Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Reporter Discusses Investigation of Woman Who Killed Children

Aired March 26, 2002 - 08:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Long before there was Andrea Yates, there was the case of another disturbed mother, Marie Noe. After a period of 19 years, she killed eight of her 10 children. None of them lived past 15 months. It was believed they had died from crib death, better now known as SIDS. For three decades, Noe got away with murder and police finally cracked the case after reporter Stephen Fried conducted his own investigation.

Noe confessed to her crimes and in 1998 received a controversial sentence of 20 years probation in exchange for submitting to extensive psychiatric evaluation. Now the terms of that sentence for her -- she's now 80 years old -- will be the subject of a hearing this morning.

And journalist and author Stephen Fried joins us now from Philadelphia. Good to see you. Welcome.

STEPHEN FRIED, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Good morning.

ZAHN: How did you break open this case?

FRIED: I read about it in a book that had come out about SIDS called "The Death of Innocents." They mentioned the case in passing, that it was a famous case. I contacted the authors and they told me what they knew about it and suggested that I investigate the case. And we spent six months gathering all the old materials, finding the people who had investigated the case in the '50s and '60s and finally asking them to render an opinion based on the new science whether these cases needed to be reinvestigated.

The day after the article came out, the police went, interviewed Mrs. Noe and she confessed.

ZAHN: Now, you also interviewed Mrs. Noe, didn't you?

FRIED: I spent a good deal of time with Mr. and Mrs. Noe in their home.

ZAHN: And describe to us what she was like, what she told you and the impressions that you got as a result of those meetings.

FRIED: Well, Mr. and Mrs. Noe, you interviewed them together. Mr. Noe answers most of the questions. Mrs. Noe is a large woman, broad-shouldered, and she has very little affect, which is something that the psychiatrists talked about all the way back into the 1950s. Her husband is a very feisty guy. He interrupts her all the time. He's clearly very in love with her and she's a woman who you look at very puzzled trying to figure out what her intentions might have been then. She has a history of mental illness and mental impairment which she's quite up front about, which makes the case even more tragic because I think that as this was going along, she knew it was happening and so did others around her. But nothing was done to stop it.

ZAHN: And at any point in time during this very long investigation did Mr. Noe ever express skepticism about his wife's innocence?

FRIED: No. And he's the only person left who still believes that she is innocent. Mrs. Noe did plead guilty. She confessed and pleaded guilty in open court. But Mr. Noe, whenever he is talked to by anybody, still claims that Mrs. Noe didn't do this and he says, you know, if she had done this don't you think I would have thrown her out? And, you know, he still says she's innocent.

ZAHN: How do you explain this unusual sentence of probation she got?

FRIED: Well, first of all, it was a plea bargain and unlike the Andrea Yates case where it went to trial, this was a plea bargain of a woman whose crimes had been committed 30 years earlier and there was no reason to believe that she was, continued to be a threat to anybody. It was a very controversial sentence. There were people in the D.A.'s office who were dead set against it because of the message that it sent, a woman kills eight children and gets probation and house arrest.

But what we wall were very hopeful about was that this very unusual psychiatric sentence -- and if you keep in mind, this sentence was brought down in 1999 before Andrea Yates -- the idea was that she would be studied by experts all over the country and maybe we would learn enough about SIDS, but also about what women do in psychotic situations after birth that might have prevented the Andrea Yates case from happening. Unfortunately that sentence has yet to be carried out.

ZAHN: Have neurological experts actually examined Mrs. Noe?

FRIED: No. What happened was when the case was brought to, when she pleaded they said that experts from around the country would be brought in. They were contacted and asked when they could start and now, almost two and a half years later, none of them have been contacted. She has only been seen by a court ordered psychiatrist and a court ordered psychologist here in Philadelphia. And many of the experts are quite angry because they believe that a really important opportunity is being lost.

ZAHN: Did Mrs. Noe ever tell you why she killed her children?

FRIED: No. She never admitted it to me. She talked about a lot of things that had to do with her wishing that she could have stopped having children. She confessed to me that she had wanted to have a hysterectomy after her third child and a priest talked her out of it, saying it would be a sin. But she did tell police when they finally brought her in for questioning that where were you 30 years ago?

So I think part of the problem was that nobody -- at that time no one could imagine that a woman could do this. And they actually, during the time when the babies were dying, were focusing more on whether the husband had something to do with it.

ZAHN: And now that this has become public, what has Mr. Noe said? Is he still denying that his wife played any role in the killing of his children?

FRIED: He still denies it and my understanding is that in the sessions with the psychologist, sometimes Mrs. Noe continues to admit that she did it and other times she acts confused and says that she's not sure that she did it. But there's so much evidence in this case it really is, you know, one of the people involved was really the grandmother of SIDS research and she said, you know, this is a classic case. And it's a real loss because basically they could start doing the research with her right now. The doctors are ready and waiting and the hearing today is going to be, unfortunately, I think, another example of letting the case drag on and on.

This is a woman who's quite old and we need to get experts to her so that cases like hers and Andrea Yates' can be prevented.

ZAHN: A final question for you, what do you think will happen? Further delays? Is that what you're saying?

FRIED: Well, I think there will be further delays today, but I do believe and I continue to be hopeful. I think the judge made a good sentence, a better sentence than the Andrea Yates case. I just think that he has had, for whatever reasons, difficulty either raising the money or getting government officials focused on this. This is a really important sentence to carry out, not just for Marie Noe, but for women all over the country who have problems after giving birth where their kids are at risk. And it's an amazing opportunity for expert from all over the country to come together and maybe have the opportunity that we're not going to get from Andrea Yates because people denied her mental illness.

ZAHN: Well, it is one bizarre case and a very sad case at that.

Stephen Fried, thanks for joining us this morning and we'd love to have you back to keep us posted on what's going to happen in court later today.

FRIED: Be happy to do it.

ZAHN: Thanks for your time.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com