Girl’s Parents to Be Retried on Lesser Charges

Prosecutors said Friday they will drop murder charges against the parents of a severely disabled teenager but announced the couple will be tried again for manslaughter and child abuse.

Because the new charges are less serious--Michael and Kathleen “Katrina” Gentry will face a maximum of 10 years in prison instead of 15 years to life in the 1996 death of their daughter--Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John Fisher reduced their bail to $20,000 each.

Elated friends and family members, many of whom came to the court hearing, said they will bail the couple out as early as today.

The legal difference between the original charge of second-degree murder and the new charge of involuntary manslaughter comes down to whether the Gentrys knew that not giving their daughter enough food would harm her.

The murder and child abuse trial of the Gentrys ended in a hung jury last week. The basis for the trial was whether Lindsay Gentry, who suffered from a degenerative muscle disease, died at age 15 of natural causes or was starved to death. Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen Cady had attempted to prove that the Lake Los Angeles couple acted with conscious disregard for their daughter’s life over a 10-year period by physically abusing her and starving her to death.

But most of the jury panel rejected that argument, with only two holding out for conviction on the murder charges. A majority of seven jurors voted in favor of conviction on the child abuse charges.

In court Friday, Cady said she will proceed on manslaughter instead of murder charges because she realizes, by the jurors’ votes, that a murder conviction is unlikely.

At the second trial, to be held within 60 court days, Cady will only need to prove that the parents caused the death by an unlawful or dangerous act, whether they knew it was dangerous or not.

But the thrust of the second trial will remain the same: Jurors will have to weigh the testimony of dueling medical experts and physicians who treated the girl, and decide whom they believe.

Although most jurors at the first trial voted against murder, seven voted to convict on the child abuse charges, which carry a higher penalty than manslaughter.

A pathologist who examined the 15-year-old girl’s body after her death testified for the defense that she died of myotonic dystrophy, an extremely rare disease that, like muscular dystrophy, causes a wasting away of the muscles. He also listed complications from pneumonia and starvation. Another defense expert described the starvation as mild to moderate.

“He is, quite frankly, just wrong,” Cady said of the defense pathologist. “Lindsay died of her malnourishment, and her parents are responsible for that.”

During the first trial, the coroner of San Bernardino County, where Lindsay died, said the girl was so emaciated--she was 4 feet 10 and weighed 44 pounds--that anyone who looked at her would know she had starved to death.

Cady also included the testimony of teachers, who described “minuscule” lunches prepared by the victim’s parents and taken to school in a filthy lunch box covered with ants. Lindsay was so hungry, one teacher said, she would steal food from other students.

Prosecutors said the girl was the subject of many child abuse complaints, most of which were closed as unfounded or unsubstantiated.

Michael Gentry, an electronics communications technician at Fox Airport in Lancaster, has called the charges a vendetta by school officials who were upset because the couple pulled the girl out of school in favor of home tutoring.

He has said the parents always tried to provide for their daughter, spending tens of thousands of dollars on medical care for her illnesses, which stunted her growth, twisted her spine and caused severe cataracts.

A long list of friends and relatives testified for the defense that the girl was treated well and encouraged to eat.

Before Friday’s hearing, Cady said she offered the defendants a plea bargain that would have resulted in one year in county jail and probation for Kathleen Gentry, and two years’ incarceration for Michael Gentry--a significant reduction from the six years in prison offered to him before the trial.

The offer would have resulted in little additional incarceration time, perhaps a few months, because the couple have been in jail since July and defendants often get days off for good behavior.

The Gentrys rejected the offer.

In fact, their lawyers tried unsuccessfully to get the charges dismissed.

“I think they gave it their all and we gave it our all,” said Patrick Thomason, Michael Gentry’s lawyer. “This is the kind of case where I think one shot is appropriate.”