A Mother’s Worst Nightmare Continues

Cindy Perlin
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Marci Webber’s story was previously published on Mad in America on December 10, 2016 (“A Mother’s Very, Very Worst Nightmare”). In 2010, Marci was a 43 year old single mom of three and a law student. She had been prescribed an increasing array of psychiatric medications with poor medical monitoring for stress, and experienced a medication-induced psychotic episode. Under the delusion that her four year old daughter Maggie was about to meet a terrible fate, she killed her to “save her” and then tried to kill herself. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state mental institution in the state of Illinois for up to 99 years.

I am Marci’s former therapist and have known her since 2002. For over seven years now, Marci and I have been trying unsuccessfully to get the mental health system and judicial system to acknowledge the true cause of her crime and let her go. Instead, Marci has been increasingly cruelly and inhumanely treated and retaliated against for speaking the truth.

On January 5th I sent the following letter of complaint to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office raising the possibility of official corruption. The Attorney General’s Office declined to act, referring it to the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Inspector General’s Office. To date, nothing has been done to help Marci.

Here is the letter I wrote. An excerpt:

I am urging you to investigate this situation. A great injustice is being done. Jeff York is charged with the responsibility of defending Marci and advocating for her and instead he has gone out of his way to sabotage her case. A few months ago I filed an ARDC complaint against him which went nowhere. Dr. Corcoran is charged with her treatment, but has knowingly lied about her mental status to keep her locked up (at a cost to taxpayers, incidentally, of $250,000 per year) and is supervising and most likely ordering her cruel and inhumane treatment. Why would they do this if there were not an ulterior motive? And why is Judge Bakalis not replacing York despite repeated requests even after having seen his inadequacy in representing Marci?

Marci is struggling in the facility where she’s currently being held, but she’s trying to stay positive that she still has some chance to be released in six months. She would very much welcome letters of support. Please consider writing to her at Elgin Mental Health Center, 750 South State Street, Elgin, IL 60123, or calling her at (847) 429-5748 or (847) 742-1040, ext. 3231 It would also help if Attorney General Lisa Madigan received letters urging her to investigate Marci’s situation. You can write to her at the address on the letter linked above.

Marci is also seeking an attorney to file civil litigation in one or all of the following areas: civil rights violations, medical malpractice, legal malpractice and/or product liability. If you can help or have suggestions of someone who can, please email me at [email protected].

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Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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18 COMMENTS

  2. this is a nightmare. Mental Health, Inc. is a huge death trap. I don’t live in Illinois, but some of the problems you’ve described Marci having…seem to be common, in state hospital settings. Here, when the state shut down a lot of the big hospital, many people/patients who -should- have been released were instead kept indefinitely, because the psychiatrists added “untreatable” conditions to their diagnoses, such as “antisocial personality disorder,” and the claimed that they -had- to keep the person/patient in the state hospital, to protect the community.

    I hope you and her other contacts will be able to get her out of the state hospital, sooner rather than later. Thanks for this update.

  3. This is a very sad case, and I sincerely hope that someone can help her out as soon as possible. Although the insanity defense is one of the most heinous lies of psychiatry that is used to exculpate the guilty, there ought to be some way of helping those who have experienced what Dr. Peter Breggin has called “Medication Madness.” These neurotoxic drugs frequently cause people to do things that they would never do without them. The immense suffering that is caused by the drugs themselves, compounded by the suffering of the loss of her daughter and a suicide attempt, and further compounded by her incarceration – all of these things are terrible injustices that the legal system is hardly equipped to deal with. My heart and prayers go out to Marci Webber and her family, and to all those who suffer in like manner.

  4. “Marci’s doctors prescribed an ever-increasing array of psychiatric drugs which included two antidepressants (Wellbutrin 300mg and Zoloft 200mg), an antipsychotic (Seroquel 100mg) for sleep and another sleep medication (Ambien 10mg).”

    Marci’s symptoms were likely due to the withdrawal and restarting of the psychiatric drugs, but that drug cocktail is also a recipe for how to make a person “psychotic,” via anticholinergic toxidrome poisoning. This could also explain her issues after taking the Benadryl, I think.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome

    Sorry to hear Marci is back at the Elgin facility, I got the impression from an IL psychiatrist that that hospital is the worst. One of my, should be arrested (her partner in crime was already convicted), psychiatrists had hoped to have me locked up at that Elgin facility forever.

    Thankfully, my health insurance company refused to pay for that unneeded, never ending “psychiatric treatment.” And the other doctors in that “snowing” psychiatrist’s hospital, didn’t agree with that psychiatrist either. But I have no doubt Elgin a hellhole of a hospital.

    My prayers are with Marci, I truly hope she’s able to find a lawyer. But my experience in trying to find lawyers to represent those who’ve dealt with psychiatric malpractice, is lawyers don’t ever take cases against psychiatrists. Which, of course, is part of why the psychiatric industry has run amok, due to it’s unchecked power.

    I also found the IL State’s Attorney is not someone who will help those dealing with psychiatric injustices and malpractice. IL is a very corrupt state, God bless and good luck.

  7. Cindi, I will try to contact Marci, and thank you for the update. This is truly awful. I have been in abusive hospital situations and I know how bad it can get with the verbal and physical abuse and gaslighting and constant threats you get in those horrible places.

    I want to ask if you and Marci have been able to piece together which of the drugs you think was the culprit. Or does it even matter now?

    God bless you and people like you that stick by people during the absolute worst of times. I remember what it was like when I had no friends left because of psychiatric horrors and people called me crazy. My ex-friends were the worst.

    Julie

  8. This story intrigued me on an above average level because I hail from IL and have lived here my entire life. I just got done talking to her, she is very kind and deeply appreciated my support. I told her someone cares and wishes her the best. I was crying a bit while I said that, this story is so sad. She told me she didn’t get any love in the facilities she was in, and Elgin is calling her psychotic for speaking out against their abuse. They are now in the process of trying to force her to take medications, it is a relief she spent some time without medication though. I told her I’m so sorry she lost her child to psychiatry and basically lost her own life too. She was asking for help finding a lawyer, and she is wondering if anybody else with a child has a similar experience. I hope Mad in America staff can look into this and see if they can find anyone similar. I’m going to call her back, she wants to hear my story too. I really look forward to talking to her again, she is so nice to talk to.

  10. Can someone, anyone please confirm for me where Marci is now. The Dec. story said she was at Elgin, then transferred to Chicago Read. The Feb. story says she’s at Elgin. They transferred her back to Elgin? I sent her a short letter, card & stamps to Chicago Read by mistake. (I make them often, mistakes). I doubt they’ll forward it to Elgin if this is where she’s currently being held hostage. So I’ll buy the exact same things and send them to her at Elgin.

    Thank you….

    • Marci is currently at Elgin Mental Health Center. She was there originally, was transferred to Chicago Read and then, a few months ago, transferred back to Elgin. This was a retaliatory measure. Conditions and treatment are much worse at Elgin. The Dr. Oz Show has decided not to do a show about Marci’s story right now. They were planning for next week but now say it is not in their budget to fly a film crew out to Illinois–maybe in the future.

  11. Does anyone know of a lawyer or psychiatrist who will donate their time to help Marci? She needs help to get out and has a Fundly legal fund set up. I encourage any of you to donate to it so that she can afford a lawyer as her public defender is not helping her. And she needs money to pay a psychiatrist in case no one volunteers their time. So please go to fundly.com and look up Marci Webber Legal Fund. Thank you. She is suffering at Elgin and deserves a break. You can help her.

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