Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Murderous Moms: Marie Noe & Waneta Hoyt

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Two families in mid 20th century America became tragic tales of recurring Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Over and over, their babies died without any real explanation. Except there was an explanation. By the time authorities caught on, it was too late.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of these killers' crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of child murder, child abuse, and neglect. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. It was a happy day on the pediatrics ward. After weeks in and out of the hospital, little Molly Hoyt was finally being discharged

to go home with her parents. The Hoyts were a sweet young couple who'd become minor celebrities on the ward because of their tragic past. They'd lost three. three children already and were understandably anxious about Molly's health. Now that the nearly three-month-old infant had been given the all-clear, the ward staff gathered to waive the happy family off.

24-year-old Juanita Hoyt walked out into the hallway, baby Molly in her arms. The young mother smiled shyly at the doctors and nurses, but not everybody smiled back. Sylvia, one of the nurses on the ward that day, had been keeping a close eye on the Hoyt's. been in her job long enough to know when something wasn't right, and something was distinctly off with this family. To Sylvia, Molly seemed like a perfectly healthy baby, but her behavior was odd. At times, she didn't respond to her surroundings at all, which was unusual for her age. Most of the time, she looked off into space with a glassy stare. She rarely smiled. She seemed almost haunted. But what alarmed Sylvia the most was the way one needs.

Juanita interacted with Molly, or rather the way she didn't. She'd been working in pediatrics long enough to know that some mothers took a while to bond with their infants, but this was different. Juanita seemed completely disinterested in her daughter. More than once Sylvia tried to ignore Molly's cries, making excuses to leave the room instead of comforting her daughter. And this, after losing three babies before, it seemed odd. Sylvia was so worried that she'd written up her concerns in Molly's medical log just the day before, but nobody listened. And as she watched the Hoyt stroll out into the sunshine,

she couldn't shake the feeling that this little girl was in terrible danger. Hi, I'm Greg Paulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. This is the second part of our Mother's Day special. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers

and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. Today, we'll bring you across the Atlantic to learn about two murderous moms in 20th century America. Both seemingly loved their children and were devastated by their deaths from sudden infant death syndrome.

But in reality, they were the children. the killers. First, we'll discuss the story of Marie No, who murdered eight of her ten children right under the noses of Philadelphia authorities, and escaped justice thanks to a mind-boggling lack of oversight. Then we'll explore Juanita Hoyt's sheltered upbringing and how when she became a young mother, she became overwhelmed and then violent. We'll also dig into how misguided medical opinions may have unintentionally allowed her to get away with her crimes for decades. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a

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This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, The Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances.

chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. More and more women today are choosing not to have children. Motherhood is still often seen as the default choice. Many women who opt to remain child-free have to contend with disappointed family members or outright disapproval.

There's a sense that their choice needs to be justified. That said, things are better than they used to be. Throughout most of the 20th century, many women grew up feeling their only purpose was to marry and have children. Any other dreams they might have had came in a distant second. This was especially true for women born into unstable households, where physical, emotional, or financial security was hard to find. For a woman in this situation, like Marie No, starting a family of her own as soon as possible,

might have felt like her best shot at a stable life. Born in Philadelphia during the late 1920s, Marie had a chaotic China. Her father often beat her mother, and her mother ended up taking him to court when Marie was still a toddler. The case culminated in Marie being sent to an orphanage. She spent her third birthday there before being returned to her mother in the summer of 1931. Two years later, Marie contracted scarlet fever, a bacterial infection that killed many children in the early 20th century. She recovered, but the illness had a permanent effect. According to Marie, According to Marie, she was treated with experimental drugs that stunted her mental development.

