Parents of Teen Held in Her Death

The parents of a disabled 15-year-old girl who died in a Fontana hospital two years ago were arrested at their home Thursday on suspicion of neglecting and underfeeding the teenager.

Michael Gentry, 54, and Kathleen “Katrina” Gentry, 44, were arrested after a two-year investigation by Los Angeles County sheriff’s homicide detectives and the district attorney’s office into the death of Lindsay M. Gentry, who died in the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Fontana on Feb. 6, 1996, the sheriff’s office said.

The Gentrys were being held on charges of child abuse and murder under $1 million bail each.

The girl’s San Bernardino County death certificate indicated a natural death from heart and lung failure caused by various complications of a congenital illness.

Lindsay, who was only 4 feet, 8 inches tall, was born with myotonic dystrophy, a disease that stunted her growth, caused curvature of the spine and severe cataracts on her eyes, Lt. Ray Peavy of the sheriff’s homicide unit said.

Family friends said Lindsay walked with leg braces because she was not strong enough to carry her own weight and wore knee pads to cushion frequent falls. The girl’s grandmother, Helen Darrow, 77, said doctors initially told the family that Lindsay would not live more than three years.

“It’s a wonder she lived so long,” Darrow said.

Medical complications contributing to her death included pneumonia and marasmus--wasting due to malnutrition, the girl’s death certificate stated.

Myotonic dystrophy is a rare neurological disease characterized by progressive weakness and wearing away of the muscles, especially those in the face and neck. Marasmus is a wasting disease that serves as the first sign of approaching death for starvation victims. According to the American Medical Assn., the disease is defined as a severe form of protein and caloric malnutrition that occurs mainly under famine or starvation conditions.

Lindsay’s death went largely unnoticed by authorities--Kaiser doctors who conducted an autopsy found no sign of wrongdoing, Peavy said, and never contacted the San Bernardino coroner’s office.

But shortly after her burial, at least one friend of the family contacted the Sheriff’s Department and prompted authorities to look into the matter, Peavy said.

Sheriff’s detectives reviewed the girl’s medical records with a Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center doctor and decided that Lindsay’s malnutrition was the result of criminal neglect. Those suspicions were supported by a careful review of medical and school records, and interviews with family acquaintances, Peavy said.

In a telephone interview with The Times from the Lancaster sheriff’s station jail, Michael Gentry said he and his wife wanted only the best for their daughter and denied any wrongdoing. Gentry, an electronics communications technician for Fox Airport in Mojave, said the deputies were responding to rumors spread by school officials and social workers upset about the family’s decision to school their daughter at home in the six months before her death.

“The benefit [of taking her out of school] was that we were the most familiar with her,’ he said.

Gentry said he and his wife, who suffers from a mild case of the same disease that afflicted their daughter, invested tens of thousands of dollars in medical care for their daughter.

“I spent $60,000 of my own money to buy braces and . . . optical surgeries” for her cataracts, he said. “We went into debt to pay for a pool and spa for her to exercise in.”

Alarmed that their daughter weighed only 46 pounds, Gentry said he and his wife took Lindsay to the hospital so she could be fed intravenously six days before her death.

The investigation is still incomplete, Peavy said, and authorities are considering whether to exhume the girl’s body.

“We’re counting on medical records from an autopsy,” he said. “Obviously, the best evidence would be the body itself.”

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Times staff writer Margaret Ramirez contributed to this story.