Parents Get Prison in Starvation Death

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

Michael Gentry received six years and his wife, Kathleen, four years--although both could have gone free under a plea offer they rejected before their retrial, insisting on their innocence.

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

Listening to the judge in her wheelchair, Kathleen “Katrina” Gentry, who 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 her condition was being monitored.

The Lake Los Angeles couple were convicted last month of identical charges, but Los Angeles 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, citing the contributions of others to Lindsay’s death, in particular the doctors who treated the girl for years but failed to detect abuse, and Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services workers, who repeatedly investigated the parents but failed to act.

Last month a Van Nuys jury found the Gentrys guilty of involuntary manslaughter, felony child endangerment and conspiracy for the 1996 death of their daughter. Cady argued that Lindsay--who was 4 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed 44 pounds at the time of her death at age 15--starved to death because of her parents’ abuse and neglect.

Defense attorneys contended 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 Deputy Alternate Public Defender Patrick Thomason, who represented Michael Gentry. “Either we didn’t communicate that to jurors, or they didn’t listen,” he said.

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 while seven voted for guilt on child abuse.

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

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

The couple’s insistence on their innocence only hardened prosecutorial efforts. In a memorandum filed with the court, Cady cited the couple’s lack of remorse as one of the reasons why 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 evidence, such as the testimony of school employees who said they saw Lindsay bruised and hungry.

The Gentrys were not allowed to speak. Fisher allowed the couple to submit letters, which he perused before announcing the sentences.

Lawyers for the Gentrys, who argued unsuccessfully for a new trial, claiming improper dismissal of a juror, said they would appeal. With good behavior, Kathleen could be released in a year, and Michael in two years.

Friends, neighbors and other supporters of the Gentrys packed the courtroom during closing arguments, and over the past week volunteers gathered more than 1,000 signatures for a petition to Judge Fisher urging him 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, 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 to 250 doctor visits in her lifetime, supporters said.

“I knew Lindsay the last five years of her life,” said Paul Villandry, a family friend. “Mike and Katrina Gentry loved their daughter.”

But prosecutor Cady said people knew the Gentrys only in “social circumstances” and did not know “what [went] on inside the home.”

“[Lindsay] needed extra care. She needed extra patience,” Cady said. “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.”