constance, born Feb. 24, 1958. Hospitalized at one month
after mother complained she was having breathing difficulty.
Discharged as healthy. Two days later, father found her dead
in her crib. Cause of death: undetermined.
Letitia, delivered stillborn at 39 weeks on Aug. 24, 1959.
Mary Lee, born June 19, 1962. Kept in the hospital for one
month for observation. Once she was home, mother called
doctor repeatedly to say she was "getting on her nerves"
with constant crying. On Jan. 4, 1963, mother, then
three-months pregnant, said she found child turning blue.
Cause of death: undetermined.
Theresa, born prematurely in late June 1963. Died six hours
after birth.
Catherine Ellen, born Dec. 3, 1964. Kept in hospital three
months for observation. Mother complained of difficulty
feeding her. Nurse reported overhearing mother say, "You
better take this or I'll kill you!" during one feeding
session. In August 1965, mother reported finding baby with
dry-cleaning bag over her head. She was not seriously
injured. Hospitalized on two other occasions when mother
reported she quit breathing. Released as healthy both times.
Found dead in her crib on Feb. 25, 1966. Cause of death:
undetermined.
Arthur Joseph, born July 28, 1967. Hospitalized two months
for observation. Hospitalized at one month when mother
reported he turned blue. Five weeks later, hospitalized
again when mother reported finding cat lying on his face.
Found dead in his crib in January 1968. Cause of death:
undetermined.
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I guess you could say that the
Noe's were pretty unlucky people. I reckon the local police
and doctors must have thought so too since neither were
charged with any crime until 1998, when Marie Noe finally
developed a conscience and admitted her deeds.
So, between 1949 and 1968, 10 children die. Two were
undeniably natural causes, but in eight of the cases, Mrs.
Noe was home alone with the children and she claimed they
died in their sleep. I guess it was a case of "a woman
wouldn't do something like that." I bet if it was Arthur Noe
at home alone with the kids he would have never got past one
murder. But I digress.
Actually I'm being a little hard on the police in the area
because although doctors attributed each fatality to "crib
death," they never actually closed the investigation into
the deaths.
But it wasn't police that broke the story, it was a book on
SIDS, titled "The Death of Innocents," which profiled the
Noe case, and gained it enough attention for a reporter, who
worked for Philadelphia Magazine, Stephen Fried, to begin
his own inquiry into the deaths. In January 1998, Fried took
his questions to the police homicide unit. Sgt. Larry Nodiff,
head of the special investigations squad, became intrigued
and agreed to "wake up" the long-dormant case.
And under repeated questioning about her constant misfortune
when it came to kids I guess Marie Now just cracked and
decided it was time to admit to the killings.
It was March 1998 when she gave it up. Noe told police that
she had used pillows to kill at least three of her children.
But she could not explain why. "All I can figure is that I'm
ungodly sick," she told detectives. "I never had the money
to get help, and I didn't know where to go for help anyway."
She told homicide detectives Steven Vivarina and John
McDermott on March 25 that she killed four of the children
but said she had no memory of how the other four died. Marie
said was alone each time she killed a child, beginning with
Richard on April 7, 1949, and ending with Arthur Joseph on
Jan. 2, 1968.
"They all seemed to go very fast. . .," Noe told one
investigator.
In true serial killer style Marie Noe also enjoyed
publicity. In the 1960s, she willingly cooperated with media
interest in her family's strange story. She had garnered
"tons of attention," such as her photograph in the old Life
magazine as part of an article on crib death - that she had
memorialised in scrapbooks. So don't go thinking this is
just some old granny who couldn't handle the whole
post-natal depression thing.
Just to show you how cold she could be here is some of what
she told police:
"He was always crying. He couldn't tell me what was
bothering him. He just kept crying. . . . There was a pillow
under his face. . . . I took my hand and pressed his face
down into the pillow until he stopped moving." Noe tells how
she murdered her first-born, Richard, one month after his
birth in 1949.
Two years later, she killed her second child, Elizabeth, age
5 months. "She was in the basinet. I put her on her back,
and then I took a pillow from the bed and put the pillow
over her face and suffocated her. She was fussing. Elizabeth
was a lot stronger than Richard was, and she was fighting
when the pillow was over her face. I held the pillow over
her face until she stopped moving."
"I was trying to train her on how to sit up in the chair. I
don't know why, but then I took a pillow and laid her down
on the chair, and I suffocated her." This was about
Constance, who died in 1958, at the ripe old age of 1 month.
At her bail hearing in August, 1999, the Assistant D.A., Jay
Feinschi, called her "as much a mass murderer as Ted Bundy."
But this didn’t stop the Judge feeling sorry for the old
lady, as he allowed a plea bargain between prosecutor and
defence attorneys to stand allowing Mrs. Noe, who was
described by the defence as not having "a heart of a
killer," to leave the court a basically free woman. "This is
one of those situations that makes us human," he said. "Some
things happen in life that we cannot understand."
So decades after taking eight lives, 70-year-old Marie Noe
was allowed to plead guilty to murder then placed under
house arrest as part of the plea bargain that does not
require her to serve a day in prison.
And it's not only the police who have let her off lightly,
in an interview last year, Arthur Noe defended his wife
saying that "I've lived with this woman for 50 years. She
was my life. That woman was not capable of doing such a
thing. She wouldn't harm a fly." It’s good to see Arthur’s
dealing with the news well then.
Actually I must now congratulate the law enforcement (or
whoever it was that come up with the following idea) for
having the intelligence to come up with a way for Marie Noe
to spend her time in the future. Under the deal struck with
prosecutors, Noe must meet at least monthly with
court-appointed psychiatrists to try to figure out her
motive for murder. Noe said she wanted to "confront" her
responsibility for the deaths of her children and to
discover "the causes of my repeated acts of infanticide. . .
killing my children." A press release said that "She wishes
to cooperate with medical science to explore why this type
of tragedy occurs. She would like to help doctors assist
other mothers who may be prone to infanticide."
I must say that this is one of the most forward thinking
decisions to ever come out of that stinking hole that is
America.
And one last thing (for those who are still questioning
whether or not Mrs. Noe deserves this space) she did not
shed one single tear at any court hearings, or during any
interviews. Now that is the action of someone worthy of
their space at the Wacky World of Murder.
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