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Jury picked in foster child death case

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St. Petersburg Times

Author: MARK JOURNEY

CLEARWATER - Judith Arlene Lundy sat expressionless, her hands folded in front of her on a courtroom table.

After almost three years of legal maneuvering and delays, attorneys picked six jurors and two alternates Tuesday who will decide whether the former foster mother is guilty of third-degree murder and manslaughter in connection with the death of 4-month-old Corey Greer.

If convicted, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Susan Schaeffer could sentence Mrs. Lundy to up to seven years in prison under state sentencing guidelines. More than 80 people have been listed as witnesses in the trial, which may last a week.

Pinellas-Pasco assistant state attorneys Mary McKeown and Doug Crow say Mrs. Lundy, 50, neglected the child because he was black. Paramedics and police summoned to Mrs. Lundy's Treasure Island home on July 21, 1985, say the foster child had been dead for several hours when they arrived.

An autopsy found the baby died from dehydration and too much sodium in his blood. Excessive sodium in the blood can be caused by too much salt, not enough water or extreme loss of water, prosecutors say.

When Corey died, Mrs. Lundy was caring for 12 foster children in addition to her natural child, although she was licensed by the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) to house only four. Prosecutors say that Corey died after Mrs. Lundy ordered an 8-year-old girl to care for him because she disliked blacks.

The girl fed and bathed the child, but he usually was left alone in a crib in a hot, humid room, prosecutors have said. Mrs. McKeown has said that testimony will show that Mrs. Lundy said she got the ''willies'' when she touched black children, that she compared Corey and his sister to apes and referred to the boy as a ''black blob.''

But defense attorneys Ky Koch and Rob Bauer say they plan to argue that Corey was ill before HRS officials turned him over to Mrs. Lundy's care. They also say that HRS officials failed to tell her about his ailment. Corey almost died at a local hospital two weeks earlier because he had too little - not too much - sodium in his blood, defense attorneys say.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys questioned more than 40 potential jurors about their views on race, foster care, HRS and other social service organizations. After about seven hours, they picked an all-white jury of four men and two women.

After the death, HRS officials admitted that they hadn't done enough to make sure children were placed in clean and uncrowded foster homes.

They said in the report to former Gov. Bob Graham that Corey's death illustrated the need to reform the system for taking care of abused and neglected children. HRS also admitted that 13 workers were negligent in the boy's case.

1988 Jun 8