​Mass. mom charged with murder after babies' remains found

WORCESTER, Mass. -- A Massachusetts woman has been indicted on two murder charges after the skeletal remains of three babies were found in her squalid home in September.

District Attorney Joseph Early announced the charges Tuesday against Erika Murray. Murray has been held on $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to earlier charges including fetal death concealment, permitting substantial injury to a child and child endangerment. Her attorney has said she has mental health issues.

In August, Murray's four children ranging from 5 months to 13 years old were removed from the trash-filled house in Blackstone and placed in state custody. The two youngest survivors were found covered in their own feces, malnourished and severely neglected, CBS Boston reported. They did not appear to have ever been taken outside the house.

Two weeks later, police searched the house and found the remains of three babies in bedroom closets. At least two of them were alive "for some period of time" before they were found, prosecutors said.

Murray's boyfriend, Raymond Rivera, who lived in the basement of the house, also was charged Tuesday with child abuse. He pleaded not guilty.

Last month, Rivera told CBS Boston he was unaware of the "inhuman" and "unbelievable" conditions his children were living in because he was not allowed upstairs.

"I was crushed that she would do that," Rivera said. "I never saw the infant at all." Rivera is the father of at least two of the children removed from the house.

Police, health inspectors and the Department of Children and Families had visited the home 29 times since 2000 before the babies' bodies were discovered, according to documents reviewed by CBS Boston.

The house was torn down in October.