Bonnie Liltz prayed she would be released from prison.
“I don’t think I believed it right away. It’s something I had been praying for and hoping for,” Liltz said in her first interview since she walked free from behind bars.
Last week the Illinois Appellate Court granted bond for the Schaumburg mother who in 2015 gave her 28-year old disabled daughter Courtney a lethal overdose and thought she had given one to herself. The botched murder-suicide came as Liltz thought she was dying and didn't trust the system to take care of Courtney.
“I still have nightmares and miss Courtney like crazy,” she said. “She was my whole life.”
Liltz was sentenced to four years in prison by Judge Joel Greenblatt for the overdose death, even though prosecutors agreed probation was the appropriate sentence.
“I have an enormous amount of respect for the judge presiding over Bonnie’s case," said William Beattie, one of her attorneys. “I respectfully disagree with his decision on this.”
Liltz was not, she said, prepared for the judge’s decision to put her behind bars.
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“So when the judge ruled that, I was devastated. Scared,” said the frail 56-year old.
Liltz now waits on action by the Illinois Appellate Court, which could free her or uphold her sentence and send her back to prison.
Liltz is razor thin, with devastating intestinal and bowel issues from radiation for ovarian cancer in 1979. She suffers from incessant diarrhea. Entering prison she weighed 97-to-98 pounds. Upon her release after just a few months, she now weighs just 84 pounds.
It was love at first sight when Liltz first saw 2-year old Courtney at a state facility where she volunteered.
“I just fell in love with her there,” she recalled.
Courtney was a child who had twice been rejected, said Liltz's attorney Thomas Glasgow.
“A child that her original birth mother did not want. That a subsequent adopt-a-family did not want,” he said.
But Liltz did.
“When I adopted Courtney I made a promise to the judge, to Courtney and to the Lord that I was going to be the best mom that I could for her," she said.
Courtney had specific health issues. She had seizures, needed feeding tubes and was in diapers.
But with Liltz, Courtney thrived.
Asked her best, warmest memory of her daughter, Liltz said it was the first time she heard the only word Courtney could speak.
“I think the first time she said ‘mama,' really ‘cause we said she couldn’t talk,” Liltz said.
Her daughter eventually learned to use a computer and to feed herself, according to Liltz.
“She was a happy girl,” she said.
But on May 27, 2015 Liltz thought she was dying.
“I was sweating, my heart was pounding, I had really bad diarrhea,” she recalled.
And feared her daughter would end up in a state facility that could not adequately care for her.
“I was praying to God, please give me some answers," Liltz said.
That's when she decided to give both herself and her daughter a lethal amount of medication, thinking the pair would both die. But only Liltz survived.
“She was not trying to get away with anything,” said Glasgow. “She was trying to end her own life and protect the person that she loved the most.”
“This is the most unusual case I have ever worked on in my entire career. And as I have said before this is probably one of the saddest cases that I have ever worked on in my entire career,” he added. “This woman has lost the one thing in life that she cared about more than anything.”
Asked what she would say to someone who does not see this as a unique case of the death of a child, Liltz said, "people are going to judge people."
“People are going to have their opinion, but in my heart it wasn’t murder," she said. "I mainly did it out of love for her because I didn’t want her to end up the rest of her life living in a state facility and wondering where I am. To me, the only safe place was in Heaven.”
