Notoriously Lenient Judge Janet Kenton-Walker Dismisses Murder Charge Against Blackstone House Of Horrors Mom Erika Murray
WCVB: A judge has dismissed one of the charges in the trial of the woman charged in the deaths of two babies whose remains were found in her squalid Blackstone home. Erika Murray was originally charged with second degree murder in the deaths of two of the three dead babies found in the trash-strewn and insect-infested Blackstone home in 2014. On Tuesday, one of the murder charges was dismissed.
“There is no evidence here that that baby was alive, and therefore it could not have been a victim of a homicide without some evidence,” Judge Janet Kenton-Walker said.
Defense attorney Keith S. Halpern argued there was only evidence that one child was born alive. Halpern also said there was no evidence to prove Murray directly caused their deaths, even if they were born alive. Murray was also charged with two counts of assault and battery on a child causing substantial bodily injury, two counts of reckless endangerment of a child and two counts of cruelty to animals. Four living children were removed from the home.
Last week, the judge heard from a Massachusetts state trooper who said he had to use a shovel to navigate the debris in the home while executing a search warrant. He said he discovered skeletal remains of an infant in a box in a closet.
“Opened the box and discovered human remains,” Trooper Keith Egan said. “(It was) a brown box. A cardboard box.”
A pathologist with the Medical Examiner’s office said based on examining the remains, two infants were born alive. The defense disagreed, arguing there was no evidence to support that one of the infants was alive at birth. Also last week, police, social workers and a doctor testified about the extreme neglect Murray is accused of in the home.
“You couldn’t tell the color of this child, because there was so much filth on this child,” DFC social worker Walter McClain said.
McClain was on scene the day in August 2014 when a neighbor made the chilling discovery. McClain testified that the condition of a 3-year-old girl and a 6-month-old girl was shockingly bad and extremely sad.
“We brought her to the car, and she was just limp,” McClain said of the 3-year-old. “No muscle tone whatsoever. We put her inside the car, and we looked inside of her ear, and I believe — I can’t say it was maggots, but it was something crawling inside of her ear.”
Social workers say Murray wasn’t phased at the prospect of DCF taking her children, and she didn’t claim the younger ones as her own. In fact, she had been telling the older kids that she was just babysitting the younger children.
“She had told me that she had given birth to all four of the children, but she was embarrassed to tell the older two children that the younger siblings were her children,” said DFC social worker Kerri-Ann Phillips. A doctor testified that both of the younger children had developmental delays. Murray’s older children’s names are on the witness list.
I said it when this case first began – getting Judge Janet “let em walk” Kenton-Walker was the biggest gift Erika Murray has ever received. It was only a matter of time until she did something like this. This is her M.O.
- In 2016 Chad Easter was on trial for a 2013 home invasion involving two women who were probably drug dealers. They couldn’t testify against him because they were murdered by 2016, he probably killed them, and the police had plenty of evidence that led them to believe it was him. Let em walk Walker wouldn’t let the jury know that he was a suspect in the murder of two state’s witnesses who could’ve put him away for armed home invasion.
TMLT Verdict in Chad Easter case comes as jury unaware of prosecutors belief he was involved in killing witnesses https://t.co/a5cZC1spWi
— Lindsay Corcoran (@Lacorc) June 6, 2016
- In 2016 she awarded $2.1 million to a woman who probably killed her baby, because they said that her confession was coerced. You watch this interview and tell how this is coercion on the part of the Worcester Police.
TMLT Verdict in Chad Easter case comes as jury unaware of prosecutors belief he was involved in killing witnesses https://t.co/a5cZC1spWi
— Lindsay Corcoran (@Lacorc) June 6, 2016
- Also in 2016 Let em Walk Walker was presiding over the murder trial of Lonzo Guthrie for the cold case 1974 killing of Eileen Ferro in Shrewsbury. Guthrie delivered a hutch to her and her husband’s house the day before and could’ve gained entry to the house easily. Blood found out the scene was discovered to be Guthrie’s after a DNA match came up for him in 2014, due to the fact that he had moved to California, stabbed and raped a woman there 54 days after Ferro was killed, and went to prison for it. The rape victim was stabbed in the exact same manner Ferro was. His fiance was also mysteriously murdered, and that was never solved. Let em Walk Walker didn’t allow the jury to hear any of this information, which likely would’ve made them believe they were dealing with a serial killer. This led to an insane public Facebook back and forth between a juror who voted not guilty, and the family of Ferro.
Any criminal charged with a serious crime should pray to the Gods that they get dealt Judge Janet Kenton-Walker.
This is just the latest of her many, many bad decisions that enable killers to go free. Judges interpret the laws in different ways, but the constantly goes out of her way to find loopholes that she believes allows her to keep critical evidence out of trial that can put dangerous people behind bars.
The child she will no longer be charged with murdering had a diaper and a onesie on. You don’t do that with stillborns. This back and forth that the ADA had with Let em Walk Walker was mind boggling:
The prosecutor also attempted to argue that the fact that the two skeletal remains were clothed, while the other was not, was evidence that they born alive rather than stillborn. But Kenton-Walker appeared skeptical.
“What evidence is there for me to draw that inference? Simply because the children or remains have clothing on them, I’m supposed to derive an inference that they’re alive?” the judge asked.
“Yes,” Hodgens replied.
“How do I do that?” she asked
“Common sense,” he said.
“You tell me how I can draw such an inference on just common sense,” Kenton-Walker said.
You have to be kidding me. You don’t put a diaper on a dead baby, because they’re dead. That’s common sense, something Let em Walk Walker is clearly unfamiliar with. The third baby, which had its placental and umbillical chord still attached, did not have clothes or a diaper on, which proves that she treated stillborn babies differently from babies that were born alive.
Regardless, it doesn’t really matter. She chose to give birth alone at home because she wanted to keep it a secret. If she didn’t want to have the baby she easily could’ve gotten an abortion. Instead she let it grow inside of her until it was ready to emerge. And because of the choices she made the baby’s short life was painful and resulted in a slow death.
If that’s not second degree murder I don’t know what is.
This whole things brings up an interesting debate about two things – when human life begins and anti-vaxxers.
If you believe a baby has no legal rights until it is born, then how can you argue that this is second degree murder? This was just an accidental abortion.
If you believe a baby does have legal rights in the womb, then how can you argue that this wasn’t second degree murder? She willingly neglected the child inside of her to the point that he or she died.
And I’m sorry, but there’s very little difference between Erika Murray and your run of the mill anti-vaxxer. They’re both crazy and completely ignore science. I had a rant about it on the Live show podcast last night at the 40:30 mark.
It’s simple – anti-vaxxers believe the government has no right to mandate that they must take preventative measures to ensure their kids don’t contract deadly diseases. As a result their kids are at risk for polio and can die an easily preventable death.
Erika Murray believed the government had no right to force her to get prenatal care or mandate that she take preventative measures to ensure that her babies were born alive and healthy. As a result at least one of them was born stillborn, and the other two probably lived short lives outside of the womb before dying agonizing deaths, wondering why their cries for their mother’s love and care went unanswered.
There’s a reason her defense attorney chose a judge instead of a jury on this case. No jury in Worcester County would acquit her, but Let em Walk Walker probably will.
Anyway, I’m actually excited to see that older kids are on the witness list. I would imagine she hasn’t seen them or spoken to them in five years. They’re 15 and 18 now, and it will be interesting to see if they resent her, or still love and miss her. I’m guessing it’s the former.
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This is absolutely sickening. People like this shouldn’t be allowed to walk amongst the living. What a shame,absolute lunacy