State seeks to force feed man serving life for murder who is refusing to eat

A judge today agreed to let the Department of Correction force a feeding tube up the nose and then down the throat of a convicted 70-year-old murderer on a hunger strike, but said he will give the inmate a chance to explain why he should be allowed to continue refusing all but small sips of water at a hearing next week.

Edward Starling was convicted of second-degree murder in 1976 of killing his girlfriend's 22-month-old child by throwing her across a room in her home on Wentworth Street in Dorchester two years earlier, when he was just 19. He was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. He has repeatedly been denied parole.

On Oct. 8, according to the correction-department request, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, Starling started refusing food and is now so weak he will have to be transported to Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain by ambulance from the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster for the procedure to have the gastric tube installed.

But that's only a short-term solution, in part because of the risk of infection, the department says. Longer term, if Starling continues to refuse food, the department says it would want to have a doctor cut a hole in his abdomen for a more permanent "percutaneous entero-gastric" tube into his stomach.

The department says it's not going to just let Starling kill himself through starvation because of "his perception of injustice and despondency regarding his incarceration status" and asked permission to use "reasonable force" to get Starling into an ambulance and then undergo the procedure - which the department said could include putting him in restraints and administering a sedative.

The Commonwealth has a legitimate interest in preserving [Starling's] life, and in maintaining the "ethical integrity of the medical profession." ... The Commonwealth, and particularly the [commissioner of correction], also have a significant "interest in upholding orderly prison administration.

Superior Courts have previously granted orders allowing for the use of reasonable force to proved medical treatment to other competent inmates refusing such treatment thereby creating an imminent risk of death.

Starling first became eligible for parole in 1991, but his requests for parole have been repeatedly denied.

In 2013, he told the state parole board that he was "high on acid" and was having "a bad trip" and thought the girl was a "spider monkey" trying to hurt him, so he threw her across the room and possibly kicked or stomped her. When he realized she was dead, he went to a neighbor to seek help and told police the girl had fallen out of bed twice, her eyes began to roll back in her head and she began to choke. He was arrested and attended his first court hearing, then fled to Newark, NJ, where police found him under an assumed name and brought him back here for trial.

In 2019, however, he told the parole board had completed a series of programs that made him understand what he did and to control his previously violent behavior, that he was a regular Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous member and had earned three bachelor's degrees and two associate's degrees.

The toddler's mother testified in support of parole, as did Bishop William Dickerson of the Greater Love Tabernacle and Milton Jones of the Peace Institute. The Suffolk County District Attorney's office and then Boston Police Commissioner William Evans, however, opposed parole.

The board noted his self improvement and educational achievements, but said it remained convinced that Starling "is not yet rehabilitated."

Complete Department of Correction request (1.7M PDF).
2019 Parole Board decision (145k PDF).
2013 Parole Board decision (458k PDF).