Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 15, 1994 TAG: 9412160023
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MADISON, WIS. LENGTH: Medium
The 45-year-old woman had been receiving treatment at a Madison detoxification center, her father said.
An autopsy showed she died of ``hypothermia due to exposure while in a state of acute alcohol intoxification,'' said Dane County Coroner Ray Wosepka. Her body was found Tuesday behind a dilapidated building in a seedy neighborhood.
Ms. McGovern's blood-alcohol level was 0.339 percent, Wosepka said. A blood-alcohol content of 0.10 is considered evidence of intoxication under Wisconsin law.
In a telephone interview from his home in Washington on Wednesday, McGovern said his daughter had drinking problems for years.
``I think she was powerless to control it,'' the former U.S. senator from South Dakota said. ``It isn't that she didn't try to overcome it. If you're not one of the few lucky ones who can control it, you die.''
One week earlier, Ms. McGovern was found passed out in a snowbank just a block away. She was taken to the Dane County Detoxification Center.
She had lived in Madison for most of the last 15 years, her father said. The McGoverns have three other daughters and a son.
She was not married but had two daughters, Marian, 9, and Colleen, 7, who live in Madison with their father, Raymond Frey, said a sister, Ann McGovern of Washington. Frey said they had been separated for about eight years and Ms. McGovern visited her children ``very sporadically.''
McGovern said he had visited Madison in March to help his daughter get settled in a new apartment.
Recently, however, she had been staying with friends and looking for another residence, and police said she had no permanent address.
McGovern, a Democrat, recalled how she worked tirelessly in his unsuccessful presidential campaign against Richard Nixon.
``She wasn't a public person, but she was very active,'' he said, adding that she spoke at rallies ``all over the country'' and appeared on television talk shows on his behalf.
Keywords:
FATALITY
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.