Lyons v. Bute

On May 2, 1978, the petitioner, Cherry Whittington, killed her husband. After trial on charges of murder and manslaughter, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. She was committed to the Zeller Mental Health Center in December 1978, where she remained until November 1979, when she was released to the care of a halfway house in Peoria. Daniel Bute was appointed conservator of the petitioner’s estate in 1978 when she was judged incompetent. At the time of the killing, the petitioner’s two-month-old son, Richard Whittington, was placed with his great aunt, Jean Lyons, the respondent in…