4-Year Term in Patient’s Death

The manager of a South-Central Los Angeles home for the mentally retarded was sentenced today to a maximum four-year state prison term for involuntary manslaughter in the death of a patient whose decomposed body was found in a closet that had been nailed shut.

Rudolph Harris, 44, was arrested in Las Vegas last November, about six weeks after the body of Ray Walker, 31, was discovered at the Heaven’s Crest Board and Care Home. Harris pleaded guilty to the manslaughter count last month. Prosecutors, who had initially filed murder charges, said they accepted the plea because Walker’s body was too decomposed for the coroner to determine whether Harris had physically abused him.