Bonnie Liltz was convicted in the 2015 death of her daughter, Courtney, who had cerebral palsy.
A terminally ill Illinois woman who admitted to killing her disabled adult daughter in a botched murder-suicide has been found dead, two days before she was to return to prison, officials said.
Bonnie Liltz killed herself in her Schaumburg apartment on Saturday, having taken a fatal amount of pills after telling her mother she planned to go to a movie and lunch with a friend, according to WLS-TV.
Before taking her life, Liltz, 57, wrote out suicide notes to family and friends, the television station reported.
Her body was discovered on Sunday. She was due back in jail Monday after being convicted in the 2015 death of her severely disabled daughter.
Courtney Liltz, 28, suffered from cerebral palsy and required constant care.
In 2012, Bonnie Liltz suffered a recurrence of ovarian cancer, which she first battled when she was 19.
The second bout forced her to place her daughter in an assisted living facility while she underwent inpatient treatment, Bonnie Liltz’s mother, Gladys Liltz, said in May 2016.
Bonnie Liltz did not believe her daughter received proper care and was upset at being left.
Bonnie Liltz’s own health complications were not going away, and she was concerned over who would take care of her daughter, whom she adopted when she was 5, she said.
After giving Courtney a lethal dose of prescription pills, Bonnie Liltz took a large amount herself, but survived the incident.
She was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, but was granted bond by appeals judges.
Bonnie Liltz was released after about 70 days, as her attorney said he feared her medical needs were not being met and that she would die in prison.
Bonnie Liltz’s appeal was ultimately denied, and she was ordered to return to prison on Monday.
“Illinois has abolished the death penalty, but she would have died in there,” her sister, Sue Liltz, told WLS-TV. “She could not have survived and they didn’t care.”
In an interview given weeks before her death, Bonnie Liltz told the television station she thought about her daughter every day.
“Did I do the right thing?" she asked.
"But then I think, 'She’s in a better place.'"
In a suicide note to her attorneys, Bonnie Liltz reportedly wrote that she was tired of fighting, and that she knew she wouldn’t survive prison and wanted to be with her daughter.
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