BLACKSTONE — A neighbor who says she discovered a 5-month-old girl and 3-year-old boy in the 23 St. Paul St. house this week said the children were covered in feces and were surrounded by piles of dirty diapers and maggots.

"You had to step on stuff to get to the babies," said the 41-year-old woman, a mother of two, who asked not to be identified.

The remains of three infants were found Thursday in the now-condemned house, but the woman who found the badly neglected children, without supervision, did not see any of the infants' remains.

What she did see, however, was enough to make her cry all night, she said.

The woman, who lives within walking distance of the 23 St. Paul St. house, said she has a 13-year-old son who is a friend of the 10-year-old son of Erika Murray, who was arraigned Friday in Uxbridge District Court on numerous charges in connection with the case.

The neighbor said she made the disturbing discovery on the afternoon of Aug. 28 when her 13-year-old son called her from a neighbor's phone. She said he was really upset and frantically told her, "I can't get the babies to stop crying."

The mother said she walked to the house at 23 St. Paul St. and asked the boys, "Where are the babies?"

She said Ms. Murray's son told her, "The babies were upstairs, but you can't go up there because it was really messy."

The woman asked the 10-year-old boy to whom the babies belonged.

"My mom's friend left them here, and my mother baby-sits them," she said the boy told her.

The concerned mother went to the house, went upstairs and found two children — a 5-month-old girl and a 3-year-old boy — in separate bedrooms, but both in her line of vision when she first discovered them upstairs.

Maggots were everywhere, and the babies were covered in feces, she said. The boy looked younger than 3 years old, she said.

The little girl was "cute as a button," had a sweet disposition, very little hair and fair skin, the woman said. She also had inch-long fingernails that appeared to have never been cut, the woman said, and when the woman picked up the little girl, she didn't seem to know how to hold on to another person, as if she never had human contact before.

The 3-year-old boy had long, curly hair, which looked as if it had never been cut, the woman said. The boy sat in a bed, badly sunken from being soaked by the child's feces and urine. The woman said the little boy seemed to be in worse shape than the baby girl. The woman said she believed both children were starving. When asked, Ms. Murray's son told his friend's mother that the children had eaten a cookie for breakfast.

The woman said she had met Ms. Murray for the first time a day earlier. She said Ms. Murray asked if it would be all right for her son to come over the next day. The mother agreed.

"(The boy) was always here," the woman said. "He was fine."

She estimated that the small children were alone from at least 10 a.m. (when the boy arrived at her home to play with her son) until 4:30 p.m. when she discovered the babies alone in their own filth and surrounded by squalor.

"I told the boys to go outside," the woman recalled.

"You understand I have to call people to help," she said she told the boys.

Before leaving, the woman's son removed maggots out of a discarded baby bottle for the 5-month-old and filled it up with a lone can of baby formula found in the house.

The woman called police on her cellphone and was told not to pick up the babies. She did just that until police arrived and was given permission to do so.

The Blackstone police log indicated the department received a call from a woman who said her son "could not get the babies to stop crying."

Both babies were crying but they stopped when she talked. She said it was very hot in the house and there was no electricity or running water.

The woman went over to the little girl first and gave her some reassuring words and entertained her with some baby talk.

"She was very cute and liked to be held," the woman said of the girl. "She was very cooey … I leaned over her. She was excited. I played a little peekaboo."

Not having any wipes to clean up the baby with, the woman took off the tank top she was wearing and wiped the baby the best she could. She stripped off the baby's clothes, which were completely soiled, and took off her soiled diaper.

In the other bedroom, the 3-year-old nervously rocked back and forth on the edge of his feces-covered bed. Next to him was a pile of dirty diapers.

All the time, the woman told the two children things like, "Things are going to be better," "It's going to be OK," and "It's not going to happen again."

When she started talking to the 3-year-old and saying, "Hi, how are you. I'm the nice one," he stopped rocking and pensively stared at the woman.

In the middle of the two bedrooms was a locked door. And something behind the door was emitting a horrible smell. The police officer asked the woman what was inside the door behind her. She said she didn't know. When the officer kicked the door in, the smell became unbearable. The officer told the woman to put the baby on the bed and get out of the house.

With what remaining clothes she had to put over her nose, the woman did what she was told, never looking to see what was in the closet. When she got home, she took her clothes off, threw them away and took a shower, she said.

Outside, the woman said she saw Ms. Murray and scolded her saying, "What are you doing? What are you thinking?"

"I don't know you. I just met you yesterday … If you can't take care of your kids, walk them over to my porch, and I will assist you," she said.

"I don't know why you're upset. I only left them alone for two hours," Ms. Murray said, according to the woman.

When she finally left, the woman said she heard Ms. Murray tell police the babies belonged to her.

Ms. Murray's son was upset with his friend's mother for reporting the living conditions to police, but the woman took him aside and told him, "You deserve better. The babies deserve better."

Later, the Murray boy was brought over to say goodbye to his friend.

The woman, who has been living on Farnum Street for less than a year, said the Murray boy is a great kid, who regularly skateboarded with her son, but clearly there was something going on at home.

"He never went home to eat. He would say, 'I can't go home right now,' " she said.

That day, the Murray boy told his friend's mother that he had a Popsicle for breakfast. So she took the two boys to Subway to get them something to eat, she said.

While she said she had noticed a smell coming from the Murray house that was so strong that she had walked on the other side of the street to avoid it, the woman said she had no idea of the horrors inside.

Contact Craig S. Semon of the Telegram & Gazette staff at craig.semon@telegram.com.