Waneta HoytThe Motive: Peace and QuietIn 1972, a medical journal declared that cot death (also known

as SIDS or sudden infant death syndrome) ran in families. The compelling evidence it cited involved the
deaths of siblings Molly and Noah Hoyt. Twenty years later, a jury would find that Molly and Noah were
murdered by their mother, as were their two brothers and a sister. In 1994, Waneta Hoyt told police
that she had smothered her babies—Erik, Julie, James, Molly, and Noah—because she wanted to silence
them. “I could not stand the crying. It was the thing that cause me to kill them all because I didn’t know
what to do for them.” Three of the children were smothered with pillows, one with a bath towel, and
one by being pressed into her mother’s shoulder. She was sentenced to 15 years for each murder. Hoyt
died in prison in 1998. She was formally exonerated because she died before her appeal