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Marybeth Tinning (1987)

‘Baby Killer’ Marybeth Tinning Paroled after 31 Years



SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – Convicted child killer Marybeth Tinning has been granted parole, state officials confirmed Sunday. Tinning, now 75, went before the state parole board last week and was granted her release. Since 2007, she had been denied on six previous appearances before the board. She has served 31 years in custody. Her exact release date is unclear, but the state inmate website lists her earliest possible release as August 21. She is currently housed at the medium-security Taconic Correctional Facility at Bedford Hills, Westchester County. When she is released, she will remain under supervision for the remainder of her life.



Tinning was sentenced in 1987 to 20 years to life in state prison for her conviction in the 1985 smothering death of her 4-month-old daughter, Tami Lynne. Her case gained national attention because all nine of her children died beginning in 1972 to 1985. Eight of the deaths were under suspicious circumstances. One of the children was adopted. She was indicted in three of the deaths, but prosecutors pursued only the Tami Lynne case. Tinning denied killing the others.



Standing by her throughout her trial and long incarceration has been her husband, Joseph “Joe” Tinning. He continued to visit her regularly – at least once a month – during her three decades in prison. Mr. Tinning told The Gazette his wife was informed of the decision late last week, after which she told him. “It’s very emotional,” he said of the decision. “She was very emotional telling me.” He admitted he is “very glad that it will soon be all over with.” They’re still waiting on the final details of when she’ll be released and expects they’ll live in Duanesburg.



State corrections officials have said release of inmates like Tinning usually comes within two to three months of the board’s granting parole. Officials said Sunday she is “scheduled for release pending the completion of her community preparation package, which includes an approved residence.”



Tinning’s several previous attempts at parole have been attended by both those supporting her release and those supporting her continued incarceration. The man credited with obtaining the initial confession, then-state police Investigator William A. Barnes, supported her release before her initial appearance before the parole board in 2007. He believed she was no longer a threat to society. Barnes, who went on to serve as Schenectady County sheriff, died last month at the age of 80.



The Schenectady County District Attorney’s Office, under then-District Attorney John Poersch, prosecuted Tinning. Current Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney has opposed her release since she first became eligible for consideration. After learning of the board’s decision, Carney noted that she has aged and things have changed since her initial appearance and said he wasn’t going to second-guess the Parole Board’s decision. However, he claimed he never saw her really acknowledge what she did. At her first parole hearing in 2007, Tinning denied any involvement in Tami Lynne’s death. She admitted it at her next appearance and consistently in appearances afterward. As for the other suspicious deaths, she continued to deny harming any of the children. “She admitted guilt, I guess, but it was without any insight,” Carney continued.



Tinning’s defense attorney at her 1987 trial was Paul Callahan, who announced Sunday that he’s happy for her. “Her sentence was 20-to-life, which means, in the judge’s opinion, the max [25-life] wasn’t appropriate for her,” Callahan, who continues to practice locally, explained. He noted that hope for his client’s release was raised when the board, after denying her last time, allowed her to return after 18 months, rather than the standard two years.



As for what she’ll do upon release, this remains to be seen. At her 2013 appearance, her fifth before the board, she read a letter to the board that the members “please allow me a chance to prove that I am not the same person that I was 27 years ago. I ask you to see me as I am today, not as I was then, and to show you that I am a changed and loving person, that I am confronted with the result of my actions every day. I will carry the pain and regret for the rest of my life. I would be an asset, not a problem, to society.” She added that she would prove herself “working in the church and the community where my help is needed, such as volunteering at a food bank and homeless shelters.”



Though Tinning will be supervised, Callahan doesn’t believe she will have any difficulties and expects her husband’s residence will be acceptable to the parole board. “There’s going to be an adjustment period for her and who knows how long that will be?” he continued. “But she’ll wake up in the morning, walk around, and do what she wants to do.”



Carney, however, said he would have felt more comfortable about her release had she acknowledged what she did. “I don’t know if there can ever be true rehabilitation in the absence of acknowledgment of responsibility,” he added. “But I hope that she lives out her days peacefully and poses no threat anyone.”



Marybeth Tinning was convicted of killing one of her nine children, all of whom died from 1971 - 1985.



