A prosecutor said a beating by the father led to slow death before incineration. Jessica Morgan, 20, was held as an accomplice
 

Jessica Morgan, 20, and Kevin Abrahams, 25, are charged with first-degree murder in the death of their son, Sage Tyler Morgan-Abrahams.

Abrahams is accused of fatally beating the child in a rage between March 31 and the end of April. Morgan is charged as an accomplice for not seeking help for the baby.

"She has acknowledged that the lethal blows were delivered by her paramour," Raymond E. Milavsky, first assistant prosecutor, said in Superior Court today. "Sage became lethargic, started to vomit, and obviously needed medical attention."

Morgan's bail was set at $350,000 by Judge Thomas S. Smith Jr.

Appearing via closed-circuit television from the women's jail in Pemberton Township, Morgan gave several one-word answers to routine questions from the judge. Asked who would be representing her, she said, "I'm not sure yet."

Abrahams is scheduled in court today, when the Prosecutor's Office will ask for $750,000 bail.

The attack on the baby occurred at the home of a friend with whom the couple had been staying rent-free for several months, Milavsky said.

After the infant died, according to the Prosecutor's Office, both parents burned the corpse in the fireplace and put the remains inside a green wooden box in a bedroom closet at the Oakland Avenue house.

"It wasn't enough for them to murder their child. They had to get rid of the evidence," Milavsky told the judge. They reduced Sage to "ash, bone and flesh," he said.

Sage's ashes were discovered June 15 after Morgan's mother called police. She had become suspicious when the baby was not at a birthday party for Abrahams.

When the ashes were found, Abrahams and Morgan were on their way to Florida, where they were arrested July 16. They had been staying at a tourist hotel near Sea World and Universal Studios.

Authorities arrested them after a woman staying with the couple, a friend from Burlington City who had brought her two children along, called her mother and disclosed their whereabouts.

Morgan was flown in from Orlando, Fla., and arrived in the area early today. Abrahams arrived later in the day.

The Prosecutor's Office would not say whether the pair had admitted a crime, but did say the two have "acknowledged" the course of events in police interviews.

"Our proofs at this stage are overwhelming," Milavsky said.