Mother Acquitted by Reason of Insanity in 2010 Killing of Daughter Again Seeks Release From Hospital

Marci Webber, 59, an Army veteran found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2010 killing of her 4-year-old daughter, is again seeking release from an Illinois state mental hospital, according to reports published in late October 2026. Webber killed her youngest child, Magdalene, known as Maggie, in November 2010 while visiting family in Bloomingdale, Illinois. She drugged the girl and cut her throat, then slashed her own wrists during what is described as a psychotic episode. Charged with five counts of first-degree murder, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity by an Illinois judge in June 2012 and placed in state mental health custody. She has stayed institutionalized since, after two unsuccessful petitions for release. Webber says she is cured and should be freed. In a phone interview, she called the hospital highly untherapeutic and said involuntary confinement is harming her physical and mental health. A hearing on her case is approaching.

The right-leaning Daily Mail leads with the crime and her complaints. Its headline uses blunt labels such as "killer mom" and "moans," describes the wounds graphically, and notes that she defended Lindsay Clancy. It also supplies the charges, the 2012 verdict, the failed petitions and her remark about a patient screaming in the background. The left-leaning New York Times, in the headline and excerpt available here, frames the matter as a question of when the hospital should free her. It states the insanity conviction and her years-long claim to be cured, but the excerpt contains none of the Daily Mail's graphic detail or its Clancy reference. Both sides cover the same case and the same interview. They differ in emphasis: the Daily Mail on the violence and her grievances, the Times on release and recovery. Alternative and independent outlets had not reported the story when these articles were collected; only left-leaning and right-leaning outlets had.