Ex-military man and former wife face attempted murder charges for starving their daughter

Ex-military man and former wife face attempted murder charges for starving their daughter.

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http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090905_Parents_put_on_trial_over_neglected_child.html

Parents put on trial over neglected child

Melvin and Denise Wright are charged with attempted murder

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Sep 05, 2009

Indigo Wright weighed 29 pounds, half of what a healthy 12-year-old should weigh, when paramedics responded to an emergency call to her parents’ Kinau Street apartment two years ago.

She was in critical condition when she arrived at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children, brain-damaged from malnourishment and “severely” underweight.

Her parents – Melvin and Denise Wright – were indicted six months later by an Oahu grand jury on charges of attempted murder.

The couple had been charged in 2000 with misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a minor. Both were granted a one-year deferral after Denise pleaded guilty and Melvin pleaded no contest.

Debra Loy, the public defender assigned to defend Denise Wright, told a jury yesterday that there are two victims in this case: Indigo and Denise Wright.

Loy said Denise Wright suffered from two mental illnesses – “acute chronic depression” and severe anxiety – as well as “personal disorders” that made her dependent on her husband and caused her to avoid situations that would create conflicts.

Although Loy said Wright failed to provide her daughter with “adequate nutritional” support, she did not intend to kill her.

Lane Takahashi, Melvin Wright’s public defender, said his client had moved out of the couple’s second-floor apartment at 809 Kinau St. in 2004 but continued to pay the apartment’s rent and utilities. However, when Wright lost his job in 2006, he could pay only the rent and utilities and between $150 and $250 a month in groceries for his estranged wife and daughter.

Wright was not “the greatest father to Indigo,” Takahashi said. “But he did not commit the offense of attempted murder in the second degree.”

In his opening statement, city deputy prosecutor Maurice Arrisgado showed jurors five photos, including two taken of Indigo Wright by police on Jan. 7, 2007, in the hospital’s emergency room and another taken seven months earlier.

“She weighed 29 pounds, just skin and bones,” Arrisgado told the jury. “She couldn’t walk.

“She was this close to death,” added the prosecutor, making a small gap with his thumb and index finger.

“Paramedics couldn’t get any glucose readings. Her pulse was very, very weak.”

Medical professionals “really don’t understand how she survived,” Arrisgado said.

Loy said Denise Wright also had trouble feeding Indigo because she was not interested in food.

Everett Sakai, the Honolulu police officer who photographed the victim at the hospital and the couple’s apartment, testified that when he examined the apartment, he found a refrigerator with only bottles of the food supplement Ensure, juice, syrup, vitamins and plastic cups.

Arrisgado said that during the two-week trial, a pediatrician will testify that malnutrition resulted in neurological problems for Indigo Wright, who now lives in Charlotte, S.C., with her grandparents, who plan to adopt her. Wright, 15, is in special-education classes and performs at the level of a third-grader.

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http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090905/NEWS01/909050346/Hawaii+prosecutor+says+parents+nearly+starved+girl++12++to+death

Posted on: Saturday, September 5, 2009

Hawaii prosecutor says parents nearly starved girl, 12, to death

Parents stand trial on attempted-murder charges in 2007 case
By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Twelve-year-old Indigo Wright weighed only 29 pounds and was nearly dead of starvation before her parents finally sought medical help for her, a prosecutor said as the attempted-murder trial of Denise and Melvin Wright Jr. opened yesterday in Family Court.

The Makiki girl was some 50 pounds underweight and brain-damaged from malnourishment when brought to the emergency room of Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children in January 2007, said Senior Deputy Prosecutor Maurice Arrisgado.

“She was this close to dying,” Arrisgado told the jury, holding his thumb and and index finger less than an inch apart.

Medical professionals “really don’t understand how she survived,” Arrisgado said.

Denise Wright’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Debra Loy, said her client was so crippled by mental illness that she couldn’t properly care for the child whom she loved.

“Denise became psychologically unable to care for Indigo,” Loy said.

Loy said Denise Wright also had trouble feeding Indigo because the child became “a non-eater.”

“Indigo wasn’t interested in food,” Loy said.

Lane Takahashi, Melvin Wright’s lawyer, said his client moved out of the Kina’u Street apartment he shared with Denise in 2004, although he continued to pay for groceries and utilities.

In December 2005, Melvin Wright lost his regular job and could only pay $150 to $200 a month to support his wife and child, Takahashi said.

Wright “was not the greatest father to Indigo,” said the defense lawyer. “But he did not commit the offense of attempted murder in the second degree.”

Arrisgado said Indigo, now 15, is living with her grandparents in South Carolina.

“She’s physically very well,” Arrisgado said.

She is attending special-education classes and her grandparents are in the process of adopting her, said the prosecutor.
no schooling

Melvin and Denise Wright met in South Carolina when she was 16 and were married five years later after she became pregnant, Loy said.

Melvin was the first and only man Denise ever dated, according to Loy.

The couple came to Hawai’i when Melvin Wright was in the military and remained here after he was discharged, she said.

According to Loy, Denise has been diagnosed as suffering from acute chronic depression, severe anxiety and two personality disorders.

Her stepfather was “a brutal drunk” and her mother became “physically abusive” after being “mangled” in a car accident, Loy said.

Denise “is a victim,” her lawyer said. “She’s learned how to be a victim.”

In 2003, Melvin told Denise he was seeing other women and then moved out of their apartment, according to the defense lawyer.

Denise became “isolated” with her daughter, Loy said.

“She was afraid to use public transportation, afraid she’d get lost. She was afraid to talk to strangers,” Loy said.

She was “meek and intimidated,” tried but failed to get a job and was totally dependent on Melvin as a provider, Loy said.

Melvin “didn’t want Indigo to go to school” and he didn’t want her to go to a doctor because they had no medical insurance,” Loy told the jury.

When Indigo’s uncle and aunt came to visit in 2006, they were “shocked” by the child’s emaciated state and offered to help the couple but were “turned away,” Arrisgado said.

That was seven months before Indigo was finally taken to the hospital.
‘brain cells die’

On Jan. 7, 2007, Denise called Melvin and told him that “Indigo wouldn’t get up. She was unresponsive,” according to Loy.

Melvin came to the apartment and after “several hours” he called 911, she said.

A physician and a psychiatrist will testify for the prosecution about the terrible effects prolonged starvation had on Indigo, Arrisgado said.

“Brain cells die,” he said. “They don’t come back.”

There was no mention in yesterday’s proceedings of previous charges of child endangerment brought against the Wrights here in 2000.

The state took custody of the girl at the time but returned her to the Wrights after three days.

They pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor endangerment charges, which were dismissed after the Wrights attended parenting classes and abided by conditions similar to probation for a year.

Acting on motions from the defendants and an attorney for Indigo, the courts have blocked public release of state Department of Human Services records about the Wright family until completion of the pending criminal case.

The Wrights divorced in July 2007.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.