Judge grants hearing in 2010 child slaying case in Illinois

BLOOMINGDALE, Ill. (AP) - A suburban Chicago woman found not guilty by reason of insanity in her daughter's 2010 killing says she is sane and is asking a judge to release her from a state mental health facility.

Marci Webber was sent to a mental facility in 2012 for up to 100 years of psychiatric confinement after slitting her 4-year-old daughter's throat and attempting suicide, the Chicago Tribune reported .

Webber said she felt a secret evil society was pursuing her to kidnap and sexually enslave her child.

"I had no concept of pain or that I was hurting her," said Webber. "I thought I was saving her."

Judge George Bakalis has granted a hearing for Sept. 26 on a petition filed three years ago seeking discharge or conditional release. Bakalis said in his verdict that Webber clearly loved her daughter but appeared driven by her psychosis.

The 50-year-old has insisted she isn't mentally ill in a series of interviews over four years. But this is the first time her request for a hearing has been granted.

Webber said while she takes "full responsibility" for her actions, which she believes were fueled by a temporary psychosis because of her sudden withdrawal from an assortment of antidepressant and antipsychotic prescription medications.

Webber, who served two years in the Army and graduated from the University of Illinois in Chicago, said her reliance on psychiatric drugs increased over the years amid treatments in the hospital, two failed marriages, child-custody battles with her first-born child, a prolonged lawsuit against her psychologist and financial woes.

"Everyone's reaction is, 'How can a mother do something like that?'" Webber said. "I understand that. I couldn't imagine that I could have done this either, but anyone who has a true psychosis knows you don't have the ability to make a choice."

Medical records show Webber has refused such drugs since being confined and has remained free of paranoid psychotic delusions and hallucinations. The records also show Webber is in full remission from major depressive disorder.

"I lost everything," Webber said. "I lost Maggie. I have to live with what I did to her, and I destroyed my other two daughters' lives. I was a bomb in the middle of three beautiful girls that loved each other."

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Information from: Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com