John Raftery delivered his opening address against Allison Cox, who is standing trial for manslaughter and failing to provide the necessities of life in connection with the starvation death of Tiffany Pinckney, for whom she was the primary caregiver.
Pinckney weighed just 84 pounds when police discovered her in the basement of the Fairwind Dr. residence back on April 2, 2005, Raftery told Justice Joseph Fragomeni.
A pathologist determined she died at least 24 hours earlier from central pontine myelinolysis, severe nerve damage directly linked to malnutrition. Raftery is expected to call a number of witnesses, including the coroner who performed the autopsy on Pinckney's body.
Cox's husband, 33-year-old Orlando Klass, was placed under house arrest earlier this year for two years less a day after pleading guilty to criminal negligence in causing Pinckney's death.
The charges against the couple were laid more than three months after Pinckney was discovered.
Police allege the autitic woman was neglected for years.
Police said both Cox and Klass became Pinckney’s legal guardians when her mother died in 1998. Pinckney had weighed more than 200 pounds seven years earlier, Raftery told the court at Klass' sentencing. She had once been a "strong" woman with a "substantial presence," Raftery said.
Besides suffering from a neurological disorder that made it difficult for her to communicate, Pinckney was also developmentally delayed, court heard.
The trial before a judge is expected to last three weeks. It continues today.
lrosella@mississauga.net
