
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 21, 1994                   TAG: 9408210091
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Short

WOMAN'S JAIL TERM SHORTENED

A woman whose elderly mother died after two years of neglect has received a shorter jail sentence after a new trial.

Betty Jane Lynn, 61, of Bedford was sentenced Thursday in Bedford County Circuit Court to five months in jail and a $2,500 fine.

"I argued before the jury for the same sentence that we got before," Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Updike said, "but I'm certainly not unhappy [with the new sentence]."

Alma F. Christ, 83, died in August 1993 at Bedford County Memorial Hospital of multisystem failure and complications from malnutrition and dehydration, according to Medical Examiner Dr. David Oxley.

Lynn was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of abuse of an incapacitated adult in April 1993 in Bedford County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.

She received the maximum sentence of a year in jail and a $2,500 fine, but appealed the case to Circuit Court. She was convicted again after a new trial in January.

Hospital officials and members of the lifesaving crew testified in the second trial that Christ had open and bleeding bed sores all over her body.

These sores, compounded by the fact that rescue squad workers found her lying in her own feces, constituted a life-threatening situation, officials said.

According to testimony, Christ had not been turned or moved from a couch at Lynn's home for most of the two years she lived there.

by CNB