A Massachusetts woman's court-appointed lawyer entered a not-guilty plea for his client on Friday as he claims her to be mentally ill after three dead infants were found in her home.

Authorities arrested Erika Murray after she allegedly misled a police investigation of a reckless endangerment of children case in Blackstone, 50 miles from Boston.

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Murray appeared in court on Friday for her arraignment, her defense lawyer Keith Halpern suggested that she might be suffering from mental illness and thus, entered a not-guilty plea on her behalf.

"You want answers in circumstances like this. ... Mental illness doesn't always provide those kinds of answers," Halpern stated.

During her arraignment at the Worcester District Course in Uxbridge, Murray stayed quiet and stared blankly at an empty space as the court judge ordered her to be held without bail.

Her charges include fetal death concealment, permitting substantial injury to a child, and witness intimidation.

According to reports, investigators found the bodies of three babies on Thursday at her vermin-infested home where four other children aged 13, 10, 3 and 6 months have been rescued on August 28 and were placed under the care of the state Department of Children and Families.

The 31-year-old woman from Massachusetts was the mother of the two oldest children rescued while the younger two had appeared to have no birth records whatsoever.

Two weeks ago, a 10-year-old boy who lived in the house went to ask one of their neighbors how to make a crying baby stop. This prompted the neighbor to accompany the boy to house where they found a crying baby covered in feces.

Authorities found the first body of a baby inside a closet on Wednesday while the other two remains were located on Thursday.

A report from the medical examiner is yet to determine whether the other two remains are that newborns or of fetuses.

Investigators have not ruled out any possibility of finding more bodies of children inside the house as the search is expected to last for several days.

Meanwhile, neighbors expressed their surprise at what was found inside Murray's home citing that the windows were always drawn and the woman rarely spoke with her neighbors.

TagsMassachusetts, home, dead babies, arrest, Mentally ill