Children's Request Lands Woman on Probation After Killing Her Husband in Yet Another “Paxil Defense” Case
Mary “Arlene” Baymiller just received probation for the murder of her husband, Charles “Skip” Baymiller, after a request from her children in a “Paxil Defense” case.
According to details from the case, Charles was suffering from dementia, which caused Mary to start taking Paxil for anxiety and Ativan and Ambien for sleep. When Mary started to complain about suffering from bad side effects of the drugs, her doctor increased her dosage. Her lawyer stated that on Friday, May 20, she was sentenced to 5 years of probation for the murder. The reason the murder happened, says her lawyer, is that her drug cocktail caused her to suffer from a “catatonic drug-induced state.” He says that this is what caused Mary to kill Charles by stabbing him hundreds of times in the throat in October of 2009.
After the stabbing, Mary stabbed herself and tried to overdose on the Paxil and sleeping pills. Mary says that she doesn’t remember stabbing her husband because of the drugs’ affects. Her attorney also said that “because there was no blood spatter on the walls that the stabbing was not in a violent frenzy because the blood would have flown off the blade and into the wall.” Her adult children came to her defense during sentencing.
Deputy District Attorney Eliott Sattler disagreed with the probation order and stated that he thought it was sending a bad message to the public. He asked the judge, “What does it say to the next person in a difficult situation with a loved one? We are living in an aging society. What does that say to them? To condone what she did?”
Judge Perry did warn Mary that if she violated the terms of her probation, he would give her a large sentence. As part of her probation, Mary must keep getting treatment for her mental health problems, and take her drugs as they are prescribed to her. Judge Perry defended his position by saying that there was no reasonable explanation for why Mary killed her husband “other than the medications involved,” and said she had suffered enough by losing "her best friend of 43 years."