Afterwards, reading and word comprehension were challenging for her. Marie remained close to illiterate throughout her childhood and struggled with schoolwork. She never spoke up because she had no trusted adult she could go to. Her mother was cold and sometimes violent and would whip Marie to punish her. So she kept her worries to herself. In any case, her learning difficulties weren't a problem for much longer because she'd dropped out of school when she was 12. Her older sister gave birth to a daughter that year,

and because she was unmarried, this was taboo. To hide the truth, the family raised the baby as Marie's sister. Marie had to help raise the baby, and was required to start earning money to support the family. It's not clear whether this was her choice or her mom's, but either way it probably shaped her view of the world. At 12, whatever dreams Marie might have had for herself were now irrelevant. Her days were devoted to child care and going to work at a menial job.

She gave every paycheck she earned directly to her mother. The stress soon began to wear on her. When she was 14, she reportedly began experiencing episodes of temporary blindness, which were accompanied by searing headaches. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg.

Vision loss can be a consequence of prolonged stress, although total blindness is unusual. At the time, Marie was diagnosed with conversion hysteria, an outmoded term, which has since been replaced by conversion disorder. Per the DSM-5, this is a condition where a patient has physical symptoms like blindness, paralysis, or seizures, that are caused by psychological factors. If psychological distress was causing Marie's blindness, she wasn't alone. Around the same time, one of her siblings was sent to a state hospital for psychiatric treatment and was diagnosed with a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. We don't know which sibling this was, or what the related trauma may have been. Still, it's clear that the household environment was stressful and that Marie and her siblings probably

struggled to get their emotional needs met. That may explain what happened next. At some point during Marie's teenage years, the family moved to the beach, side town of Cape May, New Jersey. But it didn't prove to be the fresh start Marie's mother had hoped for. During their time there, Marie reported that she was raped by a man in the Coast Guard. We don't have any other details about this incident, except that the man was never identified or charged. It's important to stress here that, on the whole, women lying about rape is rare. The number of false allegations made each year are vastly outweighed by the number of real sexual assaults that are never reported at all. But in this particular case, based on what we know about

Marie's later patterns, it's possible that she made up the attack. There's a specific reason why she might have done this. When Marie was five, her older sister was raped by a 40-year-old man who was convicted of the crime. Though she was too young to grasp the full impact of what was happening, Marie certainly might have noticed how much attention her sister was getting. And if that incident stuck with her, it could have inspired her to lie a decade later. Not much else is known about Marie's teenage years in Cape May, but we do know that she ended up returning to Philadelphia. In 1948, when she was 20, she met Arthur Allen-Know at a club there.

The couple eloped a few months later, and Marie became pregnant with their first child. Arthur found steady work in construction, and the couple moved into a row house in a working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia. This should have been a happy, hopeful time for the young couple. But just a few weeks before Marie was due to give birth, something strange happened. Arthur came home around one in the morning to find a police car in his driveway. Inside, Marie was speaking with two officers. She told them she'd been raped.

She said that she'd been asleep on the couch waiting for Arthur to come home when a stranger broke in and attacked her. She'd bitten her attacker's ear, she said, and he'd fled. As terrifying as it sounded, there were several aspects of the story that might have given the authorities pause. For one, Marie's father-in-law had been sleeping upstairs and hadn't heard anything. There were also no signs of a break-in at the house. Still, it's not clear whether the police or Arthur believed Marie, but no arrests were ever made. We do know that when Marie's neighbors heard about the attack, they were skeptical. they thought it was a cry for attention.

As with the Cape May attack, it's impossible for us to know whether Marie was telling the truth on this occasion or not. But if she wasn't, it was just one of many more lies to come. Not that there was much time to worry about the incident. Just weeks later, in March of 1949, Marie gave birth to her first son, Richard. The baby was born healthy, but didn't gain much weight during his first month of life.

