Marybeth Tinning was convicted in July 1987 of murdering her daughter Tami Lynne, who was four months old. The baby died on December 20, 1985, in the family's home in Schenectady, New York. A jury found that Tinning had smothered her and convicted her of murder in the second degree under the theory of depraved indifference to human life, while acquitting her of intentional murder. She was sentenced to 20 years to life.
Tami Lynne was the ninth of Tinning's children to die young. The eight before her had died between January 1972 and March 1981, and their deaths were recorded at the time as natural or unexplained. In a statement to investigators in February 1986, Tinning admitted smothering Tami Lynne and two of her sons, Timothy in 1973 and Nathan in 1975, and said she had done nothing to five of the other children named in it. She was never charged in any death but Tami Lynne's. At her trial she said the statement had been obtained improperly, and in later years she told the parole board that she had killed Tami Lynne but had not harmed any of the others. She served 31 years and was released on parole in August 2018.
Tinning was a native of Duanesburg, a rural town in Schenectady County, according to the Daily Gazette of Schenectady, which reported in February 1986 that she was 43. At various times she had worked as a waitress, as a nurse's aide at a local hospital and for an ambulance service, the paper said. By the time of her trial in 1987, when the family had moved to Ballston Spa, United Press International described her as a former school bus driver and housewife.
Her husband worked in Schenectady. He was never a suspect in any of the deaths, the police and the district attorney said in 1986. He stood by her through the investigation, the trial and the prison years that followed.
The children's deaths, as listed by United Press International in February 1986 from official records, ran as follows:
Jennifer died on January 3, 1972, at seven days old; the cause was recorded as respiratory failure. Later reports give her age as eight days. She never left the hospital, and the authorities did not regard her death as suspicious.
Joseph died on January 20, 1972, at two years old; the cause was recorded as cardiorespiratory arrest.
Barbara died on March 2, 1972, at four and a half; the cause was recorded as brain edema. The AP reported in 2018 that the inquiry into her death had been dropped after doctors attributed it to cardiac arrest.
Timothy died on December 10, 1973, at 14 days old; the cause was recorded as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Nathan died on September 2, 1975, at five months old; the cause was recorded as acute pulmonary edema.
Mary Frances died on February 22, 1979, at three and a half months; the cause was recorded as SIDS.
Jonathan died on March 24, 1980, at three months; the cause was recorded as cardiopulmonary arrest. The AP gave the cause in 2018 as undetermined.
Michael died on March 2, 1981. He was not born to the Tinnings: the district attorney said in 1986 that he had been placed with them through a private agency and that the adoption might never have been finalized, and the AP said in 2018 that the couple had been in the process of adopting him. UPI gave his age as two and two-thirds years and said no cause was available; the AP said in 2018 that his death had been attributed to bronchial pneumonia.
Tami Lynne died on December 20, 1985, at four months old.
Three of the children, Jennifer, Joseph and Barbara, died within about two months of one another in early 1972. Death certificates listed either SIDS or unknown causes, the Daily Gazette reported, and some of the deaths were at first thought to stem from a possible genetic defect. After the arrest the couple had no living children.
The deaths did not go unnoticed. Richard E. Nelson, the Schenectady police chief, told the Daily Gazette in 1986 that three of the earlier deaths had been investigated fully and that the finding each time had been natural causes; other tests were inconclusive. "It's a very, very difficult type of case to detect and prove and prosecute," he said. "We just could not prove it scientifically. What do you do when you can't prove it?" UPI reported that the earlier investigations had reached dead ends because the deaths were always attributed to natural causes, and that autopsies had been performed on six of the children. The Daily Gazette's report that week said autopsies had been performed on all of them.
Nelson also told the paper that he thought Tinning's husband "probably suspected, but he never confronted his wife about it." District Attorney John B. Poersch said he was not embarrassed that the authorities had been unable to make an arrest sooner.
Officials examined insurance as a possible motive and ruled it out. The couple had received about $5,000 in claims on five of the children, and a claim on Tami Lynne was pending, the Daily Gazette reported.
On December 20, 1985, five days before Christmas, Tami Lynne, four months old, was found not breathing in the family's second-floor apartment in Schenectady. She was pronounced dead at St. Clare's Hospital about an hour and a half later, according to the Daily Gazette.