The Life and Crimes of Mary Beth Tinning



Marybeth Roe was born September 11, 1942, in Duanesburg, New York. She was an average student at Duanesburg High School and following graduation, worked at various jobs until she settled in as a nursing assistant at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady. In 1963, at the age of 21, Marybeth met Joseph “Joe” Tinning on a blind date. Joe worked for General Electric as did Marybeth’s father. He had a quiet disposition, was easygoing and the two dated for several months before marrying in 1965.



Marybeth said once there were two things she wanted from life – to be married to someone who cared for her and to have children. By 1967, she had attained her goals. The couple’s first child, Barbara Ann, was born May 31, 1967. Their second child, Joseph, called “Joey,” cane along a little short of three years later on January 10, 1970. By October 1971, Marybeth was pregnant with their third child, when her father died of a sudden heart attack. This became the first of a series of tragic events in the Tinning family.





Barbara and Joey Tinning

Jennifer: 3rd child, 1st to die. Jennifer Tinning was born December 26, 1971, remained hospitalized because of a severe infection and died eight days later. According to the autopsy report, the cause of death was acute meningitis. Some who attended Jennifer’s funeral recalled it seemed more like a social event than a funeral. Naturally, Marybeth, as the grieving mother, was the center of attention and this seemed to give her a great deal of comfort.



Joey: 2nd child, 2nd to die. On January 20, 1972, just 17 days after Jennifer’s death, Marybeth rushed into the emergency room of Schenectady’s Ellis Hospital carrying her son, Joey, who had just celebrated his 2nd birthday. The child seemed to be having some sort of seizure; he was quickly revived, evaluated and sent home. A few hours later, Mrs. Tinning returned with her son, but this time, he couldn’t be revived. Marybeth told doctors she put Joey down for a nap and when she checked on him, he was tangled up in the sheets and his skin was blue. The cause of death was determined to be cardio-respiratory arrest and no autopsy was performed.



Barbara: 1st child, 3rd to die. Six weeks later, on March 2, 1972, Marybeth burst into the same emergency room with Barbara, her 4½-year-old daughter who was having convulsions. The doctor treated the child and wanted to keep her overnight. However, Mrs. Tinning refused to leave her child and, against medical advice, took her home. Again, within hours, Marybeth returned to the hospital. This time, Barbara was unconscious and in spite of medical intervention, died. The cause of death was listed as brain edema, commonly known as swelling of the brain and some of physicians who treated the child suspected Reyes Syndrome. This time, the police were contacted, but after speaking with the doctors, the matter was dropped.



Three dead children in nine weeks. All three Tinning children died within nine weeks of each other. There were those who had always considered Marybeth somewhat odd, but following the deaths of her children, she became withdrawn and suffered severe mood swings – which, of course, was to be expected. To aid in their recovery, the Tinnings decided to move to a new house, hoping the change would help them get over the loss of their children and they could start over.



Timothy: 4th child, 4th to die. On Thanksgiving Day, November 21, 1973, Timothy was born and just three weeks later, on December 10, Marybeth found him dead in his crib. The doctors couldn’t find a cause of death and chalked it up to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), also known as crib death. SIDS was first recognized in 1969 and in the 1970s, there were still many more questions than answers surrounding this mysterious condition.



Nathan: 5th child, 5th to die. The Tinnings’ next child, Nathan, was another holiday child, born on Easter Sunday, March 30, 1975. But like those of his siblings, his life was cut short. On September 2, 1975, Marybeth rushed him to St. Clare’s Hospital in Schenectady, saying she was driving with her son lying on the front seat of her car when she noticed he wasn’t breathing. Again, the doctors couldn’t find any reason for the child’s death and attributed it to acute pulmonary edema.



The death gene. The Tinnings had lost five children in five years and some doctors who had treated the children suspected they possessed some sort of “death gene.” Family and friends, however, suspected something else and discussed among themselves how strange it was that the babies all seemed healthy and active before they died. If the doctors were right and there was a death gene involved, why did the Tinnings continue having children? It had gotten to the point that when Marybeth announced another pregnancy, some couldn’t help wondering: How long until the next funeral? Members of Marybeth’s family also noticed how upset she seemed if she felt she wasn’t receiving sufficient attention when one of her children died.



