Further Inquiry Due in Death of Girl

Further Inquiry Due in Death of Girl

By KIRK JOHNSON

LEAD: Prosecutors investigating the beating death of 6-year-old Elizabeth Steinberg said yesterday that they would not seek an indictment for at least 30 days against the girl's adoptive mother, Hedda Nussbaum, to give investigators more time to look into her role in the child's death.

Prosecutors investigating the beating death of 6-year-old Elizabeth Steinberg said yesterday that they would not seek an indictment for at least 30 days against the girl's adoptive mother, Hedda Nussbaum, to give investigators more time to look into her role in the child's death.

They also said they hoped Ms. Nussbaum could be persuaded to testify against Joel B. Steinberg, who has already been indicted on murder charges in Elizabeth's death.

Meanwhile the dead girl's biological mother, Michelle Launders, announced that a public viewing of the body would be held today at 9 A.M. at the Redden Funeral Home, at 325 West 14th Street. This is to be followed by a joint Jewish-Roman Catholic funeral service at 1 P.M.

Elizabeth, who was declared dead last week of head injuries after being found at the West 10th Street apartment that Mr. Steinberg and Ms. Nussbaum shared, was raised by the couple, who are Jewish. But the girl's mother, a Catholic who gave her up for adoption shortly after birth, was authorized yesterday by a Manhattan judge to bury the girl.

Miss Launders, a 26-year-old secretary from Long Island, said her daughter would be buried in Hawthorne, N.Y., at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery, operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

Miss Launders testified at a hearing Tuesday in Surrogate's Court in Manhattan that she had given $500 to Mr. Steinberg, a lawyer, to arrange the adoption placement of Elizabeth with a Catholic couple in Manhattan. Instead, according to the ruling yesterday by Surrogate Marie M. Lambert, Mr. Steinberg apparently kept the child without completing the adoption procedures.

The Manhattan District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said at a late-afternoon news conference in his office yesterday that the continuing investigation in the complex case would concentrate on, among other things, reports that ''Steinberg assaulted Nussbaum over a prolonged period of time.''

An attorney for Ms. Nussbaum, Barry Scheck, said in a statement last night that the further investigation would clear her name.

''Once all the facts and circumstances are known, it will be apparent to everyone involved that Hedda Nussbaum is a victim, and all charges against her will be dismissed,'' Mr. Scheck said.

Mr. Morgenthau, who spoke after a nearly three-hour meeting in his office with Ms. Nussbaum's defense attorneys, declined to comment on the substance of the discussions. But other law enforcement officials said the delay in presenting the case to a grand jury was partly to try to persuade Ms. Nussbaum to testify for the prosecution.

Officials also said they had ''heard reports'' that Mr. Steinberg's defense at his trial could be that Ms. Nussbaum was actually the one who had beaten Elizabeth, not Mr. Steinberg. Mr. Steinberg's attorney, Robert I. Kalina, did not return telephone calls to his office for comment on the reports.

Mr. Morgenthau said Ms. Nussbaum would receive a psychological evaluation and treatment during the monthlong delay. Even without her testimony, he added, the case against Mr. Steinberg - although circumstantial - is still strong.

Another prosecutor, Mary O'Donoghue, chief of the domestic violence unit, said that the refusal of battered women to testify against their husbands or lovers was often a ''classic'' element in such cases and that many criminal cases collapsed as a result.