Dr. Robert Sullivan, the Schenectady County chief medical examiner, at first believed she had died of SIDS, as he had concluded in two of the earlier deaths, UPI reported. Because of the family's history he ordered further laboratory studies. The appellate court later summarized the medical sequence: preliminary autopsy reports suggested SIDS or a genetic abnormality, but after further study, laboratory tests and consultations, the medical authorities concluded that she had died of asphyxia by suffocation. A forensic unit that the New York State Police had formed the year before to assist criminal investigations reviewed the autopsy results and the medical records of the family.
According to the Daily Gazette, the investigation began with a tip from the child protective unit of the Schenectady County Department of Social Services; UPI reported that a call to the state's child abuse hotline set it off, and that several people also contacted the police and the district attorney after Tami Lynne died. The inquiry brought together the district attorney's office, the Schenectady police and the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Gerald Looney, a State Police captain, announced the charge.
On February 4, 1986, Tinning went with two police officers to be questioned about Tami Lynne's death. The investigator who questioned her and obtained her confession was William Barnes of the State Police, who later served two terms as sheriff of Schenectady County, according to the Albany Times Union.
What happened that day was disputed in court. Tinning testified that she went willingly and that before she left home her husband had advised her not to call a lawyer. The officers testified that she was read her Miranda warnings and said she understood them, and that she was allowed to see and speak with her husband during the questioning; she contradicted parts of their account. The courts found that she was not handcuffed or threatened, was free to leave, and did not ask for a lawyer until after she had given oral, written and stenographically recorded statements.
By the end of the questioning Tinning had admitted smothering Tami Lynne. In her confession, the Daily Gazette reported, she said she "didn't mean to hurt her" and only wanted the baby to stop crying.
She also admitted smothering two of her sons, Timothy in 1973 and Nathan in 1975, according to the Appellate Division. In her handwritten statement, as quoted in court papers reported by UPI and in the appellate opinion, she named Timothy, Nathan and Tami and said she had smothered them "because I'm not a good mother." In the same statement, UPI reported, she wrote that she "did not do anything to" Jennifer, Joseph, Barbara, Michael and Mary Frances. The full statement, the appellate court said, described the deaths of all nine children.
The police interview notes filed in court also alleged that she had once tried to poison her husband, and that he survived. She was never charged with that, and her husband was never implicated in any of the deaths.
She was arrested just after midnight, soon after giving the statement, and was arraigned before Police Justice Louise H. Smith, who ordered her held without bail. Because the Schenectady County Jail was overcrowded, she was moved to the Oneida County Jail, where she spent about six weeks. On March 19, 1986, she was released on $100,000 bail, posted by her husband, his mother and two family friends, and she remained free for the next 16 months.
Tinning's statement is the only source for the claim that she smothered Timothy and Nathan. No court ever ruled on those deaths, and she was never charged with them. The trial judge allowed the prosecution to use her admissions about the two boys as evidence on the questions of intent and absence of accident in Tami Lynne's case, and the jury was told to consider them only for that purpose.
Reports differ on the indictment. The Appellate Division described a two-count indictment, both counts concerning Tami Lynne: one charging an intentional killing, the other a killing under circumstances evincing depraved indifference to human life. The Daily Gazette's later reports and the AP's 2018 report say she was indicted in three deaths but that prosecutors pursued only Tami Lynne's case. The court record shows only the counts concerning Tami Lynne.
A county grand jury examined some of the other deaths, but it was disbanded in December 1986 without returning any new charges, the Daily Gazette reported in July 1987. Poersch said then that the investigation of the other deaths was continuing and that evidence could be presented to a future grand jury. After the sentencing in October 1987 he said a grand jury might investigate them. No further charges were ever brought.
Police said they suspected her in seven of the eight earlier deaths. The authorities did not treat Jennifer's death as suspicious. For the other six children who were not named in her admissions, the record holds no admission, no charge and no court finding: only the suspicion of investigators.
Tinning's lawyer, Paul M. Callahan, asked County Judge Clifford T. Harrigan to bar her written and oral statements from evidence, arguing that they had been obtained in violation of her rights. An eight-day hearing on the question was held in December 1986. Harrigan found the statements voluntary, deciding the conflicts in the testimony in favor of the officers, and the Appellate Division later held that credibility had been for him to judge.
