About a year and a half ago, I wrote a diary asking: Should You Need A License To Have Kids? Watching disfunctional people who decided it was a good idea to bring life into the world try to raise children, just screams unmitigated disaster. That's not to say there can't be love between all concerned, but the children born into bad situations are starting in a bad place they have to rise out of & escape.
Such was the story of 4-year-old Rebecca Riley, who was diagnosed with "attention deficit hyperactivity and bipolar disorder, or what used to be called manic depression" when she was just 2 and a half. Her parents, Michael & Carolyn Riley, now stand accused of murder after basically ODing her on Clonidine & other drugs in order to keep her quiet & docile, while attempting to draw SSI-disability payments......
This case has raised questions as to whether it is scientifically possible to get an accurate diagnosis of mental instability on a pre-adolescent, and whether it's even logical to prescribe mind altering drugs on a child this young. Are the drugs being prescribed because the kid has a problem, or because the parents don't want the problem of having to actually be a parent?
On December 13th, 2006, four year old Rebecca Riley died of an overdose of prescribed drugs. According to the Associated Press, the medical examiner's report found......
.....Rebecca died of a combination of Clonidine, a blood pressure medication Rebecca had been prescribed for ADHD; Depakote, an antiseizure and mood-stabilizing drug prescribed for the little girl's bipolar disorder; a cough suppressant; and an antihistamine. The amount of Clonidine alone in Rebecca's system was enough to be fatal, the medical examiner said.
The final weeks & days of the child's life sound horrific......
.....A school nurse said the little girl was so weak she was like a "floppy doll." The preschool principal had to help Rebecca off the bus because the 4-year-old was shaking so badly. And a pharmacist complained that Rebecca's mother kept coming up with excuses for why her daughter needed more and more medication. None of their concerns was enough to save Rebecca......Rebecca's uncle, James McGonnell, and his girlfriend, Kelly Williams, who lived with the Rileys, told police that the Rileys would put their kids to bed as early as 5 p.m. Rebecca, they said, often slept through the day and got up only to eat.
When Michael Riley decided the kids were "acting up," he told Carolyn to give them pills, McGonnell and Williams told police. According to McGonnell and Williams, Rebecca spent the last days of her life wandering around the house, sick and disoriented. But the Rileys told police they were not alarmed. "It was just a cold," Carolyn repeatedly said during police interviews.
The medical examiner said Rebecca died a slow and painful death. She said the overdose of Clonidine caused her organs to shut down, filling her lungs with fluid and causing congestive heart failure. Williams told police that the night before she died, Rebecca was pale and seemed "out of it." At one point, the little girl knocked weakly on her parents' bedroom door and softly called for her mommy, but Michael Riley opened the door a crack and yelled at her to go back to her room, Williams said.
Later that night, McGonnell told police, he heard someone struggling to breathe and found Rebecca gurgling as if something was stuck in her throat. McGonnell told police he wiped vomit from his niece's face, then kicked in the door to her parents' room and yelled at the Rileys to take Rebecca to the emergency room.
Instead, Carolyn Riley said, she gave her daughter a half-tablet of Clonidine.
For their part, the parents claim they only gave the child what the psychiatrist told them to. They also blame the child's psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, for over-prescribing & being responsible for the child's death. However, records show that Carolyn Riley (Rebecca's mother) received more than 200 more tablets of Clonidine in one year than she should have. The lawyer for the parents argues that some of this can be explained by "Accidental Spoilage" caused by the parents breaking the Clonidine pills in half & losing some. However, according to police Carolyn Riley had claimed that she had lost prescription bottles & water ruined others in order to obtain extra pills on some occcasions......
Both were unemployed; they collected welfare and disabilty benefits and lived in subsidized housing. Michael Riley, who is also awaiting trial on charges of molesting a stepdaughter in 2005, claimed to suffer from bipolar disorder and a rage disorder; his wife told police she suffered from depression and anxiety.
Then there's the couple's other two children......
The Rileys' two older children, now ages 11 and 6, had gone to a psychiatrist and been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and were receiving benefits from the federal government because they were classified as mentally disabled, according to Carolyn Riley's mother, Valerie Berio.
Carolyn Riley told police the same psychiatrist had diagnosed Rebecca with the same illnesses when she was 2 1/2. But for some unknown reason, Rebecca was not eligible to receive the same benefits, Bourbeau said.
Bourbeau, Carolyn Riley's lawyer, said that Middleton told him prosecutors believe the Rileys sent Rebecca to a psychiatrist in order to get drugs and have her placed on disability to become eligible for government benefits.