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The Region - News from Dec. 8, 1985

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The former manager of a South-Central Los Angeles home for the mentally retarded pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of a patient whose decomposed body was found in a nailed-shut closet. Rudolph Harris, 44, had been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Ray Walker, but was allowed to plead guilty in Municipal Court to the lesser manslaughter charge in a plea bargain with the district attorney’s office. Harris faces up to four years in prison when sentenced Jan. 8, Deputy Dist. Atty. Leland Harris said. Walker, 31, a resident of Heaven’s Crest Board and Care Home, had been reported missing until his body was found in the closet in early October. Rudolph Harris, the home’s live-in manager, had fled to Las Vegas before the body was discovered, and was arrested there Nov. 16. He told police that Walker’s health had been failing and that he had tried to care for the man himself rather than calling in medical authorities.

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