Exactly one month after Richard was born, Arthur came home to find his son lying motionless in his crib. He was dead, and just a few feet away, Marie was sleeping soundly in bed. Arthur rushed Richard to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. His cause of death was noted as congestive heart failure, but there was no autopsy. In reality, it's believed Marie had suffocated Richard while he slept. We have no idea why she would do this, but she may have been experiencing postpartum psychosis. This is far less common than postpartum depression or anxiety, affecting about one or two out of every 1,000 mothers who give birth. The condition can cause paranoia, hallucinations, delusional beliefs, and disorganized thinking,

and in some cases it drives a mother to harm herself or her child. But it seems no one ever thought to look for signs of this in Marie. And unsurprisingly, Richard's death took a toll on the nose marriage, or at least on Arthur. According to Marie, he refused to have sex with her after the loss and, quote, wouldn't permit her to have another child. What's troubling about this statement is that she said this to a doctor less than two weeks after Richard's death. It's pretty striking that Marie was even ready to talk about getting pregnant again so quickly and was angry with Arthur for refusing to consider it. she felt like he was pulling away from her. She was so upset that she experienced an episode of temporary blindness

and had to be led into the hospital by her husband. There, a psychiatric consultant diagnosed her with conversion hysteria, an arcane term for conversion disorder. Marie's doctor also noted that she had inadequate personality development, by which he meant that she showed difficulty adapting to the social, emotional, and intellectual demands of adult life. Despite this, he recommended that Arthur agree to have another child. After this, Marie's sight returned and she was discharged the next day.

It's plausible that she might have faked this episode of blindness, hoping for this very outcome. This would certainly tally with her neighbor's opinion of her as an attention seeker. Following doctor's orders, Marie quickly became pregnant again, and in September of 1950, she gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. She lived for just five months. In February of 1951, Marie called emergency services and told them that she'd found her daughter dead in her crib. The coroner attributed Elizabeth's death to bronco pneumonia, but didn't seem to complete any examination to confirm this diagnosis. As far as the records show, nobody found the baby's death suspicious.

So began a grim pattern. The next spring, Marie gave birth to baby number three, Jacqueline. Three weeks after bringing Jacqueline into the world, Marie claimed that she'd walked into her daughter's room to find her vomiting and turning blue. She tried to clear the baby's airway and revive her, but it was too late. Jacqueline's cause of death was listed as asphyxiation from vomit. Again, it's not clear if a full autopsy was performed. It seems that Arthur, devastated by losing three children in his many years, put his foot down. Like he had after Richard's death, he told Marie he didn't want any more babies,

and began withdrawing from her physically. The next two years were uneventful for the nose, but in 1954, the police were back in their driveway. Once again, Marie told the officers that she'd been sexually assaulted in her own home. She said she was ambushed by an intruder who was hiding in her bedroom closet. She'd fainted at the sight of him

and woke up to find herself bound and gagged with one of Arthur's neckties. She claimed that the attacker had choked her with the tie until she passed out. But at the ER, an exam showed no signs of physical trauma or strangulation. It's not clear what the authorities made of this report, though it seems nothing ever came of it. But as the police left the No's house that night, one of their neighbors was watching from behind her curtain. This neighbor, who will call Dorothy, felt uneasy about Marie for a while. One afternoon, Marie had cornered Dorothy out in her front yard and told her all about a series of obscene calls she'd received. Though Marie claimed to be upset by the calls, she described them in graphic detail.

To Dorothy, she didn't seem to want support so much as attention. So when she found out why Marie had called the police that night, Dorothy was suspicious. She felt Marie wasn't a victim, but a serial fantasist. And over the next few weeks, as Dorothy reflected on all she knew about Marie, her thoughts turned to those three poor children, how their deaths had come one after another, and how much attention Marie must have gotten as a result. She began to wonder exactly what this mother was capable of, and what might happen next.

