WOBURN, Mass. (AP) — When police were called to the childhood home of Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan, they found her 70-year-old father lying dead on the kitchen floor.
Her older brother, Mark, 46, is charged with manslaughter, accused of causing his father’s death during a violent physical struggle sometime after midnight Jan. 24, 2010.
Since then, the Kerrigan family has stood by Mark, insisting that he is not responsible for his father’s death.
As Mark Kerrigan’s trial is about to begin, Miss Kerrigan finds herself in the unwanted position of being called as a witness by prosecutors.
Prosecutors plan to call the skater to testify about her father’s health before his death. Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Keeley said in court this week that Miss Kerrigan told police that her father appeared robust and had chopped down trees and moved furniture in the weeks before his death.
Those statements support the prosecution’s claim that Daniel Kerrigan appeared to be in good health before his death.
A state medical examiner found that Daniel Kerrigan died of cardiac dysrhythmia - a loss or interruption of a normal heartbeat that can lead to cardiac arrest - after a physical altercation with his son. Police testified during pretrial hearings that Mark Kerrigan told them he “grabbed his father by the throat” before the elder Kerrigan collapsed.
But the Kerrigan family has called the medical examiner’s findings “unjustified” and insists that Daniel Kerrigan died of a long-standing heart condition. In a letter released several weeks after her father’s death, Miss Kerrigan said she and her family planned to “help my brother fight.”
Legal experts say the prosecution’s plan to call the two-time Olympic medal winner as a witness could backfire if she comes across as sympathetic toward her brother during cross-examination by the defense.
“If she has star power, one danger you always run is the jury could transfer their liking of her toward the person she’s sympathetic toward,” said Michael Cassidy, a professor at Boston College Law School.
Jury selection in the case is scheduled to begin Friday in Woburn Superior Court in a case that will rely heavily on medical testimony on both sides.
Mark Kerrigan’s attorney said Miss Kerrigan plans to attend the trial “to be here for her brother.”
No one disputes that Daniel Kerrigan collapsed and died after an argument with his son. But jurors will have to decide whether Mark Kerrigan caused his father’s death.
His attorneys say the elder man died because he had a significant blockage of his major coronary arteries and suffered a heart attack. They say an autopsy showed that he had suffered undiagnosed heart attacks in the past.
Eight experts - mainly medical doctors - are named on a joint witness list filed by prosecutors and Mark Kerrigan’s defense team. Legal experts who rely on medical testimony in their cases say the jury will have to decide which medical theory to believe.
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