Woman who killed her baby again seeks release from state care

[Guest guest]

Prozac was FDA approved in late 1987, what you want to bet this poor woman

was being treated for post-partum depression with Prozac?

The Associated Press State & Local Wire

These materials may not be republished without the express

written consent of The Associated Press

May 25, 2005, Wednesday, BC cycle

1:34 AM Eastern Time

SECTION: State and Regional

LENGTH: 456 words

HEADLINE: Woman who killed her baby again seeks release from state care

DATELINE: LITCHFIELD, Conn.

BODY:

A woman who was acquitted of killing her baby in what became a landmark

court

case on postpartum psychosis asked a Superior Court judge on Tuesday to

release

her from state psychiatric care.

Dawn March, 33, has been living in the Hartford area on conditional release

from Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. She has a job as a hotel

housekeeping supervisor, is in a stable relationship with her boyfriend and

has

done everything asked of her by the state Psychiatric Security Review Board,

her

lawyer told Judge C. Brunetti.

March killed her 6-month-old daughter in 1989, claiming voices told her to

do

it.

Her lawyer, Public Defender Monte P. Radler, told the judge that the most

important point in March's proposal is that she no longer poses a threat to

herself or the community. Brunetti did not issue a ruling Tuesday.

The Psychiatric Security Review Board, which has jurisdiction over the state

's criminally insane, agrees with Radler, having recommended to Brunetti

that

March be released from its custody.

" Ms. March has maintained clinical stability while handling the stress of

competitive employment, has demonstrated gains in judgment, progress related

to

treatment issues and improved coping strategies, " the board wrote in its

report.

" As such, the board is of the opinion that Dawn March no longer requires the

continued oversight of the board. "

Two expert witnesses testified that they believed it was unlikely that March

posed a danger to the community or herself. The psychiatrist and licensed

clinical social worker said March shows no signs of the illness that caused

her

to kill her baby and she could recognize symptoms of the illness if it were

to

re-emerge.

They acknowledged, under cross-examination by Litchfield State's Attorney

Shepack, that it was difficult to predict the future. They also

acknowledged that March showed no signs of the illness before killing the

child,

but maintained that she poses no risk.

Radler said March had a tubal ligation and would be incapable of having

another postpartum episode.

March's side did concede that she still has a mental illness, defined as a

personality disorder, but there has been no recurrence of the

" disassociative

episode " that caused her to hurl her baby into a river, then speak to

authorities in what was described as a demonic voice.

March's case set a landmark precedent when a Superior Court judge recognized

postpartum psychosis as a mental illness and allowed an insanity defense in

the

infanticide case. She was acquitted in 1991, but was remanded to the custody

of

the state's Psychiatric Security Review Board for 20 years.