LAUREN SHER and KRISTIN BRASWELL
Nobody can imagine why seemingly loving, devoted mothers would ever harm their own flesh and blood. But more than 200 women a year kill their children in the United States, according to the American Anthropological Association.
The shocking and unimaginable crimes of child-killers have gripped the nation for decades. Here's a look back at the famous cases of mothers accused of murder.
Diane Downs
Long before the infamous cases of Casey Anthony, Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, the nation was gripped by the story of Diane Downs, who shot her three children, killing one.
In 1983, Downs, a 27-year-old divorced postal service worker, told police that a "bushy-haired stranger" flagged down her car and shot her three children on a back road near Springfield, Oregon.
Her daughter Cheryl, 7, was dead on arrival at the hospital, and her other children -- Christie, 8, and Danny, 3, were clinging to life.
Downs' trial was a national spectacle that was later depicted in the TV movie "Small Sacrifices," starring Farrah Fawcett as Downs.
She was sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years. She was denied parole in December 2010 and will not be considered for parole again for ten years, when she will be 65.
Watch the full story on "20/20" tonight at 10 p.m. ET.
Casey Anthony
Casey Anthony, 25, is on trial in Orlando, Fla. on first-degree murder charges in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. She has pleaded not guilty and has been held in a Florida prison since the summer of 2008.
Caylee lived with her grandparents and her single mother, Casey. Caylee disappeared in June 2008, but was not reported missing until a month later. Anthony told police she left Caylee at the apartment of a babysitter named Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez, and that both were missing when she returned. Police found, among other discrepancies in Anthony's story, that the apartment had been vacant for more than 140 days.
Investigators said Anthony repeatedly misled and lied to police in the course of their work. She was named a suspect in her daughter's disappearance and charged with the Caylee's murder in October 2008.
After a six-month-long search, remains of Caylee's body were found in Orlando, Florida, in December 2008.
Casey Anthony's defense team has argued that the toddler accidentally drowned in the family pool and that George Anthony, Casey Anthony's father, helped dispose of the body.
The defense has accused George Anthony of sexually abusing Casey Anthony. They have argued that Casey Anthony hid her daughter Caylee's death in the same manner that she hid the molestation.
In his testimony before the court this week, George Anthony denied the defense's claims.
Susan Smith
In October 1994, Susan Smith drowned her two young sons, buckling them into their car seats and pushing the car into a South Carolina lake. The car sank with the sleeping children in the back.
Smith initially told police that a black man had hijacked her car and abducted the children. Americans desperately searched for the boys for nine days until Smith confessed that she killed her sons, Michael, 3, and 14-month-old Alex.
She was convicted of the two murders in July 1995 and sentenced to life in prison. A judge rejected Smith's appeal in March 2010. She is eligible for parole in November 2024.
Andrea Yates
In June 2001, Andrea Yates methodically drowned her five children in the bathtub in their Houston home. The case shocked the American public.
Yates told police and psychiatrists after the crime that Satan had ordered her to kill sons Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and 6-month-old daughter Mary, to save them from eternal damnation.
Yates, a former nurse and high school valedictorian, suffered from mental illness for years -- depression with bouts of psychosis, suicide attempts and hospitalizations.
In tapes of Yates' psychological evaluation, released exclusively to ABC's "Primetime" in 2006, she recalled details of the morning she murdered her kids, describing how she waited until her husband left the house to start filling the tub. "Drowning them" was "all I thought about," she said.
Yates was convicted of capital murder in March 2002, but an appeals court later overturned the verdict. In 2006, Yates was retried and found not guilty by reason of insanity. At the time, she was committed to a state mental hospital.
June 20 marked the 10-year anniversary of the Yates murders. Yates is now being treated in a minimum-security mental hospital in Kerrville, Texas. Her longtime lawyer, George Parnham, said he's "highly optimistic" she will be released after her recommitment hearing in November.
Encouraged by the case, Parnham formed the Yates Children Memorial Fund in June 2002 to educate women, their families and their doctors about postpartum psychosis and similar illnesses.
China Arnold
China Arnold was accused of killing her 3-week-old daughter in a microwave oven in Dayton, Ohio, on Aug. 30, 2005. Investigators said the baby, Paris Talley, was burned to death in the oven after Arnold and her boyfriend had an argument over who the child's biological father was. Arnold was sentenced to life in prison without parole Sept. 8, 2008. Judge Mary Wiseman told Arnold during the trial, "No adjectives exist to adequately describe this heinous atrocity. This act is shocking and utterly abhorrent for a civilized society."
