Elder abuse: Trial to shed light on horrors in home and help hone Illinois law
Kane County sisters are charged in the 2007 death of their mom, 84
By Clifford Ward | Special to the Tribune
April 2, 2009
The poster-sized autopsy photos of Mary Virginia Barry, her body covered with bedsores, made for difficult viewing.
After jurors at a Kane County coroner's inquest in 2007 studied them, they ruled the 84-year-old Geneva woman's death a homicide. In early 2008, Kane County prosecutors charged her daughters, Jill Barry, 55, and Julie Barry, 48, with two counts each of criminal neglect. Almost two years after their mother's death, the sisters are to go on trial Thursday.
"I think it's a very interesting case, and I think it's a very important case," said Kane State's Atty. John Barsanti, who will personally handle the prosecution.
Paramedics summoned in April 2007 to the Geneva house where the sisters and their mother lived found Mary Barry in squalid circumstances.
The ailing mother weighed only 70 pounds and had not seen a doctor in nine months. She was lying in soiled sheets with ants crawling on her. Barry was taken to a hospital, where she died days later.
Barsanti said Wednesday that the trial of the sisters could help add greater legal definition to Illinois laws that criminalize elder abuse. The law makes caregivers responsible for taking "reasonable" actions to ensure the well-being of seniors, but there's no Illinois appellate case law to help authorities define what is reasonable, he said.
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