Up next, the nose family doctor finally smells a rat. What could be more shocking than uncovering the deep, dark secrets behind history's biggest stories? Realizing that everything you thought was true was a lie. Hi, it's Carter from the podcast series Conspiracy Theories. Every Monday and Wednesday, take a closer look at the blurred line between fact and fiction and discover that there may be more to the so-called truth than you think. From the government's link to Bigfoot and the otherworldly secrets of the Vatican,

to the Grateful Dead's role in the spread of LSD and more. On conspiracy theories, we leave non-worldly secrets. No stone unturned and no skeptic unheard. Some may just be outlandish claims. Others may make you rethink everything. Follow the Spotify original from PARCAS conspiracy theories. Listen free only on Spotify. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel

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Now back to the story. In the fall of 1954, 26-year-old Marie Noe became pregnant for the fourth time, despite her husband's reluctance to have another baby. Arthur No Jr. was born in April of 1955. When he was just 12 days old, Marie brought him into the hospital, claiming that he was having difficulty breathing. The doctors found nothing wrong with Arthur Jr. and discharged him.

But the next day, Marie called the emergency services and told them her baby wasn't breathing. When they arrived, Arthur was dead. It seems that Marie was becoming more strategic. By taking Arthur into the hospital to establish breathing, the day before she killed him. She laid the groundwork for a believable explanation. She may have killed her first three children in a spontaneous moment of rage, unable to bear their crying,

but now it seemed like the murders were becoming premeditated. Yet again, the coroner marked down a death from natural causes, but not everybody was so willing to overlook Arthur Jr.'s death. Dorothy, the nose neighbor, made an anonymous call to the medical examiner. said that she'd known the couple for years and had become increasingly concerned about Marie's behavior. She seemed like someone who wanted attention. Most importantly, Dorothy said she suspected that Marie was doing something to her children. Despite this, it seems no action was taken as a result of the call. Two years later, Marie became pregnant again. If she'd ever been worried about

getting caught, that concern seemed to have passed. After she gave birth to baby Constance in February of 1958, a doctor came to check on her. He reassured her that he'd take good care of her newborn. Marie turned to him. Without emotion, she said, what's the use? She's going to die just like all the others. Sure enough, a month later, Marie called the doctor to say Constance was having trouble breathing. Though hospital staff found nothing wrong with her, Arthur arrived home two days later to find Constance dead. This time, a full autopsy was performed. but the results were inconclusive. Still, in light of how many babies the nose had lost,

and the call from Dorothy, the authorities were finally getting suspicious. Police interviewed the couple and noted that Marie seemed slow to understand questions. Her memories of her childhood were vague, and she appeared, quote, either hypothyroid or underpar mentally. Marie's cognitive difficulties may explain why her MO is so inconsistent. On the one hand, her crimes seem premeditated. and she made efforts to cover her tracks.

On the other, she couldn't seem to stop herself from making suspicious comments to medical staff. But the police found no red flags in the interview. The couple were released without charge, and Constance's cause of death was recorded as undetermined. Four years later, Marie became pregnant again and gave birth to another baby girl, Mary Lee, in June of 1962.

After taking the baby home from the hospital, 34-year-old Marie began calling her family physician, Dr. Columbus Gangemi, at all hours. She complained that the baby wouldn't stop crying and was driving her nuts. Finally, it became too much to take. When Mary Lee was six months old, Marie smothered her until she stopped breathing. Then she called Dr. Gangemi and told him that the baby was dead. The lack of emotion in her voice unnerved him. Police interrogated Marie and Arthur once again, and an extensive autopsy was performed.

But the results were again inconclusive, and though the medical examiners voiced serious concerns about what was going on, they had no evidence against the couple. Despite mounting suspicion, the nose were about to have the public on their sides. Just weeks after Mary Lee died, they gave an interview to Life magazine, chronicling the tragic deaths of their seven children. The highly sympathetic article ran in July of 1963, identifying the couple under a pseudonym, Mr. and Mrs. Moore. The piece drew widespread attention to sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, and to the possibility that it could recur within a family.

SIDS describes the sudden, unexplained death of a baby under one-year-old, usually while they're sleeping. It's most common in babies between one and four months old. But to be clear, that is not what happened to the no-baby. A more relevant diagnosis in this case might have been Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which is also sometimes known as factitious disorder imposed on another. First identified in the late 1970s, more than a decade after Marie's crimes, it involves producing or faking symptoms of an illness in another person, usually a child or another dependent.

