Christine Falling was born at Perry, Florida, on March 12, 1963, the second child of a 65-year-old father and his 16-year-old wife. Reared in poverty, obese and dull-witted, she required regular doses of medication to control her epileptic seizures. As a child, she showed her "love" for cats by strangling them and dropping them from lethal heights in order to "test their nine lives." At age nine, Christine and her sister were removed for a year to a children's refuge in Orlando, following domestic battles that resulted in police being summoned to their home. In September 1977, at age 14, Christine was married to a man in his twenties. Their chaotic relationship lasted six weeks and was punctuated by violence, Christine once hurling a 25-pound stereo at her husband in the heat of battle. With the collapse of her marriage, Falling lapsed into a bizarre hypochondriac phase, logging 50 trips to the hospital in the space of two years. She complained of ailments ranging from "red spots" to vaginal bleeding and "snakebite," but physicians rarely found any treatable symptoms. Rendered virtually unemployable by her appearance and mentality, Christine picked up spending money by babysitting for neighbors and relatives. On February 25, one of her charges -- two-year-old Cassidy Johnson -- was rushed to a doctor's office in Blountstown, tentatively diagnosed as suffering from encephalitis. The girl died on February 28, an autopsy listing cause of death as blunt trauma to the skull. Christine described the baby "passing out" and toppling from her crib, but she was unconvincing. One physician wrote a note to the police, advising them to check the babysitter out, but it was "lost" in transit and the case was closed. Christine moved on to Lakeland, and two months after her arrival, four-year-old Jeffrey Davis "stopped breathing" in her care. An autopsy revealed symptoms of myocarditis, a heart inflammation rarely fatal in itself. Three days later, while the family attended Jeffrey's funeral, Falling was retained to sit with two-year-old Joseph Spring, a cousin of the dead boy. Joseph died in his crib that afternoon, while "napping," and physicians noted evidence of a viral infection, suggesting it might have killed Jeffrey, as well. Christine was back in Perry -- and in business -- by July of 1981. She had received a clean bill of health from the doctors in Lakeland, but her bad luck was holding. She tried her hand at housekeeping, but 77-year-old William Swindle died in his kitchen her first day on the job. A short time later, Falling accompanied her stepsister to the doctor's office, where an eight-month-old niece, Jennifer Daniels, received some standard childhood vaccinations. Stopping by the market on her way home, the stepsister left Christine in the car with her child, returning to find that the baby had simply "stopped breathing." Thus far, local physicians had sympathized with Christine as an unfortunate "victim of circumstance," but their view changed on July 2,1982, when ten-week-old Travis Coleman died in Falling's care. This time, an autopsy revealed internal ruptures, caused by suffocation, and Christine was hauled in for questioning. In custody, she confessed to killing three of the children by means of "smotheration," pressing a blanket over their faces in response to disembodied voices chanting, "Kill the baby." "The way I done it, I seen it done on TV shows," Christine explained. "I had my own way, though. Simple and easy. No one would hear them scream." Convicted on the basis of her own confession, she was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment, with no parole for the first 25 years.