Trial Begins for Sons of Man Who Died in Filth : Courts: Involuntary manslaughter is charged in death of 68-year-old man on rotting mattress who suffered bedsores and was a victim of septic poisoning.

By MARK I. PINSKY

Jan. 26, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WESTMINSTER — Robert Heitzman died a on rotting mattress, drenched in his own excrement, in the filthy house he shared with his sons, prosecution and defense attorneys agreed Monday as the involuntary manslaughter trial of his two sons began.

But the attorneys differed sharply on who was responsible for the situation that led to 68-year-old Robert Heitzman’s death in December, 1990, from septic poisoning.

In addition to the manslaughter charges, Richard Heitzman, 49, and Jerry Heitzman, 45, are charged with elder abuse and neglect for failing to care for their father, a retired plumber, whose infections stemmed from bleeding bedsores. They pleaded not guilty to all charges in Orange County Superior Court. Earlier, charges against one of Heitzman’s daughters, Susan, were dropped.

Robert Heitzman suffered the first of a series of debilitating strokes in 1969, which ultimately left him without control of his bowels or bladder. At the time of his death, he was receiving combined Veterans Administration and Social Security disability payments of nearly $800 a month, which his oldest son, Richard, used toward the family’s rent and food bills.

At one point, seven Heitzman family members in three generations lived in the rented home on Stingray Lane in Huntington Beach, a house Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko described to jurors as “awful, worse than that,” with an odor that permeated the home.

Although Jerry Heitzman had an “implied contract” with his brother Richard, making him responsible for Robert Heitzman in the family’s “stinking, smelly house,” Molko said, “Jerry was doing a lousy job taking care of his father.”

Despite warnings from a social worker, who urged them to seek medical care for their father, Richard Heitzman “didn’t care enough to do anything about it,” the prosecutor said.

The bedsores and their father’s failing health were obvious to the brothers, Molko said, yet “neither one of them did anything about it, or cared enough to take him to a doctor.”

As a result of this neglect, compounded by failure to provide adequate food and liquid to their father, Molko said, “what occurred was the obvious.”

Exposed springs from the rotting mattress caused the bedsores, which led to a systemwide infection, causing Robert Heitzman to suffer from emphysema, hepatitis, malnutrition and dehydration.

But Jerry Heitzman’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Michael B. McClellan, said the story of Robert Heitzman’s death is one of “a combination of things that come together and end in a very sad result.”

McClellan described Robert Heitzman as not an easy person to care for, a “profane fellow” with “strong views about minorities,” which he did not hesitate to voice.

After one stroke, the defense attorney said, the senior Heitzman went from the hospital to a convalescent home, where he spent 30 days for rehabilitation.

Heitzman “made a lot of trouble there,” McClellan said, and it was “not a happy situation.”

When Jerry Heitzman agreed to care for his father at home, the attorney said, he was unemployed and broke, while Richard Heitzman was working two jobs.

The Heitzman home was “not the cleanest house” or “not a spick-and-span,” McClellan said. But for Robert Heitzman, “it was home” and “where he wanted to be.”

The bathroom nearest Robert Heitzman’s bedroom “was filthy--no doubt about it,” McClellan said, but other family members also used the facility and were responsible for its upkeep. Because the tub no longer worked, Jerry Heitzman gave his father sponge baths.

While the care Robert Heitzman got from his children “wasn’t enough,” the reason was that they had had inadequate training, “not because they didn’t care,” McClellan said.

Gregory W. Jones, Richard Heitzman’s attorney, declined to make an opening statement.