A Blackstone woman was called a hero for rescuing several children from inside the home where they lived in their own filth.
The woman didn’t want to appear on camera, but said her son asked her to help when he heard a crying baby.
“She was laying in the middle of the bed completely covered in feces. Feces all on the wall. I was walking on dirty diapers to get to her,” the woman said.
She said she had no idea there was one young child living at 23 St. Paul St., then she found a young boy as well.
“He was sitting on the mattress completely sunk in with feces, completely covered. His hair, his clothes, everything. He was rocking back and forth,” she said.
The woman called 911, then her motherly instincts kicked in to reach for the crying 5-month-old.
“I picked up the little one and I couldn’t find anything to wipe her with so I took my shirt off and cleaned her.”
A police report describes some of the filth throughout the house.
“Broken glass and trash scattered through the house in the kitchen there were piles of dirty dishes in the sink and dirty clothing on the floor. All throughout the home flies were located,” the report said.
Blackstone Health Inspector Bill Walsh said there was also human feces everywhere.
“It was very painstaking filling those boxes with the feces, the sheet rock, the soiled clothing, the mattresses had to be cut up,” Walsh said.
The health department has been filling boxes with material deemed as bio-hazard and putting trash in several large dumpsters.
The first floor is completely cleared but pictures show the basement where police allegedly found drugs. The attic is where the baby and toddler were discovered and one room was so cluttered it was hard for the responding police officer to enter.
The neighbor said when she was told to leave the house she walked right past Erika Murray, the woman blamed for the mess in the house.
“I said ‘what are you doing? What are you doing?’ [I was] Really upset and right up close to her and she kind of brushed it off and shrugged her shoulders saying ‘I don’t know. I don’t know,’” the neighbor said. “As I was getting into the car she spouted off ‘I don’t know what you’re so upset for. I just left them home for a few hours.’”
Health officials say they expect to have the house emptied on Tuesday and at that point they will call in an exterminator.