Shortly before the trial the court held a further hearing and ruled that the prosecution could introduce her statements about the deaths of Timothy and Nathan as evidence of prior uncharged crimes.
The trial in Schenectady County Court lasted about three weeks in June and July 1987. Poersch's office prosecuted; Callahan defended. The jury of seven men and five women heard two competing medical accounts of Tami Lynne's death.
For the prosecution, Dr. Thomas F. D. Oram, a Schenectady pathologist who had performed an autopsy about eight hours after the death, testified, and the jury found that she had died of suffocation. For the defense, Dr. Jack N. P. Davies, an Albany pathologist, attributed the death to Werdnig-Hoffmann syndrome, a rare inherited childhood form of progressive paralysis. The defense also offered SIDS as a natural explanation.
The core of the prosecution's case was her own statement. At first the judge admitted it in a redacted form, with the references to six of the children removed, so that the jury heard only the lines about Timothy, Nathan and Tami Lynne. When the defense put on medical evidence that the children had died of natural causes, the court ruled that the whole unredacted statement, describing all nine deaths, could be read.
Her husband testified. He told the court that in a five-minute conversation after her questioning she had said to him, "I killed Tami," according to UPI. He attended every day of the trial.
Callahan argued that investigators had intimidated her into confessing and that there was reasonable doubt. Poersch rejected the Werdnig-Hoffmann explanation. In his closing argument, the appellate court later recorded, the prosecutor said he could offer nothing that would show more clearly that she had killed "those three children," and told the jury it would find that she had murdered her three children. The Appellate Division later called those remarks improper.
The jury began deliberating on a Wednesday and was sequestered for two nights. It deliberated for about 23 hours over three days, UPI reported, and at one point asked to hear her husband's testimony about the five-minute conversation read back.
On July 17, 1987, the jury acquitted her of intentional murder and convicted her of murder in the second degree on the depraved indifference count. Each juror confirmed the verdict when polled. The jurors declined to discuss their deliberations with reporters. By its verdict, the Daily Gazette reported, the jury found that the confession was truthful and voluntary and that Tami Lynne had died of suffocation.
Tinning, then 44, showed no reaction to the acquittal on the first count but appeared stunned by the guilty verdict on the second; she cradled her head and wept. Her husband said she "couldn't believe it." The jury, he said, "did its job," but he held a different opinion. Callahan asked Harrigan to set the verdict aside for insufficient evidence; Harrigan refused, revoked her bail and sent her to the county jail to await sentencing. Callahan said there were grounds for a successful appeal.
Sentencing was held on October 1, 1987. Poersch asked for a minimum term of 25 years and called Tinning "a wicked woman"; Callahan objected to the description, pointed out that she had no criminal record and asked for the 15-year minimum. Harrigan, citing the severity of the crime, sentenced her to 20 years to life.
Tinning told the court that she had "played no part" in her daughter's death, that she was sorry Tami Lynne was dead, and that she would "never stop fighting to prove my innocence," the Daily Gazette reported. She was sent to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Westchester County.
On appeal Tinning was represented by Martin Cirincione. The Appellate Division, Third Department, affirmed her conviction on December 29, 1988, in an opinion by Justice Mercure, joined by Presiding Justice Mahoney and Justices Kane, Casey and Weiss.
The court held that the statements had been properly admitted: the prosecution had shown that the police acted lawfully and that she had knowingly waived her rights, and the conflicting testimony had been for the trial court to weigh. Her complaint about the admission of the full statement had not been preserved, because her lawyer had said he had no objection beyond the redacted part and had not objected in time; in any case, the court said, the admissions about Timothy and Nathan were relevant to intent and to the absence of mistake or accident, and the jury had been told to use them only for that purpose. Any error would have been harmless, because that evidence did not bear on whether she had recklessly caused the baby's death.
On the evidence, the court held that her admission, corroborated by the forensic evidence, was legally sufficient to support the finding of depraved indifference. The prosecutor's remarks about three children had been improper but harmless, given the limiting instructions and what the court called the overwhelming evidence of guilt. Her lawyer had provided meaningful representation, and the sentence was not an abuse of discretion.
The Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, denied leave to appeal on April 17, 1989, making the conviction final. A later application for leave to appeal from an Appellate Division order of November 21, 1994, was dismissed by the Court of Appeals on January 3, 1995; what that order decided has not been reported.
Tinning served most of her sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and later at the medium-security Taconic Correctional Facility, also in Bedford Hills. Her husband visited her twice a month throughout her imprisonment, the Daily Gazette reported. Over 31 years she received three disciplinary tickets, the last in 1995, and she completed programs including "Alternative to Violence" and "Transitional Services", according to the parole commissioners' remarks reported by the paper in 2018.
She first became eligible for parole on May 30, 2007, the Times Union reported, and her first hearing took place in March 2007, according to the AP.
The parole hearings are the only place where Tinning has spoken at length about Tami Lynne's death since her trial, and her account changed over the years.
At her first hearing, in 2007, she denied responsibility, saying she could not believe she could harm a child, according to the Daily Gazette's summary of her statements. The board denied parole, noting that she continued to deny responsibility. Before that hearing, William Barnes, the investigator who had taken her confession, said he believed she was no longer a threat and had shown remorse, and Judge Harrigan wrote a letter in 2007 saying he would not oppose her release.
At her second hearing, in 2009, she acknowledged the killing and explained it by saying she had been "going through bad times." The board said her remorse appeared "superficial at best," cited conflicting statements she had made about the deaths of three of her nine children, and denied parole again.
At her third hearing, on January 26, 2011, she again admitted killing her daughter. Asked why, she said: "I just believed that she was going to die also, so I just did it." After the deaths of her other children, she said, she "just lost it" and had become, in her words, "a damaged worthless piece of person." She described herself as "a very damaged and just a messed-up person" and said that in prison she had learned to stand on her own and to ask for help. The board denied parole for a third time. Robert Carney, the Schenectady County district attorney, said she had not acknowledged what she did; her former trial lawyer, Callahan, said he did not see her as a threat and that at the time of the trial "everybody thought that after 20 years she'd be out." After that denial she filed an Article 78 court challenge in January 2012; it was denied in June 2012.
At her fourth hearing, in January 2013, she again admitted responsibility but said she could not explain it: "I can't remember. I mean, I know I did it, but I can't tell you why." In a letter read to the board she wrote, "My actions and my memories hold me in a prison every day, whether I'm awake or asleep." The board rated her risk of re-entry and her criminal involvement as low and her history of violence as medium, but said release would so deprecate the seriousness of the crime as to undermine respect for the law; it described Tami Lynne as "an innocent, vulnerable victim who was entrusted in your care as her mother." Carney said her inconsistent memory suggested she knew more than she was admitting.
Parole was denied again in 2015. At her sixth hearing, in January 2017, she said she had smothered Tami Lynne and that the baby "was a lovely child and there was no reason for me to do what I did at that time." She said she did not think she had "the capabilities of being a good mother at all." Asked what the other children's deaths had done to her, she said, "It's just made me hollow inside," and she attributed those deaths to "various medical conditions," adding "according to the medical community." The board noted her remorse but found she still lacked full insight, and set her next hearing for 18 months rather than the usual two years. By then she had been moved from maximum to medium security.
Her seventh hearing was held by video conference on July 10, 2018, and she learned of the decision three days later. She told the commissioners, "I killed my daughter, my baby daughter, on that day," and said she had not meant to kill her. Speaking of her adopted son, she said, "I didn't harm (Michael) with my own hand or any of the other children." She said, "you will never know how sick my heart is, how empty I feel." One commissioner told her she had committed a terrible crime but had taken every possible opportunity to improve herself. A former superintendent of Bedford Hills wrote that she had served her time quietly and felt remorse for her crime every day. Her parole packet was prepared with the help of a law clinic at Georgetown University, the Daily Gazette reported.
The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision announced on July 16, 2018, that parole had been granted. She was 75. Carney, who opposed her release, said she "admitted guilt, I guess, but it was without any insight." Her husband said he was "very glad that it will soon be all over with." Assemblyman Jim Tedisco called the decision "a total disgrace and an affront to the victims and the safety of the public."
