1975 case of killer/baby-snatcher Norma Jean Armistead: Any more information?
leno...@yahoo.com
mother in order to do so. Her case was turned into the 1993 TV movie
starring Kate Jackson, "Empty Cradle."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106808/#comment
What's puzzling it why it took so long to film it!
http://archives.zinester.com/56505/40099.html
(excerpts)
Mary Childs, 26, was an L.A. grocery store employee who had endured a
routine pregnancy until September 20, 1974. That day she entered the
Kaiser Foundation Hospital to give birth. There, she met Norma
Armistead, who took an immediate interest in her.
That evening, Norma gave Mary several drugs before she fell asleep.
When Mary awoke in the middle of the night, everything seemed wrong.
She couldn't control her limbs, couldn't focus her mind, wasn't big
anymore. Nurse Armistead and several doctors were by her side. Nurse
Armistead was telling the doctors she had visited the ward a few
minutes earlier to find Mary unconscious with a stillborn between her
legs. When the realization finally hit Mary, she was inconsolable.
Doctors informed her that her system contained massive quantities of
narcotics, none of them prescription. Mary was astonished; she had
never taken drugs. Doctors chose not to believe her; it was common for
users to deny using......
Norma had been living common law with Charles Armistead. She felt they
were drifting apart due to her inability to have a child. (She'd had a
hysterectomy in 1961.) Her job as a obstetric nurse gave her ample
opportunities to steal a live child and replace it with a child from
the morgue........
Mary, meanwhile, had her 8-month-old returned to her. She sued the
hospital and attending physicians for $24 million. She was awarded
$375,000.
http://laurajames.typepad.com/clews/2006/05/index.html
Excerpt (from the bottom):
Norma Jean Armistead checked herself into the Kaiser Hospital in
Hollywood, California, after claiming to have given birth at home.
Armistead, a nurse at the hospital, confused doctors by showing no
evidence of giving birth. Doctors pieced together the evidence after
Kathryn Viramontes was soon discovered at her apartment in Van Nuys
stabbed to death with her baby cut from her womb. "Authorities said
Armistead took the Viramontes infant to the hospital after the murder
and claimed to be the natural mother. However, hospital authorities
became suspicious and notified police," The Oakland Tribune reported
on December 10, 1975.
(end)
According to what few online sources there are, Armistead was
sentenced to life.
So, does anyone know if that was without chance of parole?
What REALLY interests me, though, is what the hospital's line of
defense was in Mary Childs' case, when she sued! Not to mention how
much influence her case had on national hospital security.
(I heard about the case in the early 1980s courtesy of Reader's Digest
- I don't remember now whether the article had a certain bias or not,
but as a 14-year-old, all I could think of when I read she'd sued was
"that's so unfair! The hospital didn't steal the baby!" Of course, I
understand things better now. Had anyone tried to explain it to me
back then, I would probably have argued that hospitals shouldn't have
to spend hundreds of dollars and energy on employee screenings and
security when such kidnappings are so rare anyway. Sadly, one effect
of tighter hospital security these days seems to be that baby-
kidnappers are attacking in more random, unpredictable ways - at the
mother's home, for example, where results are more likely to be
deadly.)
Lenona.
earthage
She was still alive in 2005. I guess Jackson is her maiden name.
Search the LA Times archives for more but you have to pay.
===================
http://www.kcet.org/lifeandtimes/archives/200511/20051103.php
Sam Louie>> Norma Jean Jackson agrees. She's spent thirty of her
seventy-five years at the California Institution for Women after she
was convicted of murder.
Norma Jean Jackson>> I remember picking up the scalpel to shut her up.
She had said she was having a relationship with the man that I was
living with and I killed her. I completely blacked out and killed her.
Sam Louie>> Jackson's sentence is seven years to life, but her life
has turned into watching the years go by and the hard time is taking
its toll. Jackson looks healthy, but she shows me more than ten
different prescription drugs she must take every day.
Interestingly, Kobrin didn't tell us what [Norma Jean Jackson] did.
Well, I will. In 1975, under the name of Norma Armistead, she slit the
throat of a pregnant woman and stole her live baby by caesarean
section. (Norma previously had stolen another baby while she was an
obstetrics nurse at a Kaiser hospital.) She was convicted of first-
degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of
parole.
-----------------------------------------------
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/disturbing/2005/dying_on_our_dime.shtml
And the state will pick up the entire tab for their healthcare, just
as it does for wheelchair-bound Corona inmates Norma Jean Jackson and
Carol Hargis, both of whom have served more than 25 years on their
seven-to-life sentences. Both women have also lost bids for
compassionate release. The 74-year-old Jackson suffers from the
effects of a stroke, heart disease, diabetes and arthritis. Hargis,
64, is dying of chronic pulmonary disease.
==================
According to this novel based on Norma Jean Jackson, she's up for
parole every one to three years.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FIhzUtx9CMIC&pg=PA287&lpg=PA287&dq=%22Norma+Jean+Jackson%22&source=web&ots=gUYIM6pLJF&sig=kh2k9GoB-xGGVQJ3GXjI-V1X1Os&hl=en
==============
LA Times archives search
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/advancedsearch.html
Google news archives
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=Norma+armistead&hl=en&um=1
Plaintiff and appellant William Hooks III (Hooks) appeals from a
summary judgment granted to defendant and respondent Southern
California Permanente Medical Group (Hospital).
leno...@yahoo.com
Lenona.
earthage
> Thank you!
>
> Lenona.
No problem. Looks like had a parole hearing in 2007.
I wonder why Betty Broderick (she has to serve at least 21 years
before she's eligible for parole, murders occurred in 1989 but not
sure when she went to prison)didn't get sentenced to Corona since
those murders occurred in San Diego. Instead she's at Chowchilla in
Northern California.
leno...@yahoo.com
I'm still a bit puzzled about the circumstances, though. As in, were
there ANY publicized kidnappings from hospitals before 1974 in the
U.S.? If not, on what grounds did the mother claim something should
have been done to prevent it? If there WERE kidnappings before 1974,
were the hospital's security standards really any weaker than average?
(Call it a hunch, but I also suspect the nurse had a clean record
before being employed, so they couldn't have screened her out.)
Lenona.
brook...@aol.com
visit my sight at movies based on true stories by traciy curry-reyes
http://www.geocities.com/murder_stories6/empty_cradle_movie.html?1211132897781