A Massachusetts mother pleaded not guilty in the deaths of her three infants in a gruesome murder case that has captured national headlines.
Erika L. Murray did not say a word except to enter her plea during her arraignment in Worcester District Court on Monday, the Boston Globe reported. She faces a total of nine charges, including two counts of first degree murder and concealing a fetal death in connection to the remains of three infants found hidden in closets at her squalid Blackstone, Mass., home.
Prosecutor John E. Bradley Jr. said the 31-year-old mother had a total of seven children - five of whom she gave birth to in the last seven years inside the bathroom of the home she shared with her boyfriend, the Boston Globe reported.
Murray hid the five children from her boyfriend, Raymond Rivera, because he told her he did not want to have any more kids after the first two, now ages 10 and 13, Bradley said.
Rivera, who is also facing abuse charges, maintains he thought Murray was babysitting the younger kids.
It is still unclear when and how the infants died. All were found in August wearing clothing in some form, with the skeletal remains of a third found wearing a diaper and onesie with the umbilical cord still attached.
Bradley said Murray concealed her two surviving kids, a 5-month old and 3-year-old, in a bedroom walled off by garbage and dirty diapers. They were found by a neighbor covered in feces in August after one of the older kids sought help for a crying baby. The home has since been demolished.
"It appears that the [surviving] children were neither nourished nor cared for," Bradley said, according to the newspaper.
When a doctor later examined the 3-year-old girl, apparently her first-ever medical examination, maggots had to be removed from her ear before she could hear, prosecutors said.
Murray's attorney, Keith S. Halpern, previously said his client told investigators one of the infants was born alive but later died and the other two were stillborn.
Halpern denounced the murder charges against Murray as "unfortunate."
"There is no evidence that I'm aware of a cause of death with any of these infants," Halpern said, according to the Boston Globe. "No evidence of how long they were alive, no evidence of how they died, no evidence that Miss Murray had anything to do with causing their deaths."
Murray was ordered held without bail.
