MA - Remains of 3 infants found, Erika Murray charged, Blackstone, Sept 2014

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Concealing infant deaths does not appear to be reported often - from what I have been able to find it's quite rare. A key factor to these cases would also require that someone was "caught" and they had a specific person to charge in this heinous crime.

Here is another link with some comparisons of women who murdered their children. It should be noted that I am not accusing EM of "murdering" anyone - I am just curious about the reasons about why someone would do such a thing.

This one (story #2) sounds eerily similar however:

"28-year-old woman was systematically murdering her infants shortly after giving birth to them, either at home or in the woods, and hiding their bodies because she worried about her husband leaving her if she had any more children. This was also the main reason she wouldn't tell anyone about being pregnant, including her husband, who told police that he knew nothing about the pregnancies and was shocked that his wife managed to keep them secret. "



See more stories at the link:

http://www.oddee.com/item_98679.aspx

actual original source of story #2 is found here:

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/woman-suspected-of-killing-five-babies-german-police-272996
 
I just cleaned my cache (thanks LLC!) and was finally able to read the Globe stories again...One said this:

"...The children displayed poor hygiene at school. The list goes on."

Then post the rest of the list! Why allude to there being more information.....Ugh! I just went back to check, it's an Op Ed piece. I will definitely be watching my sources before letting my bp get up too far over some opinion piece. However, that is the first time I've seen anything about the children's hygiene mentioned. If that's true, what's up with that? Most of us have asked "what about the school?" and this publishing directly says it was noticeable.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/...ct/jwiEQ0qnoi2vLtrGo506nM/story.html#comments

I, for one, had a very bad experience with call an abuse hotline. At the time I lived in an apt complex. The people living above us fought constantly, all hours of the day/night. The man would beat, drag, kick, yell obscenities at this woman and the 2 babies would be crying. Then one day, I heard the woman (guy was gone) beating her toddler and baby. I called the abuse line. It seems the social worker that got the case was this woman's aunt. So, the woman ended up finding out who placed the call and she confronted me (I was pregnant at the time). They need to be able to make the reporting process COMPLETELY anonymous. Due to that particular incident, it makes me a bit more hesitant if it ever needed to be done again (I'd still do it, but I'd be on edge). Oh and nothing was done about the situation I reported (big surprise).
 
MyBelle said:
thanks! her art is such a dramatic, polar opposite of her chaos at home. It's difficult to believe her boyfriend lived there but didn't know about two children. That's quite a leap to believe that.
Click to expand...

Especially ironic is the crafty sign sign saying "Simplify". You can't make this stuff up!
 
So what is the maximum she can face? I have a hunch she isn't actually going to get much time. I hope that she gets the mental health care she so obviously needs.

And of course, I hope that the kids can make a recovery. If she has been outside with the kids, maybe, just maybe, their condition is a result of a recent decline in her caring for them. We can hope, at least.
 
In the age of birth control and abortion, I doubt this happens often, but I have heard of several cases of women doing this, and I would imagine many are unreported. Not saying it is frequent by any means, but particularly when women had few ways to prevent pregnancy, I'd imagine it happens a lot more than people think. I think it definitely speaks to a woman's desperation and disconnect, not her cold-blooded desire to kill. Giving birth by yourself is not a pleasant experience, so I can't imagine that a woman would subject herself to it repeatedly if she didn't have other problems going on. You also have to figure that it does appear that it was a secret in many of these cases, so obvious those in her life weren't super observant and a support network wasn't there. Obviously if a man isn't noticing the pregnancy, they can't have a particularly great relationship. They simply can't deal with the reality of the situation, the same way young girls who give birth and kill or abandon the infant feel. It just doesn't seem real or possible - it's just a problem that needs to be eliminated. I'm not saying it's okay, but it's not baffling to me - animals often have an instinct to kill offspring if they can't care for them or there's some impediment to survival. I think it's just a stress reaction some people have, but doing it repeatedly indicates something is wrong. When you can keep secrets like that, the dynamics of your mental state and your relationships have to be dysfunctional.

