Fisher was born in 1929 and lived at Waterville, in Kennebec County, Maine. On March 8, 1954 she drowned her three children in the bath: Richard, six, Daniel, four, and Deborah, one.
She was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to the Augusta State Hospital. She was released in 1959, after five years, and returned to her husband. They had four more children.
On June 30, 1966 she drowned three of them in the bath: Kathleen, six, Michael, four, and Nathalie, nine months. The ages of the second three are close to the ages of the first three, which was noted at the time and has been the subject of psychiatric writing since.
She was again found not guilty by reason of insanity and was recommitted. Her diagnosis changed repeatedly over the decades, paranoid schizophrenia, postpartum psychosis, sociopathy, dissociative disorder, which this roster records and which is itself the clearest statement of how little was understood about her.
There was no criminal conviction in either case, so there is no trial record for either set of deaths. What the case documents is a release after five years and three more children dead seven years later, and it is cited in the American literature on postpartum psychosis and on release decisions.