Lawerence Synett, TribLocal reporter
Prosecutors want to make sure a Crystal Lake woman who killed her mother in 2001 is not a threat before she’s released from a state mental hospital, so a judge in McHenry County on Friday ordered a new evaluation.
Alice E. Bair, 68, has been in state custody at the Elgin Mental Health Center since 2002, when a judge ruled her not guilty by reason of insanity for the March 2001 murder of her 88-year-old mother, Margaret, who lived in Winnetka.
Michael Combs, an assistant McHenry County state’s attorney, said prosecutors asked for the evaluation after a recent request by the Illinois Department of Human Services for Bair’s conditional release.
“We’ve got to take this very seriously,” he said. “She did kill somebody, and we need to make sure she is not a risk.”
Bair had a 30-year history of mental illness when she was accused of fatally attacking her mother, crushing her ribs and collapsing her lungs during a quarrel in March 2001.
McHenry County Judge Sharon Prather at the time said prosecutors proved Bair committed the attack, but defense lawyers also proved she suffered from a severe psychotic disorder.
Bair was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery after her mother, Margaret Bair, was found dead in Alice Bair’s Crystal Lake home. Margaret Bair lived in Winnetka but frequently visited her daughter to help with bills and look after her. When the mother arranged to sell two of her daughter’s four dogs, Alice Bair apparently snapped.
During the 2002 trial, Assistant State’s Atty. Tiffany Davis said Bair was “in a violent mood” when she attacked her mother during the dispute over the dogs.
“She was aware of what she had done when she sat on her 88-year-old, 103-pound mother,” Davis said during the trial.