ETA: And autopsies are very recent - there have definitely been cases that have since raised eyebrows regarding repeated stillbirths or SIDs deaths. Not that an autopsy can even necessarily distinguish, but infant deaths were not really questioned until recently, given how common they were. I am sure there were a lot of deaths covered up, unfortunately - it's just now more difficult and obvious.
 
I just cleared my cache & cookies (thanks for the tip!) and was able to get the Boston Globe stories again. I didn't see this one posted over the weekend (probably due to my inability to access without subscription) but since we have been talking about the significant effects of longterm profound neglect on infants wanted to bring it over.

“Neglect is much worse for kids than abuse is,” said Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School . . .

Neglected children’s ability to recover largely depends on how old they are when they start receiving proper care, Nelson said. “The longer they’re in those conditions, the harder it is to get them back to even keel.”

Because the two-to-three years that separate the youngest Blackstone siblings contain so many critical developmental periods, the 5-month-old has a much better chance of recovery.

“This is not to say that for the 3-year-old, the die has been cast and the child has nothing but horrible things up the road,” Nelson said. “But I would be stunned if [the child’s] language was normal, if [the child’s] emotional health was normal."

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...-road-ahead/VHx65RsVs2wGgeYAokTeOL/story.html

He compares the level of neglect these children endured to the Romanian Orphanages and there is an interview with a former orphan in the article. The reason the Romanian Orphanages are such a key factor with this case is this: When they found those children, a huge volume of social science was discovered. Romania produced the largest population ever found of children with reactive attachment and attachment disorders/profound delays due to lack of social interaction and lack of a primary care giver. The orphans were diapered, fed, and bathed in rotations by the clock. Those children never had the same care provider - the employees were shift workers and focused solely on the "mechanics" of housing the children.
 
Here is a video that has clips from when they found the Orphans in the mid 1990's - they show how they are handling the children who endured these horrific circumstances some 10 years later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDR5xpLEx-U

In this video from orphanages in China illustrating the after effects of one child only law (link below) @ 22:34 they discuss the violent rocking motion often seen in children they have encountered in similar circumstances. Remember when the neighbor who found the 3 y/o as rocking so violently that she was afraid she would be injured if she tried to pick that child up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDR5xpLEx-U
 
EmiLove832 said:
Someone just told me recently that people with body odor issues no longer smell themselves after so many days. None of us know what our cars or homes smell like because we are so used to the smell. I guess the family got used to the stink.it is hard to imagine though.
Click to expand...

I agree....but decomp is a smell that NO ONE can ignore.
 
LLC said:
I agree....but decomp is a smell that NO ONE can ignore.
Click to expand...
I agree with that statement.
I had a mouse die in my home. The smell was awful. We could not figure out where the smell was coming from and were close to tearing down the walls and the floors to the room where the smell was, but before we did the smell went away. The exterminator told us it would be ok to leave it there as it wasn't a health hazard. (We finally found it in the ceiling of the crawl space and I was so happy because it creeped me out knowing there was a dead mouse somewhere. )

My point is: It was a small mouse. It wasn't a large animal. And it stank to high heaven for several days and lingered for a bit after that. I can only imagine what a baby, dog or cat would smell like. I might get used to that if it always smelled that way, but decomp is not something that creeps up on you gradually getting fouler and fouler. All of a sudden it is there and stinks to high heaven. So even if you are used to it NOW, at some point you knew your house smelled like death.

There is a possibility that she put them in heavy duty trash bags that minimized the smell, but even then I would assume the plastic would start to wear thin.

(PS I had a mouse problem, called an exterminator. No more mouse problem. I am not a hoarder with mice running through my home. LOL)
 
Yes, I lived in a farmhouse at one time that had an occasional mouse and the first time we turned the furnace on for the winter, "POOF!", we scorched a little nest of baby mice. Needless to say, when it warmed up again in the following days, the smell was horrendous! I never knew such small creatures could put off such a large stench.

10+ days later and I'm still shaking my head about all of this...
 
