VIC:No jail time for woman who left mum to die

AAP General News (Australia)
04-15-2011
VIC:No jail time for woman who left mum to die

EDS: Note graphic content



By Daniel Fogarty

MELBOURNE, April 15 AAP - A woman who left her maggot-infested mother to rot on the
kitchen floor has avoided jail after a judge said his conscience wouldn't allow him to
lock her up.

Mary Pyrczak, 51, allowed her 72-year-old mother, Kateryna, to lie dying in her own
faeces on the floor of her Melbourne home for a week in November 2008.

Parts of Mrs Pyrczak's body were gangrenous, her foot was infested with maggots, and
her toes were blackened and mummified, the Victorian Supreme Court heard on Friday.

Pyrczak, who is an obsessive compulsive and with a longstanding phobia of medical professionals,
had pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Justice Paul Coghlan said Pyrczak failed to look after her mother in her last days,
but it was appropriate that he show mercy and suspend her three-year jail term.

"I have decided that notwithstanding the awful consequences of your failure to act,
it is appropriate as part of the sentencing exercise to extend mercy to you," Justice
Coghlan said.

"That arises principally because your crime is one of omission rather than commission.

"There are many people who will disagree with me. I act in accordance with my conscience
and regard that as the appropriate sentence to impose."

Pyrczak stood to hear her sentence and as Justice Coghlan announced it, she collapsed
back into the dock.

She got back to her feet and thanked him when he told her the sentence would be suspended.

The court had heard that after leaving her mother on the floor for a week, Pyrczak
had called an ambulance to her St Albans home because she was refusing to eat.

Paramedics found Mrs Pyrczak on the floor covered in blankets and a filthy, stained
dressing gown.

She was naked underneath.

Mrs Pyrczak appeared emaciated and stiff, and was unable to talk.

She died later that day in the Western General Hospital.

Prosecutors had submitted Pyrczak's criminality was high.

In a report on Pyrczak, psychiatrist Julian Davis said there was no evidence that she
had ever suffered from a psychotic condition that might have affected her judgment.

He said Polish-born Pyrczak, who has not been employed since being retrenched from
the Gas and Fuel Corporation in 1996, had no motive to kill her mother and could not cope
with the prospect of her dying.

Pyrczak served 15 days in custody while awaiting sentence.

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KEYWORD: PYRCZAK WRAP (PIX AVAILABLE)

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