Coroner Calls Elderly Mother’s Death Homicide

The death of a 77-year-old North Hollywood woman whose daughter has been charged with neglect was ruled a homicide Thursday by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

An autopsy concluded that Virginia Jeter died of neglect, said coroner’s spokesman Bob Dambacher. The autopsy report said the cause of death was severe hardening of the arteries, bedsores and cachexia, which is general illness and malnutrition.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lee Harris said his office had not received the autopsy results Thursday and would not make a decision on whether to file a manslaughter charge against Jeter’s 38-year-old daughter, Cynthia Jeter Green, until early next week.

Jeter died Monday at a Panorama City hospital after she was removed from a house in the 7800 block of Bellingham Avenue where paramedics found her in a bed covered with maggots and feces and soaked with urine. Jeter, who weighed 70 pounds, was unconscious and could not be revived.

Jeter shared the house with Green, a radio reporter who had been unemployed since November after losing a job at a local station because she missed several days of work while caring for her mother, her former employer said. Green had told co-workers that her mother, who came from Texas to live with her in 1987, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and had trouble eating.

Green was initially arrested by Los Angeles police on suspicion of manslaughter. She was charged Wednesday with felony elderly neglect that caused great bodily harm, pending a determination of whether a manslaughter charge will be brought. She was being held at the Sybil Brand Institute for Women in lieu of $6,000 bail.