Murder charged; woman hid 5 sets of remains in closet

A Pennsylvania woman who allegedly stowed the remains of four children in her closet and threw the bones of another into a landfill was charged with five counts of murder Monday.

Michele Kalina, 44, had previously been charged with abuse of a corpse on Aug. 9 after her husband and daughter discovered containers with the tiny bodies inside a closet of their Reading apartment.

The children were born alive and then killed, the Berks County coroner ruled. According to District Attorney John T. Adams, a pathologist concluded Oct. 14 that the deaths were due to nonnatural causes "consistent with asphyxia, poisoning, or neglect."

In August, a forensic anthropologist determined that remains stashed in two of the containers were those of a month-old infant and a fetus.

A third container held a two-by-three-foot block of concrete. An x-ray of the block revealed an "unknown mass" encased in the cement. After cracking it open, investigators found more human remains ranging in age from 32 weeks' to 43 weeks' gestation. Additional bones were uncovered by cadaver dogs in a nearby landfill, Adams said.

Kalina, a home health-care aide, had conceived the children through an extramarital affair with a man who was kept unaware of her pregnancies, according to the Associated Press.

Investigators said Kalina had a daughter by her paramour who was given up for adoption in 2003, according to the Associated Press. With her husband, Kalina has a teenage daughter and a son who died in 2000 after a long illness.

She has been jailed without bail since the discovery of the remains.