Although the causes of the condition aren't well understood, it's often motivated by a desire for attention, sympathy or special treatment. And to be clear, Marie wasn't ever formally diagnosed, but some experts have theorized that the condition might have been behind her crimes. As it was, no one knew to look out for warning signs in Marie, and on the whole, medical authorities seemed baffled by the nose. Several people were alarmed, doctors, nurses, medical examiners, but nothing ever came of their investigations. In December of 1964, Marie gave birth.

birth to another daughter, Catherine. The baby was in and out of hospital with so-called breathing difficulties, although the staff noted nothing physically wrong with Catherine. Dr. Gangemi, the family physician, noted that the baby often seemed distressed and upset when she was admitted, but regularly calmed down once she was under observation at the hospital. This dragged on for more than a year. Catherine was periodically admitted to the hospital for breathing problems that could never be replicated on the ward. Dr. Gangemi had his suspicions, but was seemingly either unwilling or

unable to take any action. Finally, in February of 1966, Marie smothered her one-year-old daughter to death. Thanks to the No's national prominence, the death prompted a media frenzy. The tragic family from Life magazine had lost yet another baby. The couple gave several press interviews in the weeks after losing Mary Lee. According to Dr. Gangemi, Marie seemed to relish the attention and the feeling of being a minor celebrity. Little did she know she was drawing some unwanted attention too. Investigators in Philadelphia began digging into her past and discovered that she had a history of filing police reports that couldn't be substantiated. But the investigation didn't move fast enough to save the last Noe baby.

Arthur Noe was born in July of 1967 and spent his first two months of life under observation in the hospital. The staff noted that his parents barely visited him at all. When he was about five months old, Arthur Jr. was rushed into the ER. Marie claimed that the family cat had lain across the baby's face, smothering him, but he survived.

Remarkably, even though the ER doctor recorded the incident as a possible attempted suffocation, the nose were allowed to take their son home with them later that day. About two weeks later, just after Christmas of 1968, Arthur Jr. was back in the ER. This time, he was dead on arrival. And now, after years of evading justice, it seemed that Marie was finally cornered. The police interrogated the couple in their home and both insisted that they had nothing to hide. Marie claimed that she'd found Arthur Jr. gasping for air and that she tried to resuscitate him before calling the

rescue squad. For his part, Arthur Nose seemed bewildered. He told the police, I have no idea why this is always happening to us. I wish to God I did. It's not clear if he was really in the dark about what was going on, or simply in deep denial. Either way, the Nose presented a convincing front because their case was closed with no arrests. There would be no doubt. There would be no justice for the no children, at least not for a long time. In fact, it wasn't until another woman followed in Marie's footsteps that anyone put the pieces together. Up next, we'll explore the story of Juanita Hoyt, whose murders may well have been directly inspired by Marie's. Exema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebbglis, a once-monthly treatment for

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Don't use if you're allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglis. Before starting, Epgless, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about Epglus and visit ebglis.lis.com or call 1800 LilyRX or 1,800 545-979. Now back to the story. Growing up in 1940s, Richmond, a small town in upstate New York, Juanita Hoyt lived a much more sheltered life than Marriott. Marie no. As far as we know, there was no violence or abuse in her household.

But money was scarce, and the family weathered a lot of loss. In fact, Juanita's birth was followed by a double whammy of tragedy. In 1946, just after Juanita was born, her brother died of meningitis right before his third birthday. Another baby, who arrived a year after Juanita, was still born. Perhaps as a result of the trauma she'd absorbed in her earliest months, Juanita grew into a shy and withdrawn child. She was a dreamer, off in her own world. She didn't show much interest in school, didn't take part in any extracurricular activities,

and was a bit of a loner. This apparent lack of ambition was probably influenced by her mom, who she was close to. Dorothy Nixon was a lifelong homemaker and expected the same from her daughter. When Juanita talked about wanting to become a hairdresser one day, Dorothy reprimanded her.

