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
nofreecheese
July 11th, 2012
10:37 am
“Let ye without sin cast the first stone.” While she didn’t handle the difficult situation appropriately, she shouldn’t be vilified. She has accepted the physically and emotional responsibility of caring for her mentally disabled for 19 years and finally cracked. Most of us have children which require much less effort to raise and care for, yet we begin the process of pushing them out of the nest when they become young adults. I’m not defending her actions, but unless you have walked in her shoes, do not judge her.
Tammt
July 11th, 2012
10:37 am
They should give the daughter a job opening beer bottles in a bar.
Tinker
July 11th, 2012
10:37 am
Perhaps I assume too much, but I would assume the mother would have been receiving some kind of $$$ Benefit (perhaps SSI, etc.) for this daughter. In order to receive the $$$ would she not have to be the legal gaurdian, thus making her responsible and breaking the law by dropping the child off? Then again maybe she was not receiving $$$ from the state. Regardless, she sounds like a dirtbag!
ForReals?
July 11th, 2012
10:38 am
Does Tennessee really have the best health care system in the US? That can’t be correct … can it?
Name (required)
July 11th, 2012
10:38 am
Churches make people do stupid things. This lady is going to hell in a handbasket.
Tragic But Legal
July 11th, 2012
10:38 am
This mother has another mentally challenged child at home…maybe the MOTHER is passing on that gene to her kids. The mother, herself, needs to be evaluated by a psychiatrist, too.
Tragic But Legal
July 11th, 2012
10:41 am
If she was receiving benefit for that child, she would no longer receive it once the child becomes an adult.
Georgia girl
July 11th, 2012
10:41 am
Yes, the mother did the wrong thing, but maybe now the young lady will get much better care than she probably had in the past.
Pat
July 11th, 2012
10:45 am
As horrific as this sounds, perhaps I need to walk in the woman’s shoes to understand the mental, physical and financial stress that would drive her to this. The church recommending this method, THIS I can’t believe. Maybe they could have helped lighten her burden instead..
Mommy
July 11th, 2012
10:46 am
Maybe this is the ONLY way her daughter would get the help she needs. The “system” in Chicago (as well as here in ATL) obviously could not help her and possibly the Mom did the best she could given her situation. I see my own friend struggle with her child with a mental illness. The ONLY way she was able to get help was when the young adult committed a crime and THEN did the state/county see she needed help. Why does it come to that?! Sad situation all around. I hope they all get some much needed help…..