WORCESTER, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) —More disturbing and gut-wrenching testimony and evidence surfaced during the third day of the Blackstone ‘house of horrors,”
Erica Murray faces two counts of murder and multiple counts of child neglect.
She is accused of killing her three infants and leaving her other children in a home so hazardously filthy, and infected with insects, it had to be demolished by authorities.
On Thursday —Murray, 35, listened impassively as Massachusetts state trooper Keith Egan described wearing hazmat gear and shoveling his way into her home through trash and debris.
He testified as to what he found in a bedroom closet.
“We opened a box and discovered human remains,” Egan said.
The Commonwealth’s Medical Examiner, Dr. Robert Welton, was called and took over the search.
From the witness stand, Welton described how he saw two other sets of infant and animal remains were found.
“As we were removing debris from that closet we had found another set of remains as well…there was a carcass of an animal as well.” Welton said.
Then when they moved into another bedroom where they made another discovery.
“There was a cardboard box and we discovered another set of remains as well,” he said.
Welton testified that it was hard to tell how long the babies lived if at all.
According to Welton, autopsies could not reveal the sex or exact cause of death of any of the infants because of decomposition. One of the infants found had an umbilical cord attached and may have been a stillborn.
There was a long bout on cross-examination with a forensic anthropologist Dr. James Pokines, about how long the infants may have lived based on dental forensics.
Pokines explained how he can see how long the infants may have lived before they died. There are differences in tooth development—whether or not baby teeth have come in —that show stages in development.
He testifies that he examined the remains of two infants found in Erika Murray’s home, and says they may have been a week old at death.
All four living children were removed from that home. The older ones were not aware they were even related to the toddler and infant.
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WBZ NewsRadio’s Karyn Regal (@KarynRegal) reports.