Bonnie Liltz Found Dead in Apparent Suicide - A Predictable Tragedy

Bonnie Liltz

On Saturday November 25^th, Bonnie Liltz was found dead in her apartment, the cause an apparent suicide. Her death is a blot on the consciences of all of us living in Illinois. In 2015, Bonnie Liltz administered a fatal overdose to her 28- year old daughter Courtney, who was severely mentally retarded, mute, unable to walk, and wearing diapers. Bonnie Liltz suffered from cancer and was terminally ill. She feared what would happen to her daughter after her death. For her crime, she was sentenced to four years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. After being sent home for medical treatment, she was ordered back to prison. Rather than return there, she killed herself. Why was she sent to prison in the first place?  

Bonnie Liltz was a poster child for everything wrong with Illinois' inadequate services for the developmentally disabled. Her fears were grounded in a tragic reality. Having worked as a social worker with the developmentally disabled for many years, I heard this fear expressed by many parents. Those parents' fears were realistic, also. “Let her die the day after I do,” they would say. It often sounded like a litany. I encouraged them to put their adult children on waiting lists for housing so they could choose a good place while they were still on this Earth. The variation in quality of places was huge. Without someone to advocate for their children, they could end up in a very inadequate facility where they might even be mistreated or abused. “Their sister (or brother) will take care of her (him).” But what if they wouldn’t. What if there was no other family member to take over.

While I’m not advocating mercy killing, I understand why Bonnie Liltz felt she had no other alternative. She was a single mom and Courtney was her only child. She had no one on whom she could depend to advocate for her child’s well-being. She couldn’t count on the state of Illinois and she was desperate.

Illinois, while somewhere in the middle on per capita income, is 50^th on per capita spending for developmentally disabled adults. Disabled Illinois children are protected by federal law guaranteeing them an education through age 21. After that, they can be on waiting lists to obtain adult services such as group homes, intermediate care facilities, and community based care for years. At present, about 20,000 adults are on waiting lists for residential facilities and community day services some of them having waited for years. As bad as this always was, in the past two years, it has gotten worse.

Without a budget for two years, Illinois had stopped paying allotted promised funding to many agencies serving the developmentally challenged. Without money to pay their staff, many of these agencies had to close. The list of resources has grown shorter. The waiting lists have grown longer. The wait for services has become interminable. How many parents in Bonnie Liltz’ predicament will resort to her solution?

We in Illinois could spend more on resources for the disabled or we can continue as we’ve been doing. There would be more Bonnies and Courtneys, but we could go on avoiding paying taxes to help the most vulnerable in Illinois. It’s up to us to decide what kind of society we want to have.