Twelve-year-old Indigo Wright weighed only 29 pounds and was nearly dead of starvation before her parents finally sought medical help for her, a prosecutor said as the attempted murder trial of Denise and Melvin Wright Jr. began this morning in Family Court.

The girl was some 50 pounds underweight and brain-damaged from malnourishment when first treated in the emergency room of Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in January 2007, said Senior Deputy Prosecutor Maurice Arrisgado.
“She was this close to dying,” Arrisgado told the jury, holding his thumb and and index finger less than an inch apart.
Medical professionals “really don’t understand how she survived,” Arrisgado said.
Denise Wright’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Debra Loy, said her client was so crippled by mental illness that she couldn’t properly care for the child that she loved.
“Denise became psychologically unable to care for Indigo,” Loy said.
Loy said Denise Wright also had trouble feeding Indigo because the child became "a noneater."
"Indigo wasn't interested in food," Loy said.
Lane Takahashi, Melvin Wright’s lawyer, said his client moved out of the apartment he shared with Denise in 2004, although he continued to pay for groceries and utilities.
In December 2005, Melvin Wright lost his regular job and could only pay $150 to $200 a month to support his wife and child, said Takahashi.
Wright “was not the greatest father to Indigo,” said the defense lawyer.
“But he did not commit the offense of attempted murder in the second degree,” he said.
Arrisgado said Indigo, now 15, is living with her grandparents in South Carolina.
“She’s physically very well,” Arrisgado said.
She is attending special-education classes and her grandparents are in the process of adopting her, said the prosecutor.