N.Y. Mother Convicted of Murdering Five Babies

A woman was found guilty Friday of murdering her five babies more than two decades ago, deaths that had been wrongly attributed to sudden infant death syndrome.

Waneta Hoyt, 48, began sobbing hysterically when the verdict was read. Jurors, who deliberated 12 hours, also cried after the verdict.

Hoyt was charged in the deaths of the five children, none older than 27 months, between 1965 and 1971. In a statement she later recanted, Hoyt said she suffocated the children to make them stop crying.

The deaths were initially attributed to sudden infant death syndrome, but the case was reopened in 1992 when a prosecutor became suspicious after reading a medical journal account of the deaths.

Hoyt was returned to jail to await sentencing. She faces life in prison.

State police interrogators testified that Hoyt said she pressed one baby against her shoulder until it stopped breathing. She used pillows and a bath towel to kill the others, they said.

Hoyt testified that state police tricked her into an interrogation by telling her they needed her help in a research project on sudden infant death syndrome.

Public defender Robert Miller argued that medical evidence was questionable because of the length of time between the infants’ burial and exhumation. He plans to appeal.