Some believe that her pattern of behavior aligns perfectly with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition's (DSM-5) Development and Course section on the disorder: "In individuals with recurrent episodes of falsification of signs and symptoms of illness and/or induction of injury, this pattern of successive deceptive contact with medical personnel, including hospitalizations, may become lifelong.
"[12][13] On completion of his active duty, Marybeth's father worked as a press operator in a nearby General Electric factory, which was the area's largest employer at the time.
She eventually settled on a job as a nursing assistant at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, New York, ten miles north of Duanesburg.
They married in 1965 and their first child, Barbara, was born in May 1967, followed in January 1970 by Joseph Jr.[16] In October 1971, Marybeth's father died of a heart attack.
Two weeks after Jennifer's death, Tinning took two-year-old Joseph Jr. to the Ellis Hospital emergency room in Schenectady, claiming that he had experienced a seizure and choked on his own vomit.
[17] On November 22, 1973, Tinning gave birth to son Timothy; on December 10, he was brought back to the hospital, dead.
[16] In August 1978, the Tinnings adopted newborn Michael; on October 29, Marybeth gave birth to her sixth child, Mary Frances.
The Tinnings' eighth child, Jonathan, was born in fall 1979; he died in March 1980, after being kept on life support in Albany for four weeks.
"[19] Marybeth and Joseph Tinning were separately taken to the Schenectady Police Department for questioning about Tami Lynne's death.
During the police interrogation, Marybeth signed a document confessing that she had murdered Tami Lynne, Timothy, and Nathan.
[5] Marybeth later claimed that her confession was made under duress, that police had threatened her, and that her repeated requests for a lawyer were denied.
[25] Dr. Bradley Ford, Tami Lynne's pediatrician, testified on behalf of the prosecution, saying Tinning had dismissed his suggestion that, due to her previous children's deaths, she should install a specialized alarm device enabling the monitoring of the baby's breathing and heart rate.
Two additional prosecution witnesses, Dr. Marie Valdes-Dapena of the SIDS Foundation, and Schenectady County medical examiner Thomas Oram, testified that they had concluded that Tami Lynne was smothered to death with a soft object.
[26][27] After the six-week trial, the jury deliberated for twenty-three hours across three days, and found Tinning guilty of one count of second-degree murder.
During their deliberation, jurors called for a read-back of the portions of Joseph's testimony recounting his wife's alleged confession to State Police.
"[26] Judge Clifford Harrigan vacated Tinning's $100,000 bail, ordering that she be held in the Schenectady County Jail pending her sentencing trial.
"[40] The parole board stated, "This was an innocent, vulnerable victim who was entrusted in your care as her mother, and you viciously violated that trust causing a senseless loss of this young life."
The board then said "...discretionary release would so deprecate the severity of the crime as to undermine respect for the law, as you placed your own interest above those of society's youth.
[40] The parole board again denied her release, finding that she continued to demonstrate no understanding or remorse for taking her child's life.
[48] Books MOM: The Killer (2011), written by detective Mark Gado, probes the mind of Marybeth Tinning and the neglect and unsolved deaths of her children.
[49] Investigative author Joyce Egginton details the case in her book, From Cradle to Grave: The Short Lives and Strange Deaths of Marybeth Tinning's Nine Children (1990).
His findings finally bring Tinning to justice; he clearly reflects his analysis of her history as being in-line with Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP).
In this episode, Dr. Michael Stone, forensic psychologist, Columbia University uses his own mental health scale from 1-22, with 22 being the most dangerous ranking.
[54] The Investigation Discovery network released another episode, via the documentary drama series Deadly Women, disclosing the tragedies that each of her children experienced.
The community's sympathy turns to bitterness and calls out to authorities for action, when she goes one step too far with her ninth child's death.