Log In | Register
WOBURN — Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is expected to be a witness at her brother's upcoming manslaughter trial in the death of their 70-year-old father, according to a witness list filed in court Monday.
Kerrigan's name appears on a joint witness list filed by prosecutors and defense attorneys for Mark Kerrigan. The list does not specify which side plans to call the famous skater as a witness, but she has joined her family in publicly defending her brother.
Prosecutors say Daniel Kerrigan died in January 2010 following a fight with his son at the family's Stoneham, Mass., home.
The Kerrigan family insists Daniel Kerrigan died of a longstanding heart condition and that Mark Kerrigan is not responsible.
Other witnesses for the May 13 trial include Kerrigan's mother, Brenda, and eight expert witnesses, mainly medical doctors. Neither side is compelled to call all the witnesses on their list. The trial is expected to last about a week.
Police have testified that Mark Kerrigan told them he "grabbed his father by the throat" before the elder Kerrigan collapsed.
Kerrigan's defense team, in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade a judge to dismiss the manslaughter charge, have argued that Daniel Kerrigan died because he had a significant blockage of his major coronary arteries, a condition his family did not know about. Defense attorney Janice Bassil said during a court hearing in November that Daniel Kerrigan's arteries were "90 percent clogged" and an autopsy showed he had had undiagnosed heart attacks.
A state medical examiner said the cause of death was "cardiac dysrhythmia" — a loss or interruption of a normal heartbeat that can lead to cardiac arrest — after an altercation with neck compression that damaged his windpipe. The findings also noted that Daniel Kerrigan had high blood pressure and clogged arteries.
Prosecutors say the medical examiner made it clear that Mark Kerrigan caused his father's heart attack.
Nancy Kerrigan, who lives in Lynnfield, won the bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France, and the silver at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. She also won a gold medal at the 1993 U.S. Championships.
She was at the center of a saga at the U.S. Championships before the 1994 games, when an assailant clubbed her right knee during practice. An investigation revealed that rival skater Tonya Harding had knowledge of the planning of the attack.
In a letter released several weeks after her father's death, Nancy Kerrigan called the medical examiner's homicide ruling "unjustified" and said she and her family planned to "help my brother fight" the finding.
