Woman who killed 4-year-old daughter released from mental hospital
A woman who killed her 4-year-old daughter in 2010 in Bloomingdale because she feared the girl would be kidnapped by Satan has been released from a state mental health hospital.
DuPage County Judge George Bakalis granted conditional release Wednesday to Marci Webber, who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity for the 2010 death of Magdalene "Maggie" Webber.
Marci Webber will live in Glen Ellyn and must register with the state police Murderer and Violent Offender Against Youth Registry.
Conditional release can last up to five years and be revoked if Webber fails to meet terms set by Bakalis.
Webber is not to have any unsupervised contact with people younger than 17. She also is forbidden from consuming alcohol, marijuana or non-prescribed medication.
The court order did not specify whether Webber will live in a public or private home. Webber wanted to move to Arizona to live near relatives, but Bakalis decided she should stay in or near DuPage County.
Webber, 52, stabbed Maggie to death in 2010 in Webber's mother's townhouse in Bloomingdale. She nearly decapitated the child, according to authorities.
Webber wrote "Satan" and "divine mercy" in blood on the bathroom walls, and a religious item was wrapped around one of Maggie's toes. Webber then slashed her own neck.
Webber told police she killed Maggie to keep the girl from being sold into sexual slavery by Satan. She was diagnosed as having psychosis, which she attributed to psychotropic medication she took to treat mental illnesses.
When she was found not guilty by reason of insanity, Bakalis ordered her to spend up to 100 years in the custody of the Illinois Department of Human Services. She has been in Chicago-Read and Elgin mental health hospitals.
Webber petitioned for release in 2017 but was denied. She then tried to kill herself.
She petitioned again in February.
Webber has refused to take medications state psychiatrists have recommended. But she also has not had any episodes of psychosis while hospitalized, according to testimony given earlier this year.
After a hearing in September, Bakalis ruled there was not enough evidence to show she needed to remain in a state hospital but also not enough evidence to release her without conditions.
Prosecutors intend to appeal the decision.