Claudette Kibble

Defendant

Claudette Kibble was the mother of five children.

Background

Claudette Kibble was 14 years old when she murdered her first baby. Claudette Kibble was 23 years old when she pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

The offence

Claudette Kibble killed three of her five babies over a four-year period. She claimed each child had died of natural causes. In 1995, she confessed to drowning two children, suffocating one, and attempting to suffocate a fourth child. The deaths were described as occurring over a 4 year period.

Claudette Kibble Edward was 7 months old when her mother drowned him in the bathtub. Quentin was 9 months old when he was smothered with a pillow. Joshua was 17 months old when he was drowned.

Authorities later described Claudette Kibble as a 23-year-old mother of five charged with murder after admitting she had killed three of her children in incidents dating back to 1986, 1988 and 1990. All were infants a year old or younger when they died in 1986, 1988 and 1990.

Investigation

Investigators had long suspected foul play in the death of Quinten, the 1988 death of 8-month-old Edward and the 1986 death of 1-year-old Joshua, but they could not prove anything until she confessed to her mother, who contacted authorities. In all three cases, Kibble had taken the child to a hospital, claiming the child was suffering from seizures. The Harris County medical examiner’s office ruled that two deaths were caused by seizures and left the third undetermined.

Cecil Wingo, chief investigator for the medical examiner’s office, said his office reopened the case several times since 1990 at the request of prosecutors, but the children bore no signs of abuse that would allow officials to prove Kibble had harmed them. “We knew that something was wrong. We just didn’t know where to go to find out,” Cecil Wingo said. “We don’t have a crystal ball.” In 1995, a judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation to determine if she was fit to stand trial.

Police refused to discuss any motive she may have given.

Arrest

Kibble was already in custody on a charge of attempting to strangle 2-year-old Calvin. Kibble told police she had drowned two sons and suffocated another. Kibble was being held without bond and was ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination, Houston police said.

Trial

A judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation to determine if she is fit to stand trial.

Sentencing

Claudette Kibble pleaded guilty at age 23 in exchange for a life sentence. She was sentenced to three sentences of 15 years to life in prison on January 14, 1997. She would be eligible for parole in 15 years. Claudette Kibble 25 was sentenced to 3 life terms.

Timeline

• 1986 — Joshua Kibble died after seizures were claimed; the death was treated as natural causes at the time.
• 1988 — The 8-month-old Edward died; the medical examiner ruled the demise was due to natural causes.
• 1990 — Quinten Kibble died; the cause of the third death was listed as “undetermined.”
• July 1994 — Calvin and his 6-year-old sister, Quintenett, were in state custody after Kibble took Calvin to a hospital.
• September 23, 1995 — Claudette Kibble was charged with murder after admitting she had killed three of her children.
• September 24, 1995 — Judy Hay said investigators were suspicious from the beginning and lacked a medical examiner’s report showing abuse.
• 1995 — Kibble confessed to her mother that she drowned two infants and smothered a third.
• January 14, 1997 — She was sentenced to three sentences of 15 years to life in prison.

Outcome

Claudette Kibble pleaded guilty. The three boys were treated as homicide victims after her confession and the filing of murder charges.

Other details

Ambulance dispatch and hospital chronology for Joshua:

• On August 4, 1986, an ambulance was dispatched to 9109 Laura Koppe in northeast Houston, where emergency medical workers found an unconscious 17-month-old named Joshua Kibble.
• Seventeen hours later, Joshua Kibble was pronounced dead at Hermann Hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit.
• By 8 a.m. the following day, Joshua Kibble’s body was at the Joseph A. Jachimczyk Forensic Center for autopsy.

Autopsy findings described for Joshua:

• Dr. Eduardo Bellas, a forensic pathologist with the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office, began an autopsy with a usual Y-shaped incision across the front of the abdomen.
• Bellas removed the child’s heart and noted the organ weighed 35 grams; there were no thrombi in any of the organ’s four chambers and the valves were intact.
• Bellas found nothing unusual about the pancreas.
• The child’s liver, spleen and kidneys were described as “smooth and glistening.”
• Incisions along the boy’s back and lower extremities revealed no evidence of contusions or hemorrhages.
• An examination of the head turned up “a bit of subgaleal hemorrhaging in the vicinity of the occipital bone.”
• Removal of the back portion of the dead child’s cranium uncovered “evidence of a slight herniation of the cerebellar tonsils and congested brain tissue.”
• Bellas ruled that the boy had died of natural causes “as a result of epilepsy.”
• The investigation into the child’s death was closed.

Additional quotations: Judy Hay, a spokeswoman for state Child Protective Services, said: “I want you to know this is horrifying. It’s a living nightmare,” “From the very beginning we were suspicious … Without evidence, particularly a medical examiner’s report, the hands begin to be tied.”

Cecil Wingo said: We just didn’t know where to go to find out,” “We don’t have a crystal ball.”