Coroner: Inmate Died of Natural Causes in Starving Dispute
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A Northern California coroner now says a state inmate died of natural causes amid a continuing dispute over whether the mentally ill prisoner essentially starved to death.
Two pathologists initially found that 49-year-old Michael Stanley Galliher died last year from an exhausted condition resulting from lack of nourishment at California Medical Facility in Vacaville.
New records obtained by The Associated Press under a public records act request show Galliher was afraid to eat because of delusions that his food was being poisoned.
But a Solano County pathologist found that his fatally low blood sugar could have been caused by one of the drugs he was taking.
Galliher's mother says either way she believes her son died of neglect because prison officials should have discovered the problem before it killed him.