The case of Erika Murray seems more like something written for a crime show than real life, and perhaps it is. One of the charges against her, fetal death concealment, creates the central tension in the Season Seven episode of “Law & Order: SVU’’ called ‘Taboo’.

*Spoiler alert, though you’re eight years late if you haven’t seen this episode already.*

In the episode, when a civilian finds a newborn baby in the trash, the search for the baby’s mother ensues. After chasing some dead ends, the detectives zero-in on college student Ella Christiansen. As it transpires, she has given birth before, but she claims her child was stillborn. The remainder of the episode focuses on SVU’s efforts to prove Captain Cragen’s ominous pronouncement that, “This nutcase is a serial baby killer’’. DUN DUN.


In the end, Ella confesses in an emotional outburst that she killed her firstborn. Without this confession, however, a case of infanticide may have been charged as a misdemeanor.

That is what happened in the 2007 trial of Holly Ashcraft, the real-life story that may have served as the inspiration for ‘Taboo’. In that case, the judge dismissed murder charges twice due to lack of evidence. Ashcraft was given five years of probation.

Police in Murray’s case may face similar evidentiary challenges. Investigations into the infant remains found in her Blackstone home are still in their early stages, and at this point Murray has pled not guilty to charges of fetal death concealment out of wedlock.

As with the fictional case of Ella Christiansen, important questions of the mother’s mental status have been raised. The deplorable condition of Murray’s home and her treatment of its inhabitants caused her attorney Keith Halpern to remark, “Living in that house-who could live in that house who is not seriously mentally ill?’’ This statement echoes one of the concluding lines of ‘Taboo’: “She had to be crazy, don’t you think?’’ If fact can be extrapolated from fiction, it seems that, going forward in the investigation and the trial, this is one question that will be crucial to answer.