This video from 9/16/14 - after the clean up describes the ongoing smell and includes portions of the list of items they removed from the home including stained mattresses, flooring, drywall, etc. Homeowner K. Rivera is being charged $100 per day for code violations and the city may try to work with the homeowner insurance carrier to recoup some of their losses.

http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/26...an-up-reveals-soiled-mattresses-dirty-diapers
 
Finally found the quote (from the neighbor who found the babies) that referenced the 3 y/o rocking on a saturated mattress:

"She said the 3-year-old was in worse condition than the infant, rocking back and forth while sitting in the middle of a bed that sagged because it was so saturated with feces.

The toddler, she said, could not speak. She believed he was a boy, though officials have not said what the child’s gender is.

“I talked to him, and he would not respond to me at all,” she said. “I don’t think the child’s ever been loved.”

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...use-horrors/TyP4O5lAtiSSHL4W3KQ2UL/story.html

there was a video clip of the interview with that person and she further describes the child rocking so violently that she feared she would be hurt or hurt the 3 year old if she were to pick up the child - I can't seem to find that.
 
Okay, after re-reading the neighbor's account of when she found the little ones upstairs it appears the information I found regarding the house having only 3 bedrooms may be incorrect. She found the infant in one room and the toddler in another..Then when the police arrived the officer asked her what was in the room behind her, she responded that she didn't know...The officer opened it and the smell got worse. So 3 bedrooms upstairs. Neighbor had her back to one room while she was going back and forth between rooms trying to comfort the kids from a distance.

That means 3 bedrooms upstairs and 0 or 1 bedroom down? How do they total rooms? The total rooms (which I assume aren't all bedrooms) was 6. Well 3 are accounted for upstairs - toddler room, infant room, and room with trash and remains. Were they all sleeping in the living room or was another room added during the time the house was remodeled? I seem to recall it was remodeled at some point.

This article is probably the best I've seen yet at putting things into order/perspective:

http://www.telegram.com/article/20140917/NEWS/309179855/0/SEARCH
 
SaucyGal said:
Okay, after re-reading the neighbor's account of when she found the little ones upstairs it appears the information I found regarding the house having only 3 bedrooms may be incorrect. She found the infant in one room and the toddler in another..Then when the police arrived the officer asked her what was in the room behind her, she responded that she didn't know...The officer opened it and the smell got worse. So 3 bedrooms upstairs. Neighbor had her back to one room while she was going back and forth between rooms trying to comfort the kids from a distance.

That means 3 bedrooms upstairs and 0 or 1 bedroom down? How do they total rooms? The total rooms (which I assume aren't all bedrooms) was 6. Well 3 are accounted for upstairs - toddler room, infant room, and room with trash and remains. Were they all sleeping in the living room or was another room added during the time the house was remodeled? I seem to recall it was remodeled at some point.

This article is probably the best I've seen yet at putting things into order/perspective:

http://www.telegram.com/article/20140917/NEWS/309179855/0/SEARCH
Click to expand...

I'm 98% certain that room is the closet in question. It is probably not counted as a bedroom because if it is between the other two, it does not have a window. There are no gables on that roof line. The closet in the house I once lived in was huge, it doubled as a hallway and one could have easily tucked a mattress in there, but it was still just a closet because it had no windows.
 
SaucyGal said:
Okay, after re-reading the neighbor's account of when she found the little ones upstairs it appears the information I found regarding the house having only 3 bedrooms may be incorrect. She found the infant in one room and the toddler in another..Then when the police arrived the officer asked her what was in the room behind her, she responded that she didn't know...The officer opened it and the smell got worse. So 3 bedrooms upstairs. Neighbor had her back to one room while she was going back and forth between rooms trying to comfort the kids from a distance.

That means 3 bedrooms upstairs and 0 or 1 bedroom down? How do they total rooms? The total rooms (which I assume aren't all bedrooms) was 6. Well 3 are accounted for upstairs - toddler room, infant room, and room with trash and remains. Were they all sleeping in the living room or was another room added during the time the house was remodeled? I seem to recall it was remodeled at some point.

This article is probably the best I've seen yet at putting things into order/perspective:

http://www.telegram.com/article/20140917/NEWS/309179855/0/SEARCH
Click to expand...

