A 31-year-old Massachusetts woman found living in a rodent-infested house with the bodies of three dead infants may be suffering from mental illness, her court-appointed lawyer said on Friday.
The woman, Erika Murray, did not speak during her brief appearance at Worcester District Course in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, where a not guilty plea was entered on her behalf to a series of criminal charges.
Murray, handcuffed and dressed in a striped blue sweater, stared blankly as a judge ordered her held without bail pending trial. The charges include fetal death concealment out of wedlock, witness intimidation and animal cruelty.
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A police search of her home this week in Blackstone, Massachusetts, about 40 miles southwest of Boston, found the bodies of three young infants and the skeletal remains of several animals amid stacks of garbage and dirty diapers that in places were a foot deep, according to the Blackstone Police Department.
The ages and gender of the deceased infants found at the home has not been made public. Four other children were previously removed from the home and taken into state custody.
“Investigators can’t go into that house without hazmat suits. She was living in that house. Who would be living in that house unless they were mentally ill?” her court-appointed attorney, Keith Halpern, told reporters.
The judge did not order the woman to undergo a mental health examination, but Halpern said that could take place privately.
Police were first called to the house, a short walk from the town police department, last month after crying children were reported at the home. They found four children, ranging in age from 3 months to 13 years, who were taken into state custody.
Two of the children, aged 10 and 13, were determined to be Murray’s, police said, but no birth records have been found on the two younger children.
“This is not the kind of thing anyone would expect in our community, or in any other place for that matter,” Blackstone Police Chief Ross Atstupenas said in a statement.
One neighbor said the case had stunned the town of 9,000 people, located near the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border.
“It’s kind of blowing everybody away,” said resident Jennifer Johnson. “This is an unfortunate event that may have been able to be stopped sooner than this. It’s breaking my heart, and it’s breaking the hearts of a lot of people in the community.”