BLACKSTONE, Mass. — A woman who lived at a squalid, vermin-infested home where the bodies of three infants were found this week was arraigned Friday on charges including fetal death concealment and ordered held without bail as the search for
BLACKSTONE, Mass. — A woman who lived at a squalid, vermin-infested home where the bodies of three infants were found this week was arraigned Friday on charges including fetal death concealment and ordered held without bail as the search for more possible bodies continued.
Detectives investigating a case of reckless endangerment of children found the bodies at a house in Blackstone, about 50 miles southwest of Boston, littered with soiled diapers. Four other children had been removed from the home two weeks earlier.
Erika Murray, 31, was arrested Thursday night on charges including fetal death concealment, witness intimidation and permitting substantial injury to a child. Not guilty pleas were entered Friday on her behalf.
Her attorney, Keith Halpern, suggested that Murray was mentally ill.
“You want answers in circumstances like this. … Mental illness doesn’t always provide those kinds of answers,” Halpern said after Murray’s arraignment. He did not elaborate on her condition.
Murray was the mother of the two oldest children removed from the home last month, but no birth records existed for the two youngest, police said.
The children first came to the attention of police two weeks ago after a 10-year-old boy who lived in the house went to a neighbor’s home and asked, “How do you get a baby to stop crying?” said Tim Connolly, a spokesman for Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.
The neighbor went with the boy and found the crying baby covered in feces.
Detectives found the body of an infant in a closet on Wednesday and the remains of what appeared to be two other newborns on Thursday, police said. The prosecutor’s office said a medical examiner will determine whether they were newborns or fetuses.
Early said Friday that authorities had not ruled out the possibility that more bodies may be inside. The search of the home, a couple hundred feet from the town’s police station, is expected to take several days.
The four other children, ages 13, 10, 3 and 6 months old, were removed from the house on Aug. 28, authorities said. They were placed in the custody of the state Department of Children and Families.