Michelle Kehoe
Michelle Kehoe, 36, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on charges of first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old son Seth, and an attempted-murder charge related to her 7-year-old son, Sean.
Kehoe and her sons were reported missing by her husband, Eugene Kehoe, after the boys and their mother reportedly left to go visit relatives in Sumner, Iowa, on Oct. 26, 2008. The next morning, Kehoe walked into the home of residents in Littleton, Iowa, and told them that her sons were in danger.
Seth was found dead outside the family's van. Autopsy results revealed the boy had died from severe cuts to his neck. His older brother, Sean, was found struggling for his life inside the vehicle and had suffered similar cuts.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Kehoe falsely claimed that her children had been abducted. "She stated that she couldn't explain why she had done it. She stated that she couldn't face anyone. She stated that she wanted to die or be locked up where she couldn't hurt anyone else," the affidivit read.
At the trial in October 2009, Kehoe pleaded not guilty. Her attorneys argued that she suffered from extreme mental illness. An Iowa jury heard a tape of her surviving son telling police how his mother covered his eyes, nose and mouth with duct tape, slashed his throat, and then did the same to his younger brother. On Nov. 5, 2009, she was found guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder and child endangerment causing serious injury. The following month she was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 25 years.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/infamous-convicted-alleged-mommy-murderers-infamous-cases-andrea/story?id=13956527&singlePage=true
July 1, 2011
Nobody can imagine why seemingly loving, devoted mothers would ever harm their own flesh and blood. But more than 200 women a year kill their children in the United States, according to the American Anthropological Association.
The shocking and unimaginable crimes of child-killers have gripped the nation for decades. Here's a look back at the famous cases of mothers accused of murder.
Diane Downs
Long before the infamous cases of Casey Anthony, Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, the nation was gripped by the story of Diane Downs, who shot her three children, killing one.
In 1983, Downs, a 27-year-old divorced postal service worker, told police that a "bushy-haired stranger" flagged down her car and shot her three children on a back road near Springfield, Oregon.
Her daughter Cheryl, 7, was dead on arrival at the hospital, and her other children -- Christie, 8, and Danny, 3, were clinging to life.
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Downs' story about the stranger did not add up. Reading through her secret diaries, police found a motive: an obsession with a married man who didn't want her children. In February 1984, nine months after the shootings, they arrested her and charged her with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder.
Downs' trial was a national spectacle that was later depicted in the TV movie "Small Sacrifices," starring Farrah Fawcett as Downs.
She was sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years. She was denied parole in December 2010 and will not be considered for parole again for ten years, when she will be 65.
Watch the full story on "20/20" tonight at 10 p.m. ET.
Casey Anthony, 25, is on trial in Orlando, Fla. on first-degree murder charges in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. She has pleaded not guilty and has been held in a Florida prison since the summer of 2008.
Caylee lived with her grandparents and her single mother, Casey. Caylee disappeared in June 2008, but was not reported missing until a month later. Anthony told police she left Caylee at the apartment of a babysitter named Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez, and that both were missing when she returned. Police found, among other discrepancies in Anthony's story, that the apartment had been vacant for more than 140 days.
Investigators said Anthony repeatedly misled and lied to police in the course of their work. She was named a suspect in her daughter's disappearance and charged with the Caylee's murder in October 2008.
After a six-month-long search, remains of Caylee's body were found in Orlando, Florida, in December 2008.
Casey Anthony's defense team has argued that the toddler accidentally drowned in the family pool and that George Anthony, Casey Anthony's father, helped dispose of the body.
The defense has accused George Anthony of sexually abusing Casey Anthony. They have argued that Casey Anthony hid her daughter Caylee's death in the same manner that she hid the molestation.
In his testimony before the court this week, George Anthony denied the defense's claims.
In October 1994, Susan Smith drowned her two young sons, buckling them into their car seats and pushing the car into a South Carolina lake. The car sank with the sleeping children in the back.
Smith initially told police that a black man had hijacked her car and abducted the children. Americans desperately searched for the boys for nine days until Smith confessed that she killed her sons, Michael, 3, and 14-month-old Alex.
She was convicted of the two murders in July 1995 and sentenced to life in prison. A judge rejected Smith's appeal in March 2010. She is eligible for parole in November 2024.
