Death of a fat girl

Is Christina Corrigan's mother on trial for neglect -- or for having an obese child?

By Lori Leibovich

Sep 22, 1997 | Christina Corrigan, 13, was found dead last November on the living room floor of her El Cerrito, Calif., home. Her body was covered with sores, and feces were encrusted within the folds of her skin. Her room smelled like urine. Food containers were strewn around her body. And according to the coroner's report, there was evidence that insects had been feeding on her flesh. At the time of her death, she weighed 680 pounds.

Christina's mother, Marlene Corrigan, has been charged with felony child endangerment in the death of her daughter. When she was arraigned last August, Marlene Corrigan pleaded not guilty.

In the courtroom were members of various "fat acceptance" groups, on hand to provide Corrigan support. They will be there again today when the preliminary hearing in the Corrigan case begins.

The case became a media feeding-frenzy, with the story of Christina's death making the front pages of Bay Area newspapers. "A lot of news reports have focused on the weight of Christina, but that doesn't matter at all," said Detective Don Horgan of the El Cerrito Police Department, one of the first officers to arrive on the scene. "She was lying in her own filth. It wouldn't matter if she was 30 years old or 50 or 80 or if she weighed two pounds or 5,000 pounds. This case is going to trial because of the conditions the girl was living in."

But Marlene Corrigan's lawyer, Michael Cardoza of San Francisco, believes the case is mired in anti-fat bias. Pointing the finger at the investigating coroner, Cardoza said that no internal autopsy was performed on Christina's body and that the official cause of death -- congestive heart failure due to morbid obesity -- is simply a catch-all conclusion used when obese people die. "Marlene Corrigan asked them to perform an autopsy but all they did was examine Christina externally," Cardoza said. "She could have died from choking on a chicken bone! The coroner was simply lazy."

Regarding the neglect charge, Cardoza denies that the Corrigan house always looked the way it did on the day Christina died. "Adolescents are not neat. What was her mother supposed to do, be her kid's maid? Christina showered and took care of herself." What about Christina's physical condition? "Her mother never saw any bed sores," Cardoza said. "Marlene made clothes for her daughter. She wrote a letter to Richard Simmons asking for help. Christina lived in good condition until the dam broke."

Last week Salon talked with Judy Freespirit of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), one of the organizations that rallied around Corrigan after the death of her daughter.

Next Page: Who's responsible for cleaning up a 13-year-old girl's feces?

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