Waneta Hoyt Trial: 1995

In the early 1980s, William Fitzpatrick, an assistant district attorney in upstate New York, investigated a crime of infanticide. He worked on the case with Dr. Linda Norton, a Texas medical examiner.

Norton was familiar with Steinschneider's groundbreaking article—and doubted its conclusions. She handed the article to Fitzpatrick, telling him to read it and saying, "You may decide you have a serial killer here."

Like Norton, Fitzpatrick was struck by the extraordinary odds of one family having five children die of SIDS. The article did not mention the Hoyts by name, printing only their initials, but Fitzpatrick was able to uncover their identity. In 1992, now the district attorney for Onondaga County, he located the Hoyts in nearby Tioga County. He shared his suspicions with his counterpart there, Robert J. Simpson. After studying old medical records, Simpson concluded with Fitzpatrick that Waneta Hoyt had most likely killed her children.

Finally questioned so many years later by state police, Hoyt admitted her crimes, offering details of how she smothered each of the children. "They just kept crying and crying." Hoyt said, "… and I just kept squeezing and squeezing and squeezing." On March 23, 1994, Hoyt was charged with 10 counts of second-degree murder—5 for intent to kill and 5 for "creating a grave risk of death."