Saucy,

Decades ago I used to work @ a Title insurance company giving listing information to realtors and Atty's about homes and properties. The data on the County Auditors website (back then it was microphishe) only lists the number of bedrooms on the Main floor or main living space in a home like this. Most auditors do not consider "unfinished" space (ie: attic) and if the bedrooms upstairs do not have a built in closet - they can not be considered a finished bedroom. In this case, the auditor did count the upstairs as "living space" because it is included in the total square feet and the map on the Auditors website I posted earlier. They didn't count the basement as living space - I think because it probably wasn't finished (ie: exposed beams, no completed drywall throughout, etc).

Also, the total square footage on the main floor is 720 sq feet (IIRC). That kitchen was not that big, nor was the living room - based upon the little peeks of pictures on her FB page that I could see. If there were only 1 bedroom on the main floor - it would have had to been bigger than the kitchen and living room combined - and I just can't see that in an older home like this, unless it was completely remodeled and they would lose all those bedrooms for resale value.

I think the 6 rooms on the main floor are as follows: 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, 1 kitchen, 1 living room.

The upstairs only counts for square footage and the basement doesn't count at all due to their not meeting code regulations to be counted by the auditor for taxation.

I think there are 3 bedrooms on the main floor with 1 bath. I think there are 2 rooms upstairs (probably don't have built in clothing closets) and doors under the gable eaves for storage - which is pretty common in Cape Cod designs.
 
I finally found the quote from the neighbor about the 3 y/o "violently rocking". (see post 467 for reference to my thinking)

"She went into the baby’s room first, sweetly telling her that it was “going to be OK.” The 3-year-old was sitting up, rocking violently on the bed. She told him to be careful, she didn’t want him to hurt himself".

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinio..._neighbor_on_blackstone_horror_i_tried_not_to


"In the other bedroom, the 3-year-old nervously rocked back and forth on the edge of his feces-covered bed. Next to him was a pile of dirty diapers.

All the time, the woman told the two children things like, "Things are going to be better," "It's going to be OK," and "It's not going to happen again."

When she started talking to the 3-year-old and saying, "Hi, how are you. I'm the nice one," he stopped rocking and pensively stared at the woman."

http://www.telegram.com/article/20140913/NEWS/309129560/0/SEARCH
 
Comments about what the children had eaten that day haunt me . . .

"The woman said she believed both children were starving. When asked, Ms. Murray's son told his friend's mother that the children had eaten a cookie for breakfast."


"The woman, who has been living on Farnum Street for less than a year, said the Murray boy is a great kid, who regularly skateboarded with her son, but clearly there was something going on at home.

"He never went home to eat. He would say, 'I can't go home right now,' " she said. . . . . . . That day, the Murray boy told his friend's mother that he had a Popsicle for breakfast. So she took the two boys to Subway to get them something to eat, she said."

comments about the 10 y/o attempting to (hide?) keep the family secret -


"She said Ms. Murray's son told her, "The babies were upstairs, but you can't go up there because it was really messy."

The woman asked the 10-year-old boy to whom the babies belonged.

"My mom's friend left them here, and my mother baby-sits them," she said the boy told her."

"Before leaving, the woman's son removed maggots out of a discarded baby bottle for the 5-month-old and filled it up with a lone can of baby formula found in the house."


The way the babies looked when she saw them . . . interesting to note that although filthy, the infant was clothed when she was found.

"Maggots were everywhere, and the babies were covered in feces, she said. The boy looked younger than 3 years old, she said.

The little girl was "cute as a button," had a sweet disposition, very little hair and fair skin, the woman said. She also had inch-long fingernails that appeared to have never been cut, the woman said, and when the woman picked up the little girl, she didn't seem to know how to hold on to another person, as if she never had human contact before.

The 3-year-old boy had long, curly hair, which looked as if it had never been cut, the woman said. The boy sat in a bed, badly sunken from being soaked by the child's feces and urine. "

http://www.telegram.com/article/20140913/NEWS/309129560/0/SEARCH
 
I am wondering if more charges will come for EM & RR with the 2 older children not being fed correctly and not being registered for school? Oh so many offenses, where does LE even start? Bless all those children..............
 
Inch long fingernails?!? My God...

Every time I read maggots my stomach turns. I hope they give some kind of update on the two little ones.


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