Marie Noe (August 23, 1928May 5, 2016) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

woman who was convicted in June 1999 of murdering eight of her children. Between 1949 and 1968, eight of the ten Noe children died of mysterious causes which were then attributed to

sudden infant death syndrome Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usuall ...

. All eight children were healthy at birth and were developing normally. Two other children died of natural causes. Noe pleaded guilty in June 1999 to eight counts of second-degree murder, and was sentenced to 20 years' probation and psychiatric examination.

Biography

Early life

Noe was born Marie Lyddy on August 23, 1928, in the

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

neighborhood of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

to Ella (née Ackler) and James Lyddy. Marie was one of several children born of her parents' troubled marriage. Marie contracted

scarlet fever Scarlet fever, also known as Scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'' a Group A streptococcus (GAS). The infection is a type of Group A streptococcal infection (Group A strep). It most commonly affects childr ...

at age five, which she later credited as the cause of learning difficulties. She dropped out of school as a young teenager to work and help care for a niece, born to one of her older sisters when Marie was 12 and raised as Marie's sister.

Marriage and children

Marie Lyddy and Arthur Allen Noe (1921–2009) met at a private club in the

West Kensington West Kensington, formerly North End, is an area in the ancient parish of Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) west of Charing Cross. It covers most of the London postal area of W14, includin ...

neighborhood of Philadelphia. On June 1, 1948, after a brief courtship, the couple eloped. The couple proceeded to have ten children, all of whom died between the ages of five days and 14 months. # Richard Allan Noe (March 7, 1949 – April 7, 1949) # Elizabeth Mary Noe (September 8, 1950 – February 17, 1951) # Jacqueline Noe (April 23, 1952 – May 3, 1952) # Arthur Noe Jr. (April 23, 1955 – April 28, 1955) # Constance Noe (February 24, 1958 – March 20, 1958) # Letitia Noe (stillborn, August 24, 1959; cause of death was umbilical cord knot) # Mary Lee Noe (June 19, 1962 – January 4, 1963) # Theresa Noe (died in hospital, June 1963; cause of death was "congenital

hemorrhagic diathesis Bleeding, hemorrhage, haemorrhage or blood loss, is blood escaping from the circulatory system from damaged blood vessels. Bleeding can occur internally, or externally either through a natural opening such as the mouth, nose, ear, urethra, vag ...

") # Catherine Ellen Noe (December 3, 1964 – February 24, 1966) # Arthur Joseph Noe (July 28, 1967 – January 2, 1968) During the Caesarean birth of her last child, Noe had a

uterine rupture Uterine rupture is when the muscular wall of the uterus tears during pregnancy or childbirth. Symptoms, while classically including increased pain, vaginal bleeding, or a change in contractions, are not always present. Disability or death of the ...

and underwent a

hysterectomy Hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus. It may also involve removal of the cervix, ovaries (oophorectomy), Fallopian tubes (salpingectomy), and other surrounding structures. Usually performed by a gynecologist, a hysterectomy may b ...

. In 1963 ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' magazine published a sympathetic article on Noe, written by Mary Cadwalader and using the pseudonyms Martha and Andrew Moore for Noe and her husband, after six of Noe's children had died.

Reinvestigation and charges

Interest in the case was renewed after the publication of the 1997 book ''The Death of Innocents'', about New York woman

Waneta Hoyt Waneta Ethel (Nixon) Hoyt (May 13, 1946 – August 13, 1998) was an American serial killer who was convicted of killing all five of her biological children. Early life Hoyt was born in Richford, New York. She dropped out of Newark Valley High S ...

, and an investigative article (Cradle to Grave by Stephen Fried) that appeared in the April 1998 issue of ''Philadelphia'' magazine. Stephen Fried turned over his investigation results to the Philadelphia Police Department in March 1998. Upon questioning by police after receiving the material, Noe admitted to suffocating four of her children. She stated that she could not remember what happened to the other four children who died under similar circumstances. She was charged with first-degree murder in August 1998. A plea agreement was reached in which Noe admitted to eight counts of second-degree murder and she was sentenced in June 1999 to 20 years of probation with the first five years under house arrest. As a condition of her plea agreement, Noe agreed to psychiatric study in hopes of identifying what caused her to kill her children. In September 2001, a study was filed with the court which stated Noe had a mixed-personality disorder with avoidant, dependent, narcissistic, histrionic, borderline, paranoid and antisocial features.

Books featuring Marie Noe

The book ''Cradle of Death'' by John Glatt is about Marie Noe and her children's murders. Many other books feature Marie Noe alongside other criminals, such as ''Engendered Death: Pennsylvania Women Who Kill'' by Joseph W. Laythe and ''The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Pennsylvania'' by Ron Franscell and Karen B. Valentine. The book ''The Life You Longed For: A Novel'', by Maribeth Fischer, which is fictional, also mentions Noe's murders.

References

External links

"Marie Noe Tells You About Her Kids", fiction by Lindsay Hunter, published on 06/07/10 in Columns, Content, Issue #7, Proximity Magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Noe, Marie 1928 births 2016 deaths 20th-century American criminals American female serial killers American murderers of children American people convicted of murder Filicides in the United States Infanticide People convicted of murder by Pennsylvania People from Philadelphia People with personality disorders