Karen Wright called her son every day. "If she was out there, she would find a way to call him," said her mother Linda McCollum.

And Wright was "out there" a lot. She was homeless.

Wright suffered from bipolar disorder, a mental condition that caused what her mother called "chaotic behavior" and eventually led her to take up residence on the streets.

After being convicted of burglary, Wright was transferred from the county jail to a rehabilitation center. There, she failed to complete the program. A warrant was issued for Wright's arrest, and she was sent back to jail. At the time of her hospitalization, she was being held at Century Regional Detention Center. McCollum estimates that her daughter would have been in custody for at least a year.

Except that Wright got sick. McCollum believes her daughter was more vulnerable to illness because of her time spent on the street. Her death certificate, however, lists no pre-existing conditions.

"[The doctors] kept asking me, 'Does she have a lung problem?'" said McCollum. "And I kept saying no. Even when [Karen] went into the hospital, I talked to her and she didn't say she was sick."

So, McCollum went on a vacation. It was during that vacation that she got a call from the hospital. When McCollum got to St. Francis Medical Center, her daughter was unconscious and on a respirator.

"Evidently, when you're in jail and you're incarcerated, once they actually let you go to the hospital, you're in bad shape," McCollum said.

Wright was admitted to the hospital on July 30. She died on August 13. Midway through Wright's hospital stay, McCollum received word that Wright had served her time. McCollum assumes that the penal system released Wright because it no longer wanted to provide her with services. She is not sure who will pay her uninsured daughter's $225,000 hospital bill.

But money was not the only problem McCollum had to deal with upon reaching the hospital. She discovered that her daughter, Karen Wright, had been admitted under the name Lisa Gorman. Lisa Gorman is the name of Wright's childhood friend. After Wright's death, McCollum could not persuade the attending doctors to use Wright's real name on the death certificate. The doctors maintained that they could not deviate from the name they were told by the patient.

"Even in death, my daughter was causing chaos," McCollum joked.

Despite the joke, McCollum spoke of Wright in a detached manner. McCollum has had custody of Wright's son for four years. She mentioned that even the 10 year-old boy expressed relief at the passing of his mother. McCollum herself believed that Wright was in a better place.

"It was so sad because she had nowhere to go. Even if she got better, she had nowhere to go," McCollum said.

L.A. COUNTY VICTIM PROFILES
More than 50 people have died of swine flu in Los Angeles County. We feature some of them here. Click below to read their stories.
                        
Plus Daniel Hernandez and
Olivia Cater

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