2 Sentenced in Ailing Girl’s Death

Citing the years of physical and emotional abuse that stick-thin Lindsay Gentry endured before she starved to death, a judge sentenced the parents of the severely disabled girl to prison Thursday.

Michael Gentry was sentenced to six years and his wife, Kathleen, to four years. A Van Nuys jury last month found them guilty of involuntary manslaughter, felony child endangerment and conspiracy in the 1996 death of their daughter, who suffered from a rare degenerative disease.

Kathleen Gentry could be freed from prison in a year and Michael in two years because of the time they have already served, provided they show good behavior. Both have insisted they are innocent, and could have gone free under a plea offer they rejected before their retrial.

“I hope this case does bring to light that child abuse can occur with disabled children,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen Cady. “The abuse and neglect that they’re going through is masked by their disease.”

Listening to the judge, Kathleen “Katrina” Gentry, who was in a wheelchair and suffers from a milder form of the same muscle-wasting disease that consumed Lindsay, wept and covered her face with her hand. She collapsed just outside the courthouse and was taken to a hospital, where she was being monitored.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John S. Fisher was more lenient toward the mother because of her physical frailty.

Prosecutors had asked for a maximum sentence of 10 years, but Fisher declined. He said others contributed to Lindsay’s death, in particular the doctors who treated her for years but failed to detect abuse, and social workers with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, who repeatedly investigated the parents but failed to act.

Cady argued that Lindsay, who was 4 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed 44 pounds at the time of her death at the age of 15, starved to death because of her parents’ abuse and neglect. Defense attorneys contended that the girl died of complications from myotonic dystrophy, a rare disease that also caused her emaciation.

The disease wasted Lindsay’s muscles, crooked her back, caused severe cataracts and made it difficult for her to walk. At the time of her death, the teenager had the mental capacity of a 6-year-old.

The guilty verdict was “a misunderstanding of what the nature of the disease is all about,” said Patrick Thomason, the deputy alternate public defender who represented Michael Gentry. “Either we didn’t communicate that to jurors, or they didn’t listen.”

Last year, the Gentrys’ first trial--during which they faced second-degree murder charges--ended in a hung jury. Ten jurors voted for acquittal on the murder charge; seven held that they were guilty of child abuse.

For the couple’s retrial this year, prosecutors pressed involuntary manslaughter charges, a lesser offense that was easier to prove than murder.

Before the retrial, Cady offered to free the couple on the basis of time served if each pleaded guilty to a single count of child endangerment, but they refused. The Gentrys did not want to admit to something they believed they did not do, their lawyers said.

The couple’s insistence that they were innocent only hardened prosecutorial efforts. In a memorandum filed with the court, Cady cited the couple’s lack of remorse as one of the reasons they deserved the maximum punishment.

“Both defendants were so arrogant and assured that they had done nothing wrong that they refused to admit any wrongdoing,” the memo stated. It also reviewed testimony such as that of school employees who said that they saw Lindsay bruised and hungry.

The Gentrys were not allowed to speak at the sentencing. Fisher allowed the couple to submit letters, which he read silently on the bench before announcing the sentences.

Lawyers for the Gentrys, who argued unsuccessfully for a new trial, claiming improper dismissal of a juror, said they will appeal.

Friends, neighbors and other supporters of the Gentrys packed the courtroom during closing arguments, and over the last week volunteers gathered more than 1,000 signatures on a petition urging Fisher to vacate the jury’s verdict.

“These people should have never been charged,” said Brock d’Avignon, who co-founded the Lancaster-based Defenders of Caregivers and Parents Nationwide two years ago because of the Gentry case. “They’re parents of a disabled child who did everything they could.”

The Gentrys bought a Jacuzzi for Lindsay’s physical therapy and an expensive scanner to help her to read, and had her undergo surgery to restore her eyesight just months before she died, their friends and lawyers said. The couple took the girl for 250 doctor visits in her lifetime, supporters said.

But prosecutor Cady said Lindsay “needed extra care. She needed extra patience. When parents are not willing to give her the extra attention . . . and try to treat her like a normal child, that’s what caused the problem.”