Mom accused of murdering infants says she gave birth at home

WORCESTER — A Blackstone mother accused of murdering two infants and living with the remains in her squalid home with four other children said she gave birth to the babies in her bathroom and concealed their existence from their father, according to her interviews with state police.

Erika L. Murray, on trial for two counts of second-degree murder of two infants and other charges, said her boyfriend Ramon Rivera did not know about the two deaths — or even that two of the other children living in the home were Murray's.

The investigation that led to the charges began on Aug. 28, 2014, when a neighbor entered 23 St. Paul St., at the request of Murray’s 10-year-old son, to assist him in getting a toddler and infant to stop crying. The neighbor found a 3-year-old and 5-month-old girls, Murray’s children, covered in excrement in the trash-filled, bug-infested home and called 911.

The state Department of Children and Families was notified and took custody of the toddler and infant, the 10-year-old boy and Murray’s 13-year-old daughter.

A subsequent search of the home uncovered the skeletal remains of three infants. A doctor testified that one of the babies, found wrapped in adult sweatpants with the umbilical cord and placenta attached, may have been stillborn. The other two infants were found diapered and fully clothed; a pathologist testified that he was unable to tell whether one of them had been born alive, but that he reached the conclusion that the other was. Because of the advanced state of decomposition, a pathologist testified that the babies had likely been dead for “weeks to years” before being found.

During the first of two interviews, conducted Sept. 11, 2014, Trooper Shawn Murphy asked Murray if she had birthed any other children who did not survive. Murray said she had not. Murray was then told that the skeletal remains of an infant had been found by police the day before in a search of her squalid residence.

After initially denying any knowledge of the remains, Murray eventually said she had also given birth to that infant, but that the child was not breathing after the home delivery.

According to the recorded interview, which was played in court Friday, the 35-year-old Murray told police she put the infant’s body in a bedroom closet.

“I panicked. I didn’t know what to think,” she said.

“Do you think this is normal?” Murray was asked about her actions.

“No,” she quietly responded.

Asked why she did not call 911, Murray said, “I just wasn’t thinking. I don’t know.”

Murray is charged with second-degree murder in the deaths of two of the infants. She is also facing charges of assault and battery on a child with substantial injury and child endangerment involving her other children and animal-cruelty charges related to a cat and dog that were removed from the home by the town’s animal control officer.

At one point during the questioning, Murray said Rivera, who is also facing charges in the case, did not want to have any more children after their first two were born.

Murray told investigators that she told her two older children that she was babysitting for the 3-year-old and 5-month-old. She said she hid them from Rivera for a long period of time, later telling him, also, that she was babysitting for the two younger children.

Hours later, during a second interview, Murray was told that the skeletal remains of two more infants had been recovered by investigators from closets in her home. She initially said those children, too, had been stillborn. After prodding by Murphy and then Lt. Gregory Gilmore of the Blackstone police, Murray said one of those two infants, a girl, had survived for about a week before dying. She said she went to check on the baby girl at that time and found her “blue” and not breathing.

Asked to explain why she did not call 911 or try to revive the infant, Murray answered, “Panic.”

Murray’s lawyer, Keith S. Halpern, said in his opening statement that his client suffered from mental illness and that her behavior “did not involve criminal conduct, it involved illness.” Despite the prosecutor’s assertions, Halpern said there would be no evidence that Murray “did anything wrong or criminal that caused the death of any child.”

Testimony in the jury-waived Worcester Superior Court trial is scheduled to resume Monday.