Mom not charged for dumping disabled daughter at bar
Lynn Cameron (Caryville Police Department)
Abandoning a child who needs help is never right, but it’s not always illegal.
A Chicago-area woman who drove to Tennessee to dump off her mentally disabled 19-year-old daughter will not be charged, police said Tuesday in The Knoxville News Sentinel.
Police in the tiny town of Caryville had tried since June 28 to figure out the identity of the young woman. A break in the case came 10 days later when a Chicago-area resident recognized the daughter on a missing persons website and alerted authorities, who contacted the mom – Eva Cameron, 45, of Algonquin, Ill.
The mom traveled back to Tennessee to speak to police, not to pick up her daughter, Lynn Cameron, who has the mental capacity of a toddler and could not identify herself or her mother.
“[The mom] said that she did not want her, that she couldn’t take care of her and that she wasn’t going to take her back to Illinois,” said Caryville police Assistant Chief Stephanie Smith in The Chicago Tribune.
“She let her out to use the bathroom and drove away,” Smith said Tuesday. “She said she just couldn’t handle her anymore.”
Cameron, who has another mentally disabled child, cannot be charged because the daughter she abandoned is legally an adult.
Cameron told The Northwest Herald in suburban Chicago that she drove her daughter to Tennessee because it has the “No. 1 health care system in the United States of America” and she wanted the best for her child. She also said her church directed her there because it is a more Baptist area.
Tuesday, the daughter became an official ward of the state of Tennessee.
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155 comments Add your comment
wut the
July 11th, 2012
1:40 pm
We have things like this going on, and there are people who give a flying rat’s ars about those idiotic Kardashians??
Jesus Christ crushes perverted NWO, DBMs
July 11th, 2012
1:43 pm
@Sad- I should reference Obama at this point but Alex Jones said the Secret Service etc is likely to pay you a visit for your efforts; don’t need that kind of madness in my life.
But I will say that some people believe that “manifest destiny” gives them the right to force their way of life, thinking, and morals on people throughout the entire world.
Amen?
Bobby
July 11th, 2012
1:45 pm
Truly incredible. I cannot believe her church told her where to take her. If anything, the church should have been helping the mother care for the disabled child.
Bobby
July 11th, 2012
1:48 pm
@Jesus A fetus can be aborted. Until such time as the fetus can live outside the womb as a viable human being, it is simply a fetus. And the woman has the right to decide whether or not to carry the fetus to term. Once a baby born that discretion ends.
NotYou
July 11th, 2012
1:54 pm
You are all taking the mothers word that the “church recommended” doing this, etc. Let’s put things in perspective. She just dumped her child who she claims is 19 and you want to take her word for everything? Wow.
NotYou
July 11th, 2012
1:56 pm
@Bobby – “simply a fetus”…you are “simply an idiot”. Disgusting.
And?
July 11th, 2012
1:57 pm
Sounds to me like the mom is full of it… Her church most likely did advise her to do this and she only stopped in TN because it was far enough away and she would not get caught. Besides, if this woman TRULY wanted her daughter to get help, she would not have left her on the side of the road where no telling what would happen to her. She would leave her somewhere safe like a fire station. This woman got caught and she is scrambling to cover her butt.
And?
July 11th, 2012
1:58 pm
I meant her church most likely DID NOT advise her to do this.
hokie4life
July 11th, 2012
2:05 pm
Reading this, all I could think was..”this woman is gonna burn in hell” It’s your child….not a piece of trash. They need to take away the other disable child.
Nesy
July 11th, 2012
2:29 pm
More than likely the mother is mentally ill herself and cannot take care of her mentally ill children. This is why people with mental illness should never have children. They do not have the mental and emotional capacity to handle the extra stress of dealing with the extrenous burden of nursing and caring for mentally ill children and themselves too.