Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (1949–1968) 🇺🇲
Story: From 1949 to 1968, Marie Noe and her husband Arthur suffered an unimaginable tragedy: they lost all ten of their children, one after another, in infancy. The deaths were attributed to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), pneumonia, or unknown natural causes. Marie was seen as a grieving, tragically unlucky mother. Doctors and police believed her tears and distress. 🥲
Twist: In 1998, decades later, an investigative journalist and police reopened the cold cases. Under interrogation, Marie then 70, confessed to smothering or strangling at least four of her infants, and possibly all ten. She described silencing their cries with pillows or her hands. Due to her age, cooperation with psychiatric study, and a diagnosis of mixed personality disorder, she received a controversial plea deal: no prison time, only five years of house arrest and 20 years' probation. She died in 2016, leaving a haunting legacy of one of America's most hidden serial killers, a mother who murdered her own children while society saw only a victim of cruel fate. 🫠