When she spoke about her own, own life, Dorothy often said she'd been placed on earth for only two reasons, to be a mother and to be a wife. This idea was at the forefront of Juanita's mind when she began high school. There she met Timothy Hoyt, a senior who was just as shy as she was. A few years later, in 1963, the couple got engaged. Much to Dorothy's disapproval, Juanita dropped out of high school and married Tim the next year. That October she gave birth to a son, Eric. The young family settled into a modest house in Newark Valley, a village about 10 miles south of Juanita's hometown.

At first, Juanita seemed to thrive in her role as a young mother and doted on Eric to the point of being overprotective. At least that was the impression she gave to her neighbors. But in reality, the 18-year-old was overwhelmed by motherhood. She couldn't stand the sound of Eric's crying, which seemed relentless. The sound of a baby crying can be like nails on a chalkboard, and there may be a biological reason for that. Research suggests that the sound of a baby crying has a unique impact on the brain, subconsciously activating the fight-or-flight response.

This happens both to parents and non-parents, and in Juanita's case, the effect may have been extra-pronounced. After all, she'd been raised to believe that her sole purpose was to have children, Her inability to soothe her son may have felt like an unbearable failure amplifying her fight or flight response. But fleeing wasn't an option for Juanita, so she chose violence. Juanita's own account of her crimes is inconsistent, but here and throughout the episode were outlining what she later told authorities. A few weeks after Christmas on January 26th of 1965,

she was at home alone with Eric, who was apparently fussy that day. No matter what she did, the baby wouldn't stop crying. The sound seemed to grow louder and louder filling the room, and then the entire house, until Juanita could focus on nothing else. She had to make him stop. She grabbed a pillow from the couch and held it over her baby's face. Within moments, there was silence. It's not clear whether Juanita set out to kill Eric

or if she just wanted to silence him, but even if murder wasn't her intention, any rational person would know the danger of smothering a baby for any length of time. That afternoon, Juanita's neighbor Betty heard screams outside her window. When she ran outside, she found Juanita standing in her driveway, crying for help. She said something was wrong with Eric. Alarmed, Betty followed Juanita inside, where she found the baby lying limp on a table.

She tried to revive him, but it was no good. the three-month-old was dead. Nobody suspected this was anything other than a terrible tragedy. After all, it had only been a couple of years since everyone read about the family whose children had all died of SIDS. The Life article about the No family undoubtedly helped to raise awareness of sudden infant death syndrome throughout the United States. Now, everyone assumed that Eric Hoyt was another victim,

which helped Juanita to get away with her crimes. It's also entirely possible that one's... Anita herself knew about SIDS and may even have been inspired by the No's story. Reading that article could have been the first time she ever realized that there was, plausibly, a way for her baby to stop breathing on his own. As far as anyone could tell, Juanita and Tim were both devastated by their baby's death, but they had another son, James Hoyt, in May of 1966. For two years, everything seemed to be going just fine for the family.

In July of 1968, they had their first daughter, Julie, and for a few weeks things were blissful. But once they were back home and Tim returned to work, Juanita began to feel overwhelmed again. Tim worked long days in construction, leaving Juanita alone at home with two children for hours on end. As was normal for married women at the time, she was expected to shoulder all of the childcare and housekeeping work alone. Eventually, she snapped. On September 5th, Julie was fussy. No matter what Juanita did, she couldn't get her to stop crying. As the two-month-old bawled in her arms, a familiar and terrible impulse consumed Juanita.

She held Julie tighter and pressed her nose and mouth against her shoulder, hard enough to suffocate her. This time, Juanita surely knew exactly what she was doing. This wasn't a misguided attempt to silence her daughter. It was murder. But to the authorities, it looked like another tragic case of crib death. Three weeks later, Juanita was getting dressed when two-year-old James kept trying to get her attention. Finally, he started crying and wouldn't stop.

