By age 21, Gloria Greenfield had already lost four babies just weeks after they were born.

Joseph died of pneumonia at a hospital. Melissa turned blue and was taken to the hospital but it was too late. Theodore and Regina both died in their cribs.

Now, more than 30 years later, investigators say the last three deaths weren't part of a rash of terrible luck. They've charged Greenfield with three counts of first-degree murder.

Greenfield, who could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted, has been released from custody on a $100,000 bond and is awaiting trial. She would not talk about the charges or the babies' deaths.

"I am innocent. I did not kill my children. I loved my children. I did not do this," said Greenfield, 52. "It's a total nightmare. That's all I can say."

Greenfield also faces two assault charges that prosecutors say involve attacks on Gloria Bennight, an estranged daughter whose attempt to obtain death records of her siblings prompted investigators to reopen the cases.

Prosecutors wouldn't discuss specifics of those charges. Bennight is the only surviving child of Greenfield's first marriage, to Theodore Woods. They later divorced, and Woods died in 1996.

"I still love my mom and care about her more than anything else," said Bennight, who cried at her mother's arraignment in February. "I never intended this to happen."

Bennight said she asked for the death records in 2000 only because she was curious. Bennight has not spoken to her mother for about four years, a grudge that started when she named her child after her father, she said.

"There's just bad blood between them," Greenfield's attorney, Anthony Consoldane, said without elaborating.

Another daughter, Tonya Schubert, 22, who was born during a second marriage, declined to comment.

The deaths of babies Melissa, Theodore and Regina in 1969, 1970 and 1971 were originally attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Experts have not determined what causes SIDS, which kills about 3,000 children a year.

When the cases were reopened, Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, a forensic pathologist at the Trumbull County coroner's office since 1998, reinvestigated the deaths.

He determined that Theodore and Regina died of asphyxia, and he changed the cause of Melissa's death to undetermined. He did not amend an earlier ruling on Joseph, who died of pneumonia at 2 months.

Police, the prosecutor and coroner's office have released little information, and Germaniuk has declined to say exactly why he reached the new rulings. He said the bodies will not be exhumed.

"To me, I really don't need to have the bodies exhumed to arrive at my conclusions," Germaniuk said. "It's a well-known fact in forensic medicine that multiple sudden infant deaths in the same family are nothing more than multiple infant homicides," he said.

Laura Reno, spokeswoman for the National SIDS Alliance in Baltimore, said it would be a rare occurrence for a SIDS death to happen three times in one family, but the possibility could not be ruled out.

The cases aren't the first of former coroner Dr. Joseph Sudimack Jr.'s to be reinvestigated. Several of his rulings have been overturned and declared homicides -- some in cases where no autopsies were conducted.

Sudimack, who has retired, declined comment through his attorney.

Consoldane defended his client by saying that when Bennight herself stopped breathing when she was 44 days old and again at 80 days old, her mother took her to the hospital where she was revived.

Greenfield is now married to her third husband, truck driver Claude David Greenfield.

"My wife's innocence will shine through. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body," he said.