Whoever fights monsters...

On January 20, 1972, Marybeth Tinning rushed her two-year-old son, Joseph Jr., to the emergency room in Schenectady, NY. She claimed he’d suffered some kind of seizure, but doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him. Hours later, she returned again and, this time, little Joseph Jr. was dead. Tinning said she’d put him to bed, then found him tangled in the sheets. It seemed a horribly tragic loss for Tinning and her husband, Joe — her father had died of a heart attack the previous October and their newborn daughter, Jennifer, had died just a month before, from meningitis and had never even left the hospital.

Police investigated, the but there was no evidence of a crime. However, less than six weeks later, Tinning returned to the emergency room with their remaining child, Barbara, age 4. The doctors wanted to keep Barbara, but Tinning insisted on taking her home. Hours later, Tinning returned with an unconscious Barabara, who later died. All three Tinning children had died within 90 days of each other.

Sadly, it didn’t end there. Over the years, the Tinnings continued to have more children, and even adopted an infant, and most of them survived only a few months. Some deaths were blamed on SIDS, though the odds of it occurring more than once to the same family are astronomical. Doctors did all kinds of studies to see if the problem was genetic, which seemed to be ruled out when their adopted son, Michael, died as well. Questions were asked, but not enough people from different organizations put their information together to launch an investigation. Each time the Tinnings had another child, some people would wonder how long the baby would live.

It wasn’t until the death of the Tinning’s ninth child, Tami Lynne in 1985 (fourteen years after her killing spree began), that police finally arrested her. Tinning confessed to smothering Tami Lynne with a pillow, then confessed to killing two of the others. Later, she tried to recant her testimony. She was eventually convicted in of murdering Tami Lynne, the only one for which police could obtain enough evidence. Efforts were made to try her for two others, but were later dropped. She was convicted of second degree murder in July, 1987, and is currently up for parole.

Diane Downs

In 1983, Diane Downs shot her three children, killing one of them. Diane’s children had been in the way of her relationship with a new man. 

Diane shot her children and then drove them to the hospital - claiming a man had carjacked her. She had been shot in the arm. One of the children were dead upon arrival at the hospital. It did not take long for the police to figure out that her story was a lie. She is in prison, but has been eligible for parole twice, and was denied both times - most recently in 2010. 

(A decade later, Susan Smith would use this same story when she killed her children. )

Anjette Donovan Lyles

A self-styled practitioner of black magic and voodoo, Anjette Lyles was born in Georgia during 1917. In 1958, authorities in Macon received an anonymous letter , charging that Lyles’ daughter Marcia was being poisoned at home, and they felt obliged to investigate. The girl died before police intervened, but an autopsy revealed lethal traces of arsenic. The grieving mother spun a tale of accidental death, with Marcia eating poison during a game of “doctor and nurse,” but homicide investigators weren’t convinced. Their background search had turned up other family skeletons, including Anjette’s last two husbands and one of her mothers-in-law. On exhumation, all three victims tested positive for arsenic, and Lyles was shown to have received insurance benefits upon the death of each. Convicted and sentenced to death at her trial, the defendant was later ruled insane by court psychiatrists, packed off to the state hospital at Milledgeville for life.

(I’ve lost the source for this - if anyone knows they can send it to me and I’ll include it!) 

Diane Downs

In 1983, Diane Downs shot her three children, killing one of them. Diane’s children had been in the way of her relationship with a new man. 

Diane shot her children and then drove them to the hospital - claiming a man had carjacked her. She had been shot in the arm. One of the children were dead upon arrival at the hospital. It did not take long for the police to figure out that her story was a lie. She is in prison, but has been eligible for parole twice, and was denied both times - most recently in 2010. 

(A decade later, Susan Smith would use this same story when she killed her children. )