Cradle to Grave

In the weeks following Little Arty’s death, McGillen did nothing but investigate the Noes. He was joined by his partner Bristow and veteran police homicide detective Joseph Schimpf. Besides interviewing family members and caregivers, McGillen also chased down leads from a woman who had anonymously called the medical examiner three days after Little Arty died. She claimed to have known the Noes very well for 27 years and was now convinced that “Marie was doing something to the children.”

According to McGillen’s notes, the woman I’ll call Doris talked about the old days, when Marie and Art met at a small private club in the neighborhood. She recalled Art being overwhelmed by Marie, who had a reputation in the neighborhood “of being boy-crazy.” Their whirlwind courtship was often criticized, she said, by Art’s mother, who never liked Marie; she was very outspoken in her criticism of Marie as a housewife and was “always complaining to neighbors that Marie never cared properly for the children.”

Doris also said it was a very close-knit neighborhood, and that she and her husband were exceptionally close with the Noes. She had vivid recollections of helping Marie care for the first three children, all of whom appeared healthy. She did note, however, that Art often complained his wife seemed to care about nothing but having sex, and that he “was growing weary trying to satisfy her.” She told the investigator it was no secret in the neighborhood that Art would confront Marie angrily about her flirtations with other men. She also recalled Marie claiming to be the recipient of obscene phone calls and describing them in graphic detail. She said neighbors saw this as Marie’s attempt to “call attention to herself,” which is also how they perceived her alleged rape in 1949.

Doris said that in the time she knew the Noes, numerous house pets-dogs, cats, fish, turtles, parakeets-died mysteriously, and that Marie once complained to her, “Everything I touch dies!” She especially recalled a cocker spaniel she gave Marie for company after the death of one of her babies. According to Doris, one day Art came home from work and the dog was gone. When he asked her about it, Marie replied, “I called the SPCA and had it put to death because it had the raves.”

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