Calif: Couple face second trial in daughter's starvation death
Patty
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press April 5, 2000
By BART WEITZEL
Valley Press Staff Writer
VAN NUYS - Attorneys began picking the jury this week in a second trial
for a Lake Los Angeles couple charged with starving their disabled
daughter to death in 1996.
The first trial of Michael and Kathleen Gentry ended in a mistrial May
6 after the jury told Superior Court Judge John Fisher it was
hopelessly deadlocked. Jurors were deadlocked 10-2 in favor of
acquitting the Gentrys of murder charges.
The Gentrys posted bail in midMay after Fisher reduced their bail from
$1 million for Michael Gentry and $500,000 for Kathleen Gentry to
$20,000 each.
The Gentrys had been in custody since their arrests in July 1998.
The second trial originally was scheduled to begin in November, but
Fisher called a halt to the proceedings and rescheduled the trial
because a key defense witness, another Gentry daughter who lives in
Georgia, was pregnant and could not travel until spring.
The Gentrys' oldest daughter, Sheila Pollard, testified for the
prosecution at the first trial, but recanted earlier statements she had
made about her parents' alleged mistreatment of Lindsay.
After failing to get a murder conviction the first time around,
prosecutor Kathleen Cady is seeking involuntary manslaughter
convictions against the Gentrys in the death of their daughter,
Lindsay. The couple also face charges of child abuse and conspiracy to
commit child abuse.
Jury selection began Monday and continued Tuesday. The selection
process is scheduled to pick up again Monday.
Lindsay Gentry was born in 1981 with a rare neurological condition
characterized by progressive weakness and wearing away of muscles. The
disease also can cause loss of appetite.
When Lindsay died in 1996, she stood 4 feet, 10 inches tall and weighed
just 44 pounds. Besides her diminutive stature, Lindsay had the mental
development of a 5- or 6-year-old.
Her parents said they did everything they could to get Lindsay to eat,
but were stymied by her disease.
Authorities claim the Gentrys used the disease as an excuse and did not
do enough to ensure their daughter ate.
During the murder trial, which started in late March and lasted for
about a month, jurors heard a host of conflicting testimony, some
portraying the Gentrys as abusive parents, but others portraying them
as loving and nurturing.
Prosecutors said that after talking to jurors from the first trial,
they are sure they would have convicted the Gentrys of involuntary
manslaughter, an assertion defense attorneys have called ludicrous.
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Before you buy.
Patty
Parents Face Retrial in Death of Disabled Daughter, 15
Courts: Jury selection begins a year after mistrial on murder charges.
This time, couple is accused of involuntary manslaughter.
By CAITLIN LIU, Times Staff Writer
They walked slowly through the courthouse, hand in hand as he
steadied her uneven gait.
Nearly a year after a mistrial on murder charges in the death of
their severely disabled teenage daughter, whom prosecutors alleged had
died of child abuse and starvation, Michael and Kathleen "Katrina"
Gentry were in court in Van Nuys again Tuesday to face potential jurors
for their new trial on reduced charges of involuntary manslaughter,
child endangerment and conspiracy.
A Van Nuys jury deadlocked last year over whether 15-year-old
Lindsay Gentry had been murdered by her parents or died naturally of
myotonic dystrophy, a degenerative muscle disease, which her mother
suffers in a milder form.
The disease stunted Lindsay's growth, wasted away her muscles,
twisted her spine and caused severe cataracts. At the time of her
February 1996 death, the girl was 4-foot-10 and weighed 44 pounds.
School officials and experts said she appeared emaciated.
The Lake Los Angeles parents have steadfastly maintained their
innocence, rejecting at least three proposed plea bargains. Each parent
served about one year in jail before the first trial. The last offer by
the prosecution would have allowed them to go free after pleading
guilty to a single count of child endangerment, said M. David Houchin,
an attorney representing Katrina Gentry.
If convicted on all counts, each parent faces a maximum of 10
years in prison.
The Gentrys, Houchin added, "at whatever cost, are not going to
admit something they did not do."
Jack Nicolai, a family friend who accompanied the couple to court
this week, said: "They've been through so many things. They're not
guilty."
Defense attorneys said the two provided for their daughter, spent
tens of thousands of dollars on her care and took the girl to doctors
many times over the years.
There will be more witnesses at the new trial than at the previous
one, according to prosecution and defense attorneys. But the thrust of
their testimonies will be the same: clashing eyewitness accounts of the
girl's condition, opinions from medical experts and recollections of
doctors who treated her.
At the first trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen Cady contended
that the couple had repeatedly abused and neglected Lindsay for eight
years before her death. Cady asked jurors for a second-degree murder
conviction.
Now, to prove involuntary manslaughter, the prosecution has the
easier job of showing that the Gentrys committed an unlawful act--
withholding or not giving enough food to Lindsay "without due caution
and circumspection," Cady said.
According to court documents, a school nurse reported in 1987 that
Lindsay had what appeared to be belt mark bruises. In subsequent years,
school employees reported more bruises, a bloody nose and a swollen
lip. The defendants also allegedly told the child's school to "cease
and desist" from providing food or drink and to stop weighing her.
Lindsay seemed so hungry that she stole food from other children,
one teacher testified during the first trial.
The county Department of Children and Family Services looked into
the child abuse allegations but found them unsubstantiated or
unfounded. Friends of the family and people in the community also
believed the Gentrys to be good parents, the defense argued.
A pathologist initially determined Lindsay's death was a natural
consequence of myotonic dystrophy. Listed as a contributing factor was
marasmus--malnutrition because of severe starvation.
On Tuesday, Katrina Gentry collapsed outside a courtroom where
jurors were being screened. Her husband crouched down and cradled her
in his arms, whispering in her ear until paramedics arrived. She was
transported to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Panorama City in
fair condition, according to a hospital spokeswoman.
Katrina Gentry fainted several times during her first trial and
about a dozen times when she was in jail, Middleton said, possibly
because of her medical condition.
Jury selection in the courtroom of Los Angeles County Superior
Court Judge John S. Fisher will continue today. Opening statements are
expected next week.
Vaniti99
would've ensured the poor kid got proper nutrition.
> Couple face second trial in daughter's starvation death
*"Never look down on a person, unless you're helping them up"*
*Sharyn*