MOM SPARED JAIL IN INFANT SLAYINGS.

Byline: Jennifer Brown Associated Press 

A 70-year-old woman pleaded guilty Monday to serially smothering eight babies born to her decades ago but won't go to jail so researchers can learn more about why mothers sometimes kill their newborns.

Marie Noe admitted killing the children between 1949 and 1968 and was put on probation for 20 years, with the first five years to be served in confinement to her home. Noe also must undergo mental health treatment with a psychiatrist to try to determine why she repeatedly committed infanticide.

``We needed to get this matter finalized,'' said District Attorney Lynne Abraham. ``Is it perfect? We don't always get a perfect outcome.''

The light sentence was linked to Noe's being the sole caretaker of her ailing 77-year-old husband, Arthur, and to ``the unusual circumstances of the case and the age of the case,'' said Deputy District Attorney Charles F. Gallagher.

``It's important for the medical community and the legal community that she admit these murders, and . . . something good will come out of the analysis,'' Gallagher said at the sentencing.

``This is not one of those situations where we have a heart of a killer,'' said defense attorney David Rudenstein.

With no evidence to show otherwise, doctors and investigators reluctantly had attributed the deaths of eight children - none of whom lived longer than 14 months - to sudden infant death syndrome. The Noes had two other children who died of natural causes that doctors were able to pinpoint, not SIDS.

Police never closed the investigation, however, and Marie Noe was charged last August, a year after the case returned to the spotlight through the publication of ``The Death of Innocents,'' a book about SIDS. Also, a cover story in Philadelphia magazine brought to light the suspicions of a retired Philadelphia medical examiner who investigated two of the deaths by suffocation.

Five months before her arrest, Noe confessed to police that she suffocated four of the babies, but said she did not remember the other four deaths. During a meeting with a state psychiatrist in November, she confessed to those four killings, too, Gallagher said.

Noe walked into court Monday with a cane and an electronic monitoring bracelet around her wrist. She replied to the judge's questions with firm yes and no answers, but did not explain why she killed her children.

Her husband sat in the courtroom looking flushed and shaking his head as the names of the eight babies were read. He had maintained she was innocent and was not charged in the case. The couple refused to speak with reporters after the hearing.

``I cannot speak for him, but Arthur Noe sat in court as she admitted killing those eight babies,'' Rudenstein said. ``Does he believe she admitted that she suffocated these babies? I trust that he does. Does he believe that his wife's some evil killer? I'm sure he does not.''

Gallagher said numerous medical officials indicated that a study of Marie Noe could be valuable because so little is known about why women kill their babies.

``We want to know what possessed her to do it,'' Gallagher said. ``When she made her admissions, she indicated she did it, but she didn't say why she did it. She said she doesn't know why.''

Rudenstein predicted she will cooperate fully in a study.

``Before she passes on to the next world, she wants to understand what has occurred,'' he said.

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Photo: Marie Noe

Admits killing own babies