In June 2001, Andrea Yates methodically drowned her five children in the bathtub in their Houston home. The case shocked the American public.
Yates told police and psychiatrists after the crime that Satan had ordered her to kill sons Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and 6-month-old daughter Mary, to save them from eternal damnation.
Yates, a former nurse and high school valedictorian, suffered from mental illness for years -- depression with bouts of psychosis, suicide attempts and hospitalizations.
In tapes of Yates' psychological evaluation, released exclusively to ABC's "Primetime" in 2006, she recalled details of the morning she murdered her kids, describing how she waited until her husband left the house to start filling the tub. "Drowning them" was "all I thought about," she said.
Yates was convicted of capital murder in March 2002, but an appeals court later overturned the verdict. In 2006, Yates was retried and found not guilty by reason of insanity. At the time, she was committed to a state mental hospital.
June 20 marked the 10-year anniversary of the Yates murders. Yates is now being treated in a minimum-security mental hospital in Kerrville, Texas. Her longtime lawyer, George Parnham, said he's "highly optimistic" she will be released after her recommitment hearing in November.
Encouraged by the case, Parnham formed the Yates Children Memorial Fund in June 2002 to educate women, their families and their doctors about postpartum psychosis and similar illnesses.
China Arnold was accused of killing her 3-week-old daughter in a microwave oven in Dayton, Ohio, on Aug. 30, 2005. Investigators said the baby, Paris Talley, was burned to death in the oven after Arnold and her boyfriend had an argument over who the child's biological father was. Arnold was sentenced to life in prison without parole Sept. 8, 2008. Judge Mary Wiseman told Arnold during the trial, "No adjectives exist to adequately describe this heinous atrocity. This act is shocking and utterly abhorrent for a civilized society."
Michelle Kehoe, 36, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on charges of first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old son Seth, and an attempted-murder charge related to her 7-year-old son, Sean.
Kehoe and her sons were reported missing by her husband, Eugene Kehoe, after the boys and their mother reportedly left to go visit relatives in Sumner, Iowa, on Oct. 26, 2008. The next morning, Kehoe walked into the home of residents in Littleton, Iowa, and told them that her sons were in danger.
Seth was found dead outside the family's van. Autopsy results revealed the boy had died from severe cuts to his neck. His older brother, Sean, was found struggling for his life inside the vehicle and had suffered similar cuts.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Kehoe falsely claimed that her children had been abducted. "She stated that she couldn't explain why she had done it. She stated that she couldn't face anyone. She stated that she wanted to die or be locked up where she couldn't hurt anyone else," the affidivit read.
At the trial in October 2009, Kehoe pleaded not guilty. Her attorneys argued that she suffered from extreme mental illness. An Iowa jury heard a tape of her surviving son telling police how his mother covered his eyes, nose and mouth with duct tape, slashed his throat, and then did the same to his younger brother. On Nov. 5, 2009, she was found guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder and child endangerment causing serious injury. The following month she was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 25 years.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/infamous-convicted-alleged-mommy-murderers-infamous-cases-andrea/story?id=13956527&singlePage=true
When you’re mom sent you to your room for doing something bad, you probably thought she was the worst mom in the world. Just be happy she didn’t smother you to death, like Marybeth Tinning did with 8 of her children between 1972 and 1985. Marybeth’s M.O. was pretty simple: she would have a child, and then within a year of the child’s birth, Marybeth would come rushing into the emergency room carrying a dead or dying baby. Her story was the same every time: she would claim that the baby just stopped breathing. Somehow, this had to happen 8 times before people started getting suspicious, and Marybeth eventually confessed to murdering 3 of the 8 children who definitely died at her hands. She’s still in prison and has been denied parole consistently since her incarceration.
Susan Smith is the Poster Girl of crazy moms. In 1994, Susan murdered her two sons, ages 3 and 1, by locking them in her car and rolling the car into a lake. Susan then reported the children as missing to the local police, claiming that a “black man” had stolen her car with the children inside. The story gained national attention, and concerned mothers across the country were on the lookout for Susan’s stolen car, her missing children, and anyone who could be described as “a black man”. Within a couple of weeks, though, Susan admitted to murdering her own children, and everyone in America wanted to kick her ass. According to Susan, she killed her children in order to attract an older man who wasn’t interested in taking on a family, so Susan thought “oh, that’s perfect! He never said anything about not wanting to be with a murderer, so I’ll just kill my family and then we can be happy forever!” Obviously, Susan suffered from some mental problems. She’s still in prison today, and she probably will be for the rest of her life.