Tinning walked out of Taconic Correctional Facility on August 21, 2018, after 31 years in custody. Her husband and Abbe Smith, director of the Georgetown clinic, were there, according to the Daily Gazette. The corrections department said she would be supervised in Schenectady County and declined to give her residence or other details. Her conditions included a curfew, domestic violence counseling and a job or an academic or vocational program. At the time, the department and the press described her parole as lifelong.
Her supervision ended sooner than that. In a later report, the Daily Gazette said a corrections department official had confirmed by email that Tinning, then 80, had been "discharged from post-release supervision" effective July 22, after just under five years on parole. The discharge was a "Three Year Discharge," available under a 2022 state directive to parolees who have served at least three consecutive years of unrevoked supervision when the Board of Parole finds it in the best interest of society. Carney, told of the decision by the paper, said, "I hope they're correct," and that given her age she likely did not pose a threat. Efforts by the paper to reach Tinning were unsuccessful.
With that, she was no longer under any form of state supervision.
Proven by final judgment: that Tinning caused the death of her daughter Tami Lynne, 4 months, on December 20, 1985, by smothering her, under circumstances evincing depraved indifference to human life. The jury acquitted her of intending to kill the baby.
Admitted but never tried: the deaths of her sons Timothy, who died on December 10, 1973, at 14 days old, and Nathan, who died on September 2, 1975, at five months old. She named them in her February 1986 statement. At trial she argued that the statement had been obtained improperly. Since 2007 she has given the parole board several accounts of Tami Lynne's death, and has denied harming any of the other children.
Suspected, never charged, never admitted: the deaths of Joseph, Barbara, Mary Frances, Jonathan and Michael. Their deaths were recorded at the time as natural or of unknown cause.
Never treated as suspicious: the death of Jennifer, the first child, in January 1972.
The indictment: the court record describes two counts, both concerning Tami Lynne; later press reports say she was indicted in three deaths. The other children's deaths were examined by a county grand jury that returned no charges in December 1986.
The question of a medical explanation. The defense at trial offered SIDS and Werdnig-Hoffmann syndrome as natural explanations for Tami Lynne's death. The jury rejected them. The Daily Gazette has since linked the case in its reporting to Munchausen syndrome by proxy; no court made any such finding.
Accounts also differ on Jennifer's age at death (seven days in UPI's 1986 list, eight days in other reports), Michael's age and status (two and two-thirds years and adopted, in UPI's 1986 list; a three-year-old the couple was in the process of adopting, in the AP's 2018 report) and the recorded causes of Barbara's and Jonathan's deaths.
January 3, 1972: Jennifer dies in the hospital, days after her birth.
January 20, 1972: Joseph, 2, dies.
March 2, 1972: Barbara, 4, dies.
December 10, 1973: Timothy dies at 14 days old.
September 2, 1975: Nathan dies at five months old.
February 22, 1979: Mary Frances dies at three and a half months.
March 24, 1980: Jonathan dies at three months.
March 2, 1981: Michael, whom the family was adopting, dies.
December 20, 1985: Tami Lynne, 4 months, dies in Schenectady.
February 4, 1986: Tinning is questioned and gives oral, written and stenographic statements; she is arrested just after midnight and charged with second-degree murder.
March 19, 1986: released on $100,000 bail.
December 1986: eight-day suppression hearing; a county grand jury examining other deaths is disbanded without new charges.
June to July 1987: trial in Schenectady County Court, about three weeks.
July 17, 1987: acquitted of intentional murder, convicted of depraved indifference murder; bail revoked.
October 1, 1987: sentenced to 20 years to life.
December 29, 1988: Appellate Division, Third Department, affirms.
April 17, 1989: Court of Appeals denies leave to appeal.
January 3, 1995: Court of Appeals dismisses a further application for leave to appeal.
2007: first parole hearing; parole denied.
2009: parole denied a second time.
January 26, 2011: third hearing; parole denied.
January 2012 to June 2012: Article 78 challenge filed and denied.
January 2013: fourth hearing; parole denied.
2015: parole denied a fifth time.
January 2017: sixth hearing; parole denied.
July 10, 2018: seventh hearing; parole granted, announced July 16.
August 21, 2018: released from Taconic Correctional Facility.
July 22, after just under five years on parole: discharged from post-release supervision, as later reported by the Daily Gazette.