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  Kids had been dead a week

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Tuesday, February 08, 2005
By WENDY REEVESand STEVE DOYLE
*Times Staff Writers wendyr@htimes.comsteved@htimes.com*

Nathshay Ward lived in the same apartment with her dead children more
than a week before their bodies were found Friday.

Autopsies showed Christopher Ward, 8; Latrica Ward, 9; and Shanieka
Ward, 11, may have been dead a week to 10 days, said Huntsville police
Sgt. Ed Cain, supervisor of the department's Major Crimes Unit.

"The preliminary report says they died from starvation and dehydration,"
Cain said Monday after receiving the preliminary autopsy findings. There
was no indication in the report that the children had been given drugs,
he said.



The children were found about 3 p.m. Friday at 3305 Patton Road, Apt. 1,
in southwest Huntsville.

Their mother, Nathshay Ward, 33, was charged with capital murder Friday
night after confessing to starving the kids, Cain said. She is being
held in the Madison County Detention Facility without bond, which is
standard procedure on a capital charge. Capital murder suspects in
Alabama face the death penalty or life in prison.

The children had not returned to classes at Ridgecrest Elementary School
since the Christmas holiday break ended Jan. 4. And the utilities to
their apartment had been turned off since Jan. 12.

The kids were found fully dressed, lying on the floor in separate
bedrooms, Cain said. The living room was the only furnished room in the
apartment, he said.

Dying of starvation typically takes weeks, not days.

Qula Madkin, Crestwood Medical Center's chief clinical dietitian, said a
body deprived of food gets enough energy to function by drawing on
sugars - called glycogen - stored in the liver.

When the glycogen is gone, the body starts burning stored fat. That can
be dangerous, because the fats are converted into substances called
ketones that can make the blood too acidic.

When the fat reserves are gone, the body sucks the fuel it needs from
muscle tissue and other proteins.

Toward the end, starving people may develop flaky skin and bloated
abdomens. Their hair may even change color. They're also more likely to
catch an infectious disease.

Madkin said an adult can survive up to two months without food, as long
as they get enough liquids.

"For children, we're not exactly sure how long it takes" to starve to
death, she said Monday. "Thankfully, we don't see a lot of this in the
United States."

Madkin said living in a cold, dark apartment - the electricity had been
off more than three weeks when the bodies were found - would have sped
up the starvation process for the children.

"That puts more stress on the body," she said.

Diane Rice, Ward's third-cousin, said she never dreamed Ward could hurt
her children. Until November, Rice lived just a few steps away from Ward
at the Whispering Hills apartment complex.

Even though they were neighbors for almost a year, Rice said she never
went into Ward's first-floor apartment.

"We weren't really close; she stayed mostly to herself," Rice said
Monday. "They seemed liked they were real good kids.

"This hurts, it really does."