Joe Tinning. In 1974, Joe Tinning was admitted to the hospital suffering from barbiturate poisoning after ingesting a near-fatal dose. Both he and his wife admitted there was a lot of a lot of turbulence in their marriage and that Marybeth had obtained the medication from a friend with an epileptic child and put it in husband’s grape juice. Joe believed their marriage was strong enough to survive the incident and the two remained together, despite the fact she had tried to kill him. Later, he said, “You have to believe the wife.”



Adoption. Somehow the Tinnings were able to qualify as foster parents and in August 1978, they adopted a boy named Michael, whom they had been fostering. As often happens, around this time, Marybeth discovered she was pregnant again.



Mary Francis: 7th child, 6th to die. Just before Halloween in 1978, on October 29, Marybeth gave birth a daughter they named Mary Frances. As had happened with her previous children, in January 1979, Mrs. Tinning rushed her child to the hospital, claiming she was having seizures. She was treated and sent home and all went well for about a month before she was again taken to the emergency room at St. Clare’s. But this time, she didn’t go home, she died shortly after she arrived and, again, the doctors attributed the death to SIDS.



Jonathan: 8th child, 7th to die. On November 19, 1979, the Tinnings announced the birth of Jonathan. There were no problems until March 1980, at which time Marybeth was back at St. Clare’s with an unconscious baby. This time, however, the doctors were taking no chances and transported the child to Boston Hospital where he could be evaluated and treated by specialists. The battery of tests didn’t explain what caused him to lose consciousness and he was sent home with his parents. Just three days later, on March 24, 1980, Mrs. Tinning returned to St. Clare’s and this time, her son was dead. The treating physician listed the cause of death as cardio-pulmonary arrest.



Michael: 6th child, 8th to die. The Tinnings had one child left – 2½-year-old Michael – and they weren’t his biological parents, so, if something happened to him, the so-called death gene couldn’t be blamed. He was a healthy, happy child until March 2, 1981, when Marybeth showed up at the pediatrician’s office with Michael, who died before he could be examined. Autopsy revealed the toddler was suffering from pneumonia, but it wasn’t severe enough to have killed him.



Michael’s death set tongues a-wagging at St. Clare’s, where staff members were puzzled as to why Mrs. Tinning, who lived just across the street, took her seriously ill to the pediatrician instead of walking across the street to the hospital emergency room as she had done in the past. Instead, she had waited for the doctor’s office to open and this didn’t make sense. Nevertheless, the doctors attributed Michael’s death to acute pneumonia.



By this time, Marybeth was growing paranoid because someone had told her, or she sensed, what medical personnel at St. Clare’s were saying. Accordingly, she and Joe decided to move again.





Marybeth Tinning today

Genetic flaw theory blown. It had been long assumed a genetic flaw was responsible for the deaths of the Tinning children, but Michael was adopted and this cast everything in a different light. So what had killed eight children in one family? Following Michael’s death, doctors contacted social workers and the police concerning their suspicions. However, with death certificates listing SIDS, pneumonia, brain edema and other natural causes, there was little anyone could do.



Tami Lynne: 9th child, 9th to die. Marybeth had buried eight children, but neither she nor Joe did anything to prevent pregnancy – which people couldn’t understand – and on August 22, 1985, Tami Lynne was born. Doctors carefully monitored the baby for four months and observed a normal, healthy child. But by December 20, Tami Lynne, not quite four-months-old, was dead. Again, the cause of death was listed as SIDS.



Broken Silence. At the funeral of the Tinnings’ ninth child, people were scrutinizing Marybeth. Following the services, the distraught mother invited family and friends to her home for brunch. One neighbor noticed Marybeth’s usual less-than-sunny demeanor had disappeared and she seemed uncharacteristically sociable as she chattered with those in attendance. As some puzzled over Marybeth’s odd behavior, others whispered among themselves this was the final straw. As soon as the brunch was over, the telephones at the police station lit up like Christmas trees, with neighbors, family members, doctors and nurses calling in to report their suspicions about the mysterious deaths of the Tinning children.



The pathologist. Schenectady Police Chief Richard E. Nelson contacted forensic pathologist Michael Baden, M.D., and asked him a series of questions about SIDS and the likelihood of nine babies and toddlers in the same family dying – at different times – of natural causes. Baden told him it wasn't possible and asked for the case files. The doctor also explained that babies who die of SIDS do not turn blue. They look like normal children, he insisted, only they’re dead. In the case of a blue baby, he would suspect homicidal asphyxia, i.e., the child had been deliberately smothered.



