Suspect in baby’s death might seek insanity defense

WOODSTOCK – A woman accused of allowing her newborn baby to die under a kitchen sink will have psychiatric evaluation to see whether she’s fit to stand trial.

The evaluation also could help defense attorney Lawrence Levin build an insanity defense if it shows Lyndsey Tucker, 27, could not differentiate right from wrong or understand the ramification of her actions.

“There’s a question as to the sanity at the time of the offense and competency based on medications she’s on,” Levin said Monday.

After a similar evaluation in 2007, Tucker was found competent to stand trial for two armed bank robberies. She had planned to use insanity as a defense in those cases, but ultimately pleaded guilty to both robberies in July.

A federal judge sentenced Tucker to 53 months in prison and declined to show leniency because of her mental illnesses, which include bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and borderline personality disorder.

Tucker, formerly of Lake in the Hills, gave birth in July 2007 while free on bond, police have said. Her boyfriend found her passed out and bleeding in a bathroom in their apartment near Harvard. Officials later determined that she had given birth, and the boyfriend found the infant wrapped in a brown plastic bag under the bathroom sink, authorities said.

Previously, friends and family had asked her questions about weight gain, but she denied being pregnant, even to her boyfriend, authorities said.

She has pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and concealing a homicidal death. She also is facing a misdemeanor charge for allegedly having a 4-year-old girl in the car with her during her second bank robbery in Lake in the Hills.

Both cases will be back in McHenry County court on Feb. 3.