Starvation death trial opens on gruesome note

A technician for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office described to a Common Pleas Court jury today the gruesome scene in the West Philadelphia house where 14-year-old Danieal Kelly's body was found.

"It smelled real bad, but it wasn't the normal decomposing body smell I'm used to," testified Helen Garczynski, recalling the early afternoon of Aug. 4, 2006, when police let her inside the house in the 1700 block of Memorial Avenue in West Philadelphia.

"It was more like some like some infectious smell," Garczynski.

Police then led Garczynski to the rear first-floor room where the rigid, nearly skeletal body of Danieal was in a bed, wrapped in sheets.

The body was abuzz with flies, and maggots were crawling from a bedsore. Garczynski said the girl's body was literally "embedded into the mattress."

"I actually had to physically pull her from the bed," Garczynski testified.

Garczynski was the first witness to testify in the start of the trial of the girl's father, Daniel Kelly, 40, and two social services workers for their roles that allegedly led to the disabled child's starvation death at the hands of her mother.

Andrea Kelly, 41, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and is now serving a 20-to-40-year prison term for third-degree murder.

In her opening statement to the jury, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber acknowledged that only Andrea Kelly killed her daughter, who was born premature with cerebral palsy and could not move around on her own.

But Kelly's ex-husband, social worker Dana Poindexter, and social services agency head Mickal Kamuvaka committed acts that "predictably and inevitably led to her death," Selber said.

In their openings, the three defense attorneys said the blame for Danieal's death rests solely on the mother, who hid her family and undermined efforts to locate and care for Danieal and her siblings. Defense attorneys said prosecutors were trying to spread blame for a tragedy that should not have happened.

Daniel Kelly's lawyer, Earl G. Kauffman, told the jury that Kelly - charged with child endangerment - would testify in his own defense and describe how he tried to see that Danieal received proper care.

After the first witness, the trial recessed for the Independence Day holiday weekend. Testimony resumes Tuesday before Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart.

Poindexter, 54, was an intake social worker for the city Department of Human Services who, the grand jury alleged, tossed Danieal's case file into a trash-filled file box. Poindexter is charged with child endangerment, recklessly endangering another person, and perjury.

Kamuvaka, 62, was cofounder and chief administrator of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., a now-defunct private firm hired by DHS to monitor the health and safety of Danieal and eight siblings who lived with Andrea Kelly.

Kamuvaka is charged with involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, conspiracy and a half-dozen other counts involving record-tampering and perjury - part of an alleged cover-up of the circumstances surrounding Danieal's gruesome death.