it was the spring of 1998. 30 years after marie noe s tenth baby died, and decades after police first investigated marie and arthur noe. investigative journalist stephen fried had just finished an article on the couple when he received a phone call he ll never forget. dr. hal fillinger, the former assistant philadelphia medical examiner, made the call. hal called me one day and he said, can you keep a secret? and i was like, yeah. and he said, she confessed. and honestly, i fell down on the floor crying. the whole time we had done this investigation while we all agreed that it was an important investigation to do and it would be a really interesting story, everybody always said, the only way that anything happens here is if she confesses, and that will never happen. just days before the article was released to the public, the police received an advance copy. and took action.
moms who are about to give birth. the noes tenth child, arthur jr., their second son to be given that name, was born in july of 1967. 18 years after marie noe gave birth to her first child. like catherine before him, arthur was kept in the hospital for observation. doctors and nurses were also observing the noes behavior during this time and they noted how little the couple visited their newborn baby. one nurse said that they came twice during the three months the baby was there. without solid evidence against the noes, the authorities couldn t keep little arty in the hospital any longer. three months after he went home, marie noe reported finding her tenth child face-up, gasping for breath. and turning blue. arthur jr. died january 2, 1968. he was just 5 months old.
state wasn t passed until 1967. one year before marie noe s last child was born. today there are many laws and agencies protecting the welfare of children. and doctors are required by law to report any suspected cases of child endangerment or abuse. this was a case unlike any philadelphia police or doctors had ever seen. ten babies from the same family died over a period of 19 years. two of natural causes and eight died at the hands of their own mother. 30 years ago or 40 years ago, we were all focusing on the poor mother. she had gone through this terrible trauma of losing her child or children. all our attention was focused on her. and today, we re focusing on yes, it is a tragedy for the mother.
she had killed our kids? the important thing that happened today was the finality. we have a woman who has admitted that she killed all eight of her children. in all, ten children died. two died of natural causes and 30 years after the last baby, arty, was buried, the truth was finally revealed about the others. marie noe would not serve any time in prison. in her plea bargain, she received an unusual sentence of 20 years probation, including five years house arrest and a special condition. that she would be examined by a team of psychiatrists, among them experts on postpartum depression and munchausen syndrome by proxy. conditions that can cause mothers to harm their own children. instead of spending money to house this woman in a prison, the money will be spent to try and find out why she did this. that was 1999. according to the d.a. s office, marie noe was evaluated by four
i m sure they were very scared about the idea, what if they were wrong? you know. what if they took the saddest woman in the world who had done nothing wrong to her kids and lost eight kids and made it worse for her? coming up, marie noe had lost two children to obvious, natural causes. had the other babies died from natural causes, too? came to lou. they came to see us in florida. to lou. make that alabama. make that mississippi. the best part of the gulf is wherever you choose. and now is a great time to discover it. this year millions of people did. we set all kinds of records. next year we re out to do even better. so come on down to louisiana. florida. alabama. mississippi. we can t wait to see you. brought to you by bp and all of us who call the gulf home. congratulations.