TEACHERS TESTIFY IN ABUSE CASE; COUPLE ACCUSED OF STARVING DAUGHTER TO DEATH.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Daily News Staff Writer

Lindsay Gentry frequently came to class wearing soiled clothing and carrying skimpy lunches, a former teacher testified Monday in a preliminary hearing for the parents charged with starving the disabled teen-ager to death.

``They were very, very small,'' teacher Diane Hogabaum said of the lunches that Lindsay brought to Challenger Middle School, the campus near her Lake Los Angeles home. ``A quarter of a sandwich and three slices of cucumber. Oftentimes, the same food came back the next day.

``There were frequently ants in her lunch box,'' Hogabaum continued. ``I can't tell you how many times my instructional aide cleaned that lunch box and sent it home clean.''

Prosecutors maintain that the girl's parents, Michael and Kathleen Gentry, purposely starved Lindsay, who suffered from multiple mental and physical handicaps. But the Gentrys have maintained that they cherished their daughter and that she stopped eating of her own accord before she died in February 1996.

The first witness in the hearing to determine whether the Gentrys will be tried for murder, Hogabaum testified that teachers and aides bought Lindsay nutritional supplements with their own money and held classroom parties to encourage her to eat.

Hogabaum said officials also weighed Lindsay on Mondays and Fridays, and that the teen-ager was at her heaviest - 52 pounds - during Christmas 1994.

And just before Lindsay was withdrawn from the campus to begin home schooling in September 1995, Hogabaum said, she took a photo of her pupil.

``I was surprised that she was able to walk into my classroom,'' Hogabaum recalled. ``She was absolutely emaciated.''

Hogabaum also recounted Lindsay coming to school one day with a split lip, scraped nose and bloody face.

``She indicated it was tender,'' Hogabaum said during the hearing, which is expected to last three days. ``She was angry. She said, My dad did it.''

Mary Umverferth, who taught Braille to Lindsay in her home, testified during the hearing in Los Angeles that she was concerned enough about the teen's health to file a complaint with the county's children's services department.

``She was very, very thin,'' Umverferth said. ``I was concerned about her well-being, about her getting enough nutrition.''

But the instructor said she didn't confront the Gentrys about her concerns.

``I was intimidated,'' she said. ``I wasn't going to bring up things that weren't my place.''

Because of Lindsay's medical problems, authorities originally were not suspicious when the girl died in February 1996, carrying about 50 pounds on her 4-foot-8-inch frame. Her death certificate lists pneumonia and marasmus - progressive emaciation caused by a lack of food - as contributing factors.

But an unidentified family friend subsequently told authorities that Lindsay had been mistreated, and a complex two-year investigation led to the Gentrys' arrest in July 1998. They have been in custody since then in lieu of $1 million bail each.

The close-knit community of Lake Los Angeles has rallied to support the couple, raising money for their defense and creating a Web site with updated news of the case.

At a bail hearing in September, Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Glenette Blackwell denied a defense request to reduce the couple's bail after a homicide detective testified that Lindsay had been neglected and possibly abused by her parents.

Kathleen Gentry discussed her daughter in an interview with the Daily News in February, saying the complications of Lindsay's disabilities prompted neighbors and school officials to call the Department of Children and Family Services and file almost two dozen abuse complaints - all groundless - against the family.