Furious, Juanita grabbed a bath towel and smothered him to stop his cries. When paramedics arrived at the house, Juanita claimed that James had suddenly yelled out Mommy, then collapsed to the ground. afterward, James' autopsy found no clear cause of death, and despite Juanita's two children dying within a month, it doesn't seem as if any red flags were raised. Those who knew the Hoyts had no reason to be anything other than sympathetic, the couple seemed utterly shattered by their loss. Their grief continued for months. When Julie, James, and Eric's birthdays arrived,

Juanita talked wistfully about them. On Memorial Day, she and Tim laid flowers on their children's graves. And when Juanita became pregnant again, she and Tim seemed determined to make sure history wouldn't repeat itself. After she gave birth to their fourth child, Molly, in March of 1970, the couple sought advice from the best doctors they could find at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, which was a two-hour drive away. There they met Dr. Alfred Steinshneider, a pediatric researcher with a particular interest in SIDS. Under his supervision, Molly spent her first weeks of life in and out of the hospital, hooked up to machines monitoring her breathing. Doctors noticed occasional abnormal pauses in her breathing, but weren't too alarmed.

They discharged Molly on multiple occasions, but her parents always brought her back within days, reporting that she was having trouble breathing. At least one nurse was concerned about the situation. She even wrote in a report that Molly rarely smiled and noted a strange lack of interaction between Molly and Juanita. But it seems the nurse's observations didn't concern anyone else enough to take action.

When Molly was two and a half months old, the doctors discharged her again. The very next day, Juanita picked up a pillow and smothered her to death. The following spring, Juanita gave birth to her fifth child, Noah. Like Molly, he was monitored extensively

by Steinschneider and other doctors, but to no avail. In July of April, In 1971, Juanita held a pillow over Noah's face until he stopped breathing. Despite this fifth death, there was no official investigation into the Hoyt's. One major reason for this was that the medical community seemed to be firmly behind them. In fact, in 1972, the couple were the focus of a sympathetic article written by Dr. Steinschneider. In it, he suggests that SIDS could run in families.

However, some doctors questioned this theory. After all, in an autopsy, a death from SIDS was hard to distinguish from suffocation, but the article was widely seen as pioneering. Inadently, Steinschneider had created an alibi for Juanita, one that held strong for years. In 1976, the Hoyts were even approved to adopt a son, Jay, and it seemed like she might get away with her crimes. But finally, the tide began to turn. Sometime in the mid-1980s, forensic pathologist Dr. Linda Norton came across Steinschneider's article.

Reading the details of the Hoyt children's deaths, Dr. Norton was alarmed. As far as she was concerned, five SIDS deaths within a single family was statistically impossible, and she thought that Steinshneider had missed some huge red flags in the case. Dr. Norton was convinced that this was a case of murder, which had been missed by doctors. In 1986, she mentioned it to the local chief assistant district attorney, William Fitzpatrick. After reading through the records, Fitzpatrick agreed, though he couldn't or wouldn't take any action at the time. However, when he became district attorney six years later, he took the case to authorities in Newark Valley, where the Hoyt's lived. On March 23, 1994, 47-year-old Juanita was mailing a letter when police approached her.

They said they had some questions about her children's deaths. Juanita went quietly with them to the police station. At first she claimed what she always had, that her babies had all died from a genetic form of SIDS, one after another. But after about two hours, her demeanor changed. That's when Juanita began to confess. She told the astonished officers that she had smothered all five of her babies to death because she couldn't bear the sound of their crying.

