Slain Girl Was Abused for Weeks, Evidence Shows

Slain Girl Was Abused for Weeks, Evidence Shows

By ROBERT D. MCFADDEN

LEAD: Forensic evidence indicates that 6-year-old Elizabeth Steinberg was subjected to several weeks of physical abuse before the battering last weekend in which her fatal injuries were inflicted, a top official in the investigation said yesterday.

Forensic evidence indicates that 6-year-old Elizabeth Steinberg was subjected to several weeks of physical abuse before the battering last weekend in which her fatal injuries were inflicted, a top official in the investigation said yesterday.

The official also said that authorities had identified all four biological parents of the dead girl and her adopted brother, Mitchell. He declined to name them, but said both mothers were cooperating with investigators and that both fathers would be asked for help in determining how the children were acquired by the couple charged with Elizabeth's murder.

Elizabeth died of a brain hemorrhage Thursday, three days after the police were summoned to the family's filthy apartment at 14 West 10th Street. There, they found her in a coma and her infant brother tethered to a chair. They arrested their adoptive parents, Joel B. Steinberg, 46, and Hedda Nussbaum, 45.

Besides the girl's fatal injuries, doctors at St. Vincent's Hospital and a medical examiner who performed the autopsy found that the child, known as Lisa, had also suffered cuts and bruises of the head, back, legs and arms.

The nature of those injuries indicated that Lisa had been subjected to ''a substantial period of abuse,'' the Manhattan District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said Friday in announcing the murder indictment of Mr. Steinberg. Ms. Nussbaum, who authorities believe was battered by Mr. Steinberg over many years, was not indicted pending a possible appearance before the grand jury in her own defense.

While Mr. Morgenthau declined to amplify on the extent of the abuse, a principal official in his office's sprawling investigation of the case said yesterday that the girl's injuries appeared to have been inflicted ''within the last several weeks.'' The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said investigators were not ruling out the possibility that Lisa was abused over a longer time. He said that a broader portrait of her life had to be assembled from her pediatrician, teachers, friends and others, and that investigators were now limited to what they knew of her physical condition.

At the request of Ms. Nussbaum's lawyer, Barry Scheck, and with the District Attorney's approval, a second, private autopsy was conducted yesterday at the office of the New York City Medical Examiner. The results of the autopsy, by Dr. Dominick DeMaio, a former New York City Medical Examiner, were not disclosed.

Funeral arrangements for Lisa were incomplete and somewhat clouded by questions over who would assume responsibility. While the city, which has placed Mitchell in foster care, was briefly declared Lisa's guardian, that role ceased with her death.

Mr. Steinberg and Ms. Nussbaum are still technically responsible, according to city officials. Mr. Steinberg is in isolation and under a suicide watch at Rikers Island, and Ms. Nussbaum is being held at the City Hospital Center in Elmhurst, Queens, where she is being treated for injuries believed to have been inflicted by Mr. Steinberg in repeated beatings.

A correction official said Mr. Steinberg and Ms. Nussbaum had been granted a brief phone call Friday to discuss the funeral, but there has been no other contact between them since their arrest.

There was no lack of others, including relatives of Mr. Steinberg and Ms. Nussbaum, who were willing to assume responsibility for the funeral. Officials said offers of burial plots, tombstones and other funeral arrangments had poured into city agencies.

Rabbi Dennis Math of the Village Temple, 33 East 12th Street, said Elliot Koreman, the principal of Public School 41, where Lisa was a first-grader, had asked him to conduct services if the school were to be granted responsibility for the arrangements.

Meantime, the investigation was proceeding in several directions. A team of police and district attorney's investigators were trying to detail the 17-year relationship between Mr. Steinberg and Ms. Nussbaum, as well as the circumstances surrounding their custody of Lisa and Mitchell and the discovery by the police of drugs and $23,000 in their apartment.