Confession. On February 4, 1986, Schenectady investigators brought Marybeth in for questioning. For several hours she told investigators about different incidents that had occurred when her children died. She denied having anything to do with their deaths, but hours into the interrogation, she broke down and admitted she killed three of the children. “I did not do anything to Jennifer, Joey, Barbara, Michael, Mary Frances, Jonathan,” she insisted. “Just these three: Timothy, Nathan and Tami. I smothered them each with a pillow because I’m not a good mother. I’m not a good mother because of the other children.”



Joe Tinning was brought to the station and he encouraged Marybeth to be honest. Tearfully, she admitted to her husband what she had told the police. The interrogators then asked her to go through each of the children’s murders and explain what happened.



A 36-page statement was prepared and at the bottom, Marybeth wrote a brief statement concerning which of the children she killed (Timothy, Nathan and Tami) and denied doing anything to the others, after which she signed and dated the confession. According to her signed statement, Marybeth killed Tami Lynne because she wouldn’t stop crying.



She was arrested and charged with the second-degree murder of Tami Lynne Tinning. The investigators could not find sufficient evidence to charge her with killing the others.



Denial. At the preliminary hearings, Marybeth said that during the interrogation, the police had threatened to dig up the bodies of her children and rip them limb-from-limb,* and that the 36-page statement was a false confession – nothing more than a story the police were telling and which she was forced to repeat. But despite her efforts to block the confession, it was admitted into evidence.



Trial and sentence. The murder trial of Marybeth Tinning began June 22, 1987, in Schenectady County and much of it centered on the cause of Tami Lynne’s death. The defense called several physicians who testified the Tinning children suffered from a genetic defect – an undiscovered syndrome, a new disease. The prosecution called SIDS expert Marie Valdez-Dapena, M.D., who testified that suffocation rather than disease killed Tami Lynne. Marybeth Tinning did not take the stand. After deliberating 29 hours, the jury reached a decision. Marybeth Tinning, 44, was pronounced guilty of second-degree murder for killing her four-month-old daughter, Tami Lynne Tinning.



When questioned by a New York Times reporter, Joe Tinning said he felt the jurors did their job, but their opinion differed from his own.



During sentencing, Marybeth read a statement in which she said she was sorry Tami Lynne was dead and thought about her every day, but that she had no part in her death. She also swore she would never stop trying to prove her innocence. “The Lord above and I know I am innocent,” she insisted. “One day the whole world will know that I am innocent and maybe then I can have my life back once again or what is left of it.”



The child she didn’t kill, or did she? In Michael Baden’s book, Confessions of a Medical Examiner, one of the cases he profiles is that of Marybeth Tinning. Few doubt the first Tenning child, Jennifer, was born with a severe infection, from which she died before she was released from the hospital. But Baden disagrees. “Jennifer looks to be the victim of a coat hanger,” the doctor claims. “Tinning had been trying to hasten her birth and only succeeded in introducing meningitis. The police theorized that she wanted to deliver the baby on Christmas Day, like Jesus. She thought her father, who had died while she was pregnant, would have been pleased.” He also attributes the deaths of the Tinning children as a result of Marybeth’s suffering from acute Münchausen by Proxy Syndrome. He describes Mrs. Tinning as a sympathy junky: “She liked the attention of people feeling sorry for her from the loss of her children.”



Sources: Steven Cook and Bill Buell, “Child killer Marybeth Tinning granted parole,” The Daily Gazette, July 16, 2018; Charles Montaldo, “Marybeth Tinning: The Story of the Deaths of Nine Children and Münchausen by Proxy Syndrome,” ThoughtCo, March 27, 2017; From Cradle to Grave: The Short Lives and Strange Deaths of Marybeth Tinning’s Nine Children by Joyce Egginton; Confessions of a Medical Examiner by Michael Baden, M.D.; and Clayton Aldrich, “After Years of Mysterious Accidents, the Police Discover this Mother’s Chilling Secret,” Boredom Therapy.



*The bodies of three of the Tinning children were exhumed, but pathologists were unable to determine their causes of death.