Prosecutor Alleges Abuse in Disabled Girl’s Death

There is no question that Lindsay Gentry was an extremely thin girl. At the time of her death in 1996, the Lake Los Angeles teen, who stood 4-feet-10, weighed 44 pounds.

Did the 15-year-old waste away from a degenerative muscle disease from which she suffered all her life, or was she starved to death through neglect and abuse by her parents? That is the central question in the retrial of Michael and Kathleen “Katrina” Gentry, who are facing charges of involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment and conspiracy.

Lindsay, who suffered from myotonic dystrophy, “was severely malnourished at the time of her death,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen Cady during opening statements Thursday before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John S. Fisher.

Cady described the Gentrys as abusive parents who gave their daughter so little food that she starved to death--allegations that the couple’s attorneys said are untrue.

“These are people who worked long and hard to sustain the life of this child,” said Lyle F. Middleton, an attorney representing Katrina Gentry, during his opening statement. “In the end, the disease had its way.”

As lawyers spoke in the Van Nuys courtroom, Katrina Gentry, 46, lowered her head into her hands. Her husband put his arm around her and softly patted her shoulder. A year ago, a Van Nuys jury deadlocked over murder charges against them, resulting in a mistrial.

The Lake Los Angeles couple have steadfastly maintained their innocence, rejecting at least three proposed plea bargains. The last plea offer by the prosecution would have allowed them to go free after pleading guilty to a single count of child endangerment. The Gentrys rejected the offer because, said their attorney in an earlier interview, they do not want to admit to something they feel they did not do.

If convicted on all counts, each parent faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Evidence will show that Lindsay’s teachers, school nurses and principals knew that the girl “was often hungry,” Cady said. A woman from church gave Lindsay spaghetti and pizza, and teachers bought her muffins and special bread.

“The teachers sent notes to her parents asking them to pack more food” for her lunches, Cady said, adding that the Gentrys responded that it was “none of their business” and insisted that their daughter--who had trouble eating because of dental problems--would eat only what the family ate.

“Lindsay’s life was documented through neglect,” Cady said. She recounted how, in 1987, a school nurse found three purple belt marks on the girl’s buttocks. The girl told the nurse: “My daddy hit me,” Cady said.

Another time, Cady said, when Lindsay went to school with a black eye, the girl repeated: “My daddy hit me.”

But when Lindsay was asked by school officials about bruises on her legs, Cady said, the girl replied: “Oh, I got that from falling.”

Michael Gentry, 55, had threatened to kill his neighbor, Cady said, and once told someone he believed that children were the property of their parents and that parents should be able to do what they wanted with their kids, including killing them.

Cady said that shortly before Lindsay died, she confided in a woman she knew: “Mommy and daddy told me it’s time to meet Jesus. But I don’t want to go meet Jesus.”

“Malnutrition was one of her causes of death,” Cady said.

But the abuse allegations can be explained, Middleton told jurors. “People would make assumptions and in fact they were ignorant about [Lindsay’s] disease.”

The congenital illness, which twisted the girl’s spine and gave her cataracts so severe she was nearly blind, made her “unsteady in her gait, falling down numerous times every day,” Middleton said.

“You’ll hear from social workers that Lindsay had a tendency to make up stories,” he added.

People from the family’s Antelope Valley community will also testify that they saw the Gentrys feed their daughter, said Patrick Thomason, lawyer for Michael Gentry.

Witnesses will testify they saw the father take his daughter out for doughnuts once a week and that he bought nutritional supplements for her, Thomason said.

Over the years, doctors recommended cataract surgery and put the girl on special nutritional programs. “The Gentrys did exactly what the doctors asked them to do,” Thomason said.

He displayed to jurors a 1994 doctor’s note, enlarged to poster size, which said: “weight gain can be difficult.” Another doctor’s note from 1995 said: “I feel she is getting good nurturing care.”

Lindsay’s disease causes “a very high infant mortality rate,” Thomason said.

“There was no neglect, endangerment or abuse,” Thomason said. “The evidence in this case will show that Lindsay Gentry died of natural causes.”