6 Brutal Female Murderers In The US You Never Knew About Until Now

3. Marybeth Tinning

NY Daily News
NY Daily News

Marybeth Tinning was born in 1942 in upstate NY and murdered three of her nine children (two of whom were adopted). She was diagnosed with Munchausen by Proxy, a rare disorder where a parent purposely injures a child (sometimes up to the point of death) to gain sympathy from her community, which is the reason she killed her children.

During her childhood, Tinning said her father punished her when she cried by locking her in closets. She had poor self esteem and is considered a narcissist by many psychologists. When she was young, she tried to kill herself on multiple occasions. Eventually she met Joe Tinning on a blind date set up by her friends and married him in 1965.

Her first child, Barbara, was born two years after they got married. She then had two more sons, Joseph and Timothy, who died three weeks after his birth. Doctors found nothing wrong with them and said they died of SIDS. Two years later, Marybeth gave birth to Nathan who died at six months. In 1978, the couple decided to adopt a while; during this time, Marybeth was pregnant. She chose to keep the two children and gave birth to her second daughter Mary Frances.

Marybeth said she found Timothy, Nathan, and Mary Frances unconscious and brought each of them to the hospital where they were revived, sent home and then died of SIDS. Marybeth then had Jonathan who followed whose death followed the same pattern as her three previous children. Less than a year later, her adopted child at two and a half years old was also brought to the hospital. Marybeth said she could not wake him and did not know what was wrong. Since he was adopted, doctors ruled out genetic theories for her previous children’s deaths.

In 1985, Tinning gave birth to her final child, Tami Lynne. Autopsies confirmed Tami Lynne was smothered, and Tinning confessed to smothering her infant daughter with a pillow along with her other children. She is currently serving 20 years in a Westchester County prison.

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Elizabeth is a NYC writer and tabby cat collector. You can find her on twitter @elizabethtsung.

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