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
martha
July 11th, 2012
11:53 am
this is sooo very sad — poor littel girl — dispite being aged 19 in years but mentally a child — some of you people are so mean — i hope i don’t know any of you — hope you are nicer to your own friends/family — doubtful
Roekest
July 11th, 2012
11:56 am
People like that mother should be chucked off a bridge with a weight tied around their friggin’ necks. F-ing animal.
camile
July 11th, 2012
11:56 am
Enter your comments here
Kelli
July 11th, 2012
12:00 pm
For those who are against the ‘nanny’ state. What would you have a woman with no financial, educational, mental, emotional or support to do? She choose to dump her 19 year old child but she did not murder her like so many crazy parents do when they loose their jobs and can’t figure a way to ’support’ their families. She tried to do the humane thing, and went for counsel before making her decision. A 120 lb. toddler is quite a bit to support, but at least she didn’t abort her children. But who is there to support the mother?
catlady
July 11th, 2012
12:02 pm
Kelli–apparently, the good Baptist people of Tennessee!
taboo
July 11th, 2012
12:04 pm
This breaks my heart. That mother will get her come-uppance though!
catlady
July 11th, 2012
12:04 pm
Wait a minute! “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”
So the mother reported her missing? After dumping her out? WTH? Was she hoping to get some “sympathy money?”
catlady
July 11th, 2012
12:05 pm
And I still want to know where the father is!
This all seems very fishy.
camile
July 11th, 2012
12:06 pm
I see both sides of the issue..
I have good friends who have a son that is disabled. They have taken care of him but also realize that at some point, due to his limitations and theirs, they will not be able to continue to care for him. It has NOTHING to do with money. They are researching homes and facilities to find the best place. They don’t receive any benefits b/c of their income and aren’t looking for it, they can afford it. However, at the age of 19, they know that if he becomes a ward of the state, he can get additional care.
I don’t really blame the mother 100%. I think we don’t like the fact that she left the child vs. talking to someone and taking the girl to a facility. That is what hurts the most but she did care fo the child for 18years. As with my friends, the hospital encouraged them to give the baby to the state when he was born but they knew that they could do a better job.
Let’s not rush to judgment until we walk a mile in someone’s shoes. We as people are always quick to say “What I would do” but you just don’t know until it happens to you.
sigh
July 11th, 2012
12:13 pm
We will take the poor girl and give her a loving home