Just in case you’ve been living under a rock, or in the house pictured above, tiny Blackstone, MA has been the scene of an unbelievable story this past week. It seems that Erika Murray – aka, Mom of the Year – and her boyfriend/baby daddy Ramon Rivera were shacking up in this house in Blackstone with their 4 living children and 3 deceased children. You read that right – deceased babies. In the house. See why it’s the house of horrors now?
What makes the story even worse is that the house was piled high with 2 feet of dirty diapers, dead animals, rodents, maggots and feces. A neighbor finally discovered the state of the home and the 2 youngest children, a 5 month old baby and a 3 year old boy when the couple’s 10 year old reached out to ask for help getting the infant to stop crying. Mom of the Year Erika was at the cape or something and decided to leave her 4 kids alone while she was gone. While I commend the neighbor for FINALLY stepping in, I wonder what took so long.
You see, various people have stepped forward, telling stories about how they had to cross the street when jogging to avoid the smell or how they were feeding the 10 year old for the past 8 months or something crazy. Did nobody question it until this point? The police in Blackstone had been called about the dog in the backyard that was being starved and left in the cold all winter long. DCF had even been called at once point. Hell, the house is located within throwing distance of the police AND fire departments!
What baffles the crap out of me even more is that they locked dear old mom up because of the condition of the house and the kids, but dad only got hit with drug charges. He was apparently too busy growing and selling pot out of the basement to notice that there was literal shit dripping through the floor. I’m not sure how he missed the crying or the horrific smell that was apparent from outside the home. I guess he never had time between his drug deals to check on his kids either. *cough* bullshit *cough*
Fortunately, with a schedule so full of growing and selling pot, he must have made a pretty penny, so he can afford to pay back his sister (who is also his landlord) the reported $25,000 in cleaning costs incurred for the removal of the diapers, furniture and soiled walls of the home.
If you think this story is just too odd to be true, it gets better. Erika is claiming some type of mental illness defense. Of course she is. She also claims she was too afraid of her boyfriend to seek help. Erika was also a regular user of various Facebook yard sale sites, with people traveling to her home to pick up items she was selling. She’d have her minions meet the buyers in the driveway to make the exchange. Because again, as mom of the year, she found nothing sketchy about sending a 10 year old out to meet a stranger from Facebook.
The father – and I use that term loosely – claims he thought the 2 youngest children were being baby sat. Apparently watching someone’s infant for 5 months isn’t unusual to him. There’s just no comment for that type of stupidity. Whether or not he lived in the basement, he had to have noticed that Erika was pregnant and that there was a baby crying in the middle of the night. He wasn’t so far removed from the situation that he never saw the others – clearly he did or how else would he have impregnated her so many times??
Here are some ways this situation could have been avoided:
- Ramon could have paid attention to his girlfriend instead of selling pot. Dads are the first line of defense against postpartum depression.
- Ramon could have taken out the trash. This isn’t the 1950s anymore – it’s OK if men do a load of dishes or help out once in a while.
- The older kids’ teacher could have questioned the poo smell and dirty clothes. I can’t imagine those kids smelled good coming out of that ripe slice of hell.
- The police department was across the street. I’m shocked the officers didn’t notice anything weird.
- If Ramon was so scary, Erika could have CROSSED THE DAMN ROAD while he was out making a drug deal to turn him in, ask for help, etc.
- Erika was involved on the Facebook yard sale sites. She could have gotten help there.
- Condoms
- Erika could have NOT hid her pregnancies – who knows, maybe those babies would be alive and not rotting in a closet
I’m just so sickened and saddened by the whole situation. In cases like this, I really don’t think “rehabilitation” should be an option. Erika and Ramon ruined the lives of 4 children and probably took the lives of 3 others whether the babies were born alive or born dead due to poor prenatal care. Either way, these sickos aren’t going to get better – save the tax payers some money and bring back the death penalty. I don’t want to pay for this whack job to sit in a clean cell eating 3 meals a day and having access to cable, clean water and heat in the winter. She should be stuffed in a dirty closet and left to rot. Show her the same respect she showed her deceased babies. And Ramon – he should be neutered without anesthesia, deprived of clean water and food, shot, and left to die. Let him feel as helpless as his children. He didn’t protect them like a father should and the state shouldn’t protect him.
Wherever those 2 sickos are right now, I hope they’re not thinking about themselves and the future they’ll face. I hope they’re thinking about their 4 kids who are no doubt scared and feeling alone. I hope they’re thinking about the 3 dead babies in the closet. I hope they’re thinking about the deplorable conditions they forced those kids to live in and I hope the guilt is eating them alive.
Mommas Madness 