Juanita was taken into custody that day. Her husband Tim was also questioned, but released without charges. However, two months later, Juanita recanted her confession. Tim, along with their adopted son Jay, maintained that Juanita was innocent. So did many of their neighbors. They all knew Juanita as a fragile, sensitive woman, and she was a mother. They insisted no mother would kill her own children. But after 23 years, the truth was.

finally out. In an emotional trial during April of 1995, Juanita was found guilty of killing all five of her children. The verdict was murder by depraved indifference, meaning that she hadn't intended to kill them, but had acted recklessly by trying to smother them into silence. She was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison, but in the end she had only a few more years to live. In 1998, Juanita died at the age of 52 from pancreatic cancer. Looking back on all this, it's hard to make sense of Juanita's actions. She found motherhood overwhelming, yet she kept having children, killing them all before they could walk. Perhaps every time she got pregnant, she hoped things would be different. Or maybe not having children never felt like an option, given her upbringing,

backed into a corner again and again, she chose a terrible escape route. But in a twisted way, Juanita's actions brought justice to another set of crimes. Her trial, which made headlines, sparked renewed interest in the case of Marie No, which had been closed with no arrest three decades earlier. Following an in-depth investigative article by journalist Stephen Freed, the police reopened their investigation into the No Children's deaths in 1998. officers questioned Marie again, this time in far more detail, and something changed. Marie was now 70 years old. Perhaps she lacked the will or the energy to lie. Maybe after so many years she even felt remorse for what she'd done. Either way, under questioning, she confessed.

Marie admitted that she'd suffocated four of her children, and while she didn't deny killing the others, she said that she couldn't remember what had happened to them. Her memory had always been vague and patchy, and in her old age it seemed to be failing her entirely. Despite only confessing to four, she was charged with eight murders and reached a plea agreement with the state. In June of 1999, she was sentenced to 20 years of probation. In exchange for avoiding prison, Marie agreed to cooperate with an extensive psychiatric study. Freed, the journalist, called it the equivalent of donating her brain to science, while she was still alive. But for some reason, that study never happened.

Nobody ever found a satisfactory explanation for why Marie had done what she did. Postpartum psychosis was likely a factor, but there may well have been other undiagnosed mental illness at play. In a report prepared for her trial, psychiatrist John O'Brien II concluded that Marie had mixed personality disorder, which, per the current DSM-5 would be known as, personality disorder not otherwise specified. Essentially, this means she had a clinically significant disorder

that didn't fit into any existing criteria. O'Brien noted that Marie showed traits of avoidant, dependent, narcissistic, histrionic, borderline, and antisocial. In other words, almost every personality disorder under the sun. She was significantly impaired in ways that affected both her self-image and her relationships. but no diagnosis or mix of diagnoses can really explain her actions. Marie Noe died in 2016 at the age of 88.

Arthur had died seven years earlier and had defended his wife's innocence to the end. It seems he couldn't or wouldn't believe that the woman he loved would ever harm their children. The Noe and Hoyt children were victims not just of their mothers, but of their time. Thanks to contemporary mandatory reporting rules, Marie Noe would not have gotten away with her crimes had they been more recent. As it was, Juanita Hoyt and Marie Noe both committed monstrous acts of violence against the most innocent and vulnerable of victims. They brought unsuspecting children into the world,

allowed them to live for a few short weeks or months, and then snuffed them out as if they meant nothing. Juanita and Marie were also arguably products of a society that saw women as childbearers first and human beings second. They were forced into a role they were psychologically unfit for, and they lacked the strength of character to resist those societal expectations. It's possible that had they never become mothers, these women would also never have become murderers.

Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with another episode. For more information on Juanita Hoyt, amongst the many sources of we used, we found Richard Firstman and Jamie Tallinn's book, The Death of Innocence, extremely helpful in our research. For Marie No, we found Stephen Freed's Philadelphia Magazine article, Cradle to Grave, very helpful. You can find all episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free

on Spotify. If you enjoyed this episode, check out my other Spotify original from Parcast, Malicious Moms. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Anthony Valsick, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro,

Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Bruce Kitovich. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Emma Dibdin, with writing assistants by Joel Callan, fact-checking by Cheyenne Lopez, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Killers stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Want to hear something spooky? Some monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot.

Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very snake-like lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me, your guide, Derek Hayes. Somehow I had lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed.

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