Octomom (aka Nadya Suleman) didn’t kill any of her children, but some might argue that what she did is even worse: despite already having six children, she basically overdosed on fertility drugs in order to give birth to a set of octuplets so that she could become famous. She’s the second woman to give birth to octuplets in America, and her 8 babies have a record survival time, meaning that usually octuplets die shortly after birth. Nadya’s plan worked perfectly, and within a few weeks after giving birth to the octuplets, Nadya was an international celebrity. Shortly after that, people began to learn about Nadya’s life, and that’s where she began to lose fans. It turns out that, even before she was artificially impregnated with the octuplets, Nadya was a single mother to 6 previous children, was unemployed, and was living on welfare. That’s not exactly the best time to be popping out eight more hungry babies. Nadya makes the list for putting her own personal lust for stardom in front of her babies, her 6 older kids, and any sense of moral dignity. Then again, considering that Nadya has 14 kids, she doesn’t look bad at all. 
Andrea Yates is another baby-killer who drew national attention and quickly became a household name, at least when your family was having conversations about filicide. Andrea had a long history of depression, mental disorders, and diagnosed psychosis. Numerous doctors had warned her and her husband that her psychosis could prove dangerous to her children, but Andrea and her husband ignored the warnings. Then, in 2001, Andrea’s craziness got the best of her. She methodically drowned all five of her children in the bathtub in the span of one hour. The children ranged between 7 months and 7 years old. Andrea drowned the younger children first and saved the 7-year old for last, then she creepily laid all the bodies out on her bed. Despite her blatant craziness, her husband still talked about having more children with Andrea all through the trial. And you thought your mom was nuts for making you take a shower every day.
Diane Downs was basically the protege for the more infamous Susan Smith. In 1983, Diane shot her three young children, ages 4, 7, and 8, then drove them all to the hospital and reported that her car had been hijacked, that the hijacker had shot all of her children, and that she had narrowly escaped, suffering only a bullet wound to the arm. One of her daughters was pronounced dead on arrival, and the other two children were in critical condition. At first, doctors and police had no reason to doubt Diane’s story. After all, it was the 80′s and people weren’t very intuitive back then. It wasn’t until Diane visited one of her surviving daughters in the hospital that they became suspicious. Even though Diane’s daughter was incapacitated, she became terrified at the presence of her mother. After some further investigation, they soon discovered that Diane was carrying on an affair with a guy in Phoenix, Arizona. If she ever wanted to be with him, she’d have to get rid of this pesky family she’d built. Diane was sentenced to life in prison, and she’s been denied parole numerous times. She’ll be in prison for the rest of her life. Still, it might be a good idea to not let your mom watch the Lifetime Original Movie of Diane Downs, just to be safe. 
If you were making a list of “Things Not To Do With a Newborn Baby”, the number one item on the list would be “Don’t put it in the microwave”. Unfortunately, China Arnold left this all-important rule of her list and microwaved her newborn baby to death in 2005. The grisly murder occured when China was “intoxicated” and got into a fight with her boyfriend regarding the baby’s paternity. China placed the baby in the microwave and fired it up. She then took it to the hospital the following day, where the baby died from injuries. China was convicted of murder in 2008 and is currently serving a life sentence, but here conviction was recently reversed, so China’s heading back to the court room for a third trial. Good luck ever enjoying a Hot Pocket again.
Most of us will remember the creepiest news story to come out of 2008. The story was about Josef Fritzl, an Austrian man who built a secret sex dungeon in the basement of his house, locked his favorite daughter in that sex dungeon for 24 years, and continually and repeatedly raped, sodomized, and molested that daughter, fathering 7 incest children with her. Three of those incest children were kept in the basement dungeon with their imprisoned mother for their entire lives. They had never seen daylight. One of the worst aspects of this nightmarish story is that Josef Fritzl had a wife who was essentially complicit in the acts of her husband. At least, the courts concluded that she would’ve had to go out of her way to ignore the fact that her own daughter was being held prisoner in her basement for over two decades. The next time your son, daughter, niece, or nephew complains about having to do chores, just ask them if they’d rather be imprisoned, enslaved, raped, and molested for 24 straight years.