Sydney, Australia
After Helen Moore lost her 14 month old baby brother, Andrew, to crib death, it was believed she was having a really hard time dealing with her grief. The girl expressed that she felt it was her fault. When she began asking for babysitting jobs, people thought that the teen was trying to surround herself with children as a way of coping with the tragedy. She babysat for family and her mother’s friends, but Helen’s agenda was anything but pure; she wanted to murder the children she was left in charge of…
On March 1st of 1979, little Andrew Stuart lost his life. A month later, on May 19th, Helen’s 16 month old cousin, Suzanne McIntosh, succumbed to what was originally believed to be SIDS. On January 16th of 1980, 12 month old Vaughan Nicholson was smothered; after she’d suffocated this victim, Helen went right back to watching tv like nothing had happened. She was surprised to hear the boy crying a bit later, so she called the ambulance for him; this child is very fortunate to have survived. A couple of weeks later, 2 year old Rachel Hay was suffocated.
On February 1st, 2 year old Aaron Crocker was smothered with a pillow; this child survived for a few years, though he was permanently blind and unable to walk. Eventually the poor boy died as a result of Helen’s attack. After this death, no one would allow Helen to babysit anymore; this didn’t stop our budding serial killer from wanting to kill, she only began looking closer to home for her next young victim.
On March 31st, Helen’s mother, Jessie, left her children home alone. During this time, Helen attacked her own 7 year old brother. Peter wasn’t a baby, and he tried his best to fight off his attacker; sadly his big sister was stronger. Helen simply walked up behind Peter and began to strangle him, the boy broke free and he bolted. When she caught up with him, Helen held Peter down and suffocated him for several minutes. When he was dead, Helen threw the deceased body of her own little brother down the stairs. Afterwords she took a shower before calling the police.
The kicker is, Helen’s mama, Jessie, had known for a few years that there was something terribly wrong with her daughter; she had noticed Helen had a violent temper and was likely to hurt someone. Jessie tried to do the right thing, she’d taken her daughter in for mental health treatment, but the doctor thought that she was the one who needed psychiatric care, it was believed that Jessie was imagining things. Jessie was deemed mentally ill and prescribed anti anxiety meds, while absolutely nothing was done to help Helen. After Jessie’s 7 year old son died, the horrified mom called police and told them she believed her only surviving child to be responsible for all of the children’s deaths. Had Jessie not done the right thing and turned her daughter in, there’s just no telling how many victims we’d be talking about.
During a police interrogation, Helen confessed to all of her deadly deeds. In 1980 the teen was sentenced to 3 counts of life behind bars plus 10 years for the attempted murders. Amazingly she served just 13 years of this sentence before being paroled. Helen was released with the stipulation that she have zero contact with any children. For two years all was well, until she gave birth to a daughter. At this time a concerned judge placed Helen under 24 hr surveillance for 10 years.
Today she is out there, living a normal life. Let’s hope she never gets the urge to kill again.
*They say the first baby, Andrew, really did die of crib death. Who knows.
