CHICAGO -- A suit filed in the wake of the Laurie Dann shooting rampage has been expanded to include a psychiatrist who treated her -- allegedly with a drug that makes mental patients violent -- and the company he worked for.
Dann went on a shooting spree on May 20, 1988, at Hubbard Woods Elementary School in Winnetka, Ill., killing 8-year-old Nicholas Corwin and wounding five other children. She then broke into the home of Philip Andrew, 20, wounded him and shot and killed herself.
Corwin's parents filed a wrongful death suit last September against Dann's estate and her parents, Norman and Edith Wasserman. On Tuesday, psychiatrist Phillip Epstein and Midwest Neuropsychiatric Associates were added, accused of negligence for allegedly treating Dann with the experimental drug Anafranil.
'Epstein and Midwest were aware that Anafranil was still an experimental drug under clinical investigation in the United States and could only lawfully be administered by physicians authorized to dispense said experimental drug to groups of experimental patients,' the amended suit said.
The suit said Epstein was not authorized to prescribe the drug or procure it for a patient. The suit said the drug was known to induce violent behavior in mental patients.
Epstein and Midwest allegedly prescribed the drug for Dann repeatedly and arranged for its purchase and shipping from Montreal, Canada, to the Wasserman home, the suit said.
Steve Waters, a spokesman for the state Department of Professional Regulation, said Epstein is under investigation for his handling of the prescription and there is no deadline for the inquiry's completion.
Six of Dann's victims have filed suit so far, accusing the Wassermans of failing to seize their daughter's guns, failing to properly store firearms and ignoring the advice of other psychiatrists who recommended Dann be institutionalized.
Also wounded in the spree were Robert Trossman, 6; Peter Munro, 8; Lindsay Fisher, 8; Kathryn Miller, 7, and Mark Teborek, 8.
