Mother Pays Her Final Respects in N.Y. to Battered 6-Year-Old

NEW YORK — Elizabeth Steinberg’s natural mother and hundreds of strangers Thursday mourned the death of the 6-year-old who was found beaten in her adoptive parents’ apartment.

After more than 1,000 people paid their respects at Elizabeth’s coffin, Rabbi Dennis Math said: “We must risk being wrong, embarrassed, or even evoking a neighbor’s anger when we feel a child is being harmed.” Math, who conducted a joint service with a Catholic priest, said: “May Lisa’s death help to save the lives of other children. Then her life will be sanctified.”

Fought for Burial Right

The child’s natural mother, Michelle Launders, saw her newborn daughter for only 20 seconds before giving her up for adoption, but fought in court for the right to bury the child because she did not want it to be done by “the people who killed her.”

Police found Elizabeth comatose and brain-dead Nov. 2 in lawyer Joel Steinberg’s Greenwich Village apartment.

A judge ruled Tuesday that Elizabeth was never legally adopted, and sources familiar with the investigation said Thursday that police were still trying to determine whether the girl was a commodity in a black market baby-selling ring.

Steinberg, 46, and his live-in lover, Hedda Nussbaum, 45, are charged with second-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child.

Cardinal Among Mourners

Cardinal John J. O’Connor was among more than 1,000 visitors to the coffin of the girl, whose death outraged the city. The coffin was surrounded with small individual bouquets from visitors as well as larger floral arrangements.

Nine-year-old Christine Beichec, who attended the closed-coffin viewing before the ceremony, said she remembered Lisa from school as a girl who never smiled.

“I came to see and to say a prayer that she has peace in heaven,” the little girl said, clinging tightly to her father’s hand.

Other mourners included teary-eyed police officers and Elsa Peterson, who said she was adopted illegally 35 years ago.

“It could have been me,” she said, placing a long-stemmed red rose on the coffin.

Cards and letters from mourners who had never met the girl were left beneath or atop the coffin.

“To Lisa, God bless you,” read a handmade card with flowers drawn in crayon from 9-year-old Padre Smith. “I hope the angels watch over you.”

Many Weep Openly

Mourners, many weeping openly, filed past the white steel coffin in a steady stream. A joint funeral service was held because Launders is Catholic, Steinberg and Nussbaum Jewish.

Nussbaum’s parents, who fought unsuccessfully for the right to bury the child, were not among the mourners seated before the small white coffin.

Outside, hundreds of onlookers who crowded 14th Street waved and called “bye, Lisa” as the tiny coffin was placed into a hearse and driven for burial on Long Island in the Launders family plot.

Launders said she gave up the child because she was not married and did not feel she could rear her.

At Launders’ request, the death certificate identified the child as “Baby Girl Launders, also known as Lisa.”