© FacebookFree at last: Christina Schumacher, 48, was ordered released from a Vermont psychiatric ward more than five weeks after she was hospitalized against her will in the wake of her husband and son's murder-suicide
Christina Schumacher, 48, was ordered released immediately from Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington by Vermont Superior Court Judge Kevin Griffin.
Schumacher had been at the hospital since December 19, a day after 14-year-old Gunnar 'sonny' Schumacher and 49-year-old Ludwig Schumacher were found dead in an Essex apartment.
Police said the father, a former Vermont National Guardsman and F-16 pilot, strangled the high school freshman before he hanged himself.
It was unclear whether Schumacher had left the facility by Friday night.
Griffin said in his ruling that he disagreed with a doctor's assessment before Schumacher arrived for a regular appointment the day after the murder-suicide that she needed to admit herself or be taken into custody.
© FacebookMurder-suicide: On December 18, Gunnar Schumacher, 14 (left), was found strangled to death in his family home at the hands of his father,
The Burlington Free Press reported that according to court records, Schumacher indicated to her sister after the couple separated last summer that she would kill herself if anything happened to her two children.
'I am not ill; I am simply a mother who is grieving the tragic loss of her young son," Schumacher told the Burlington Free Press this week. 'No mother should ever have to experience this loss.'
Schumacher told the newspaper that she and her insurance company had been billed for the unwanted treatment.
Mike Noble, a spokesman for the hospital, said that he can't speak to the specifics of the case but 'that in all matters such as this we make decisions that we think are in the best interests of the patient.'
Schumacher had warned police that she feared for her son's safety hours before the bodies were found, according to court papers. She told Essex police the night before the murder-suicide that she feared Ludwig Schumacher might try to take the teenager out of the country, according to court papers.
© Facebook48-year-old Ludwig Schumacher (right), who committed suicide by hanging
On December 18, Ludwig Schumacher, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Vermont National Guard, called Essex High School asking to excuse his son from class to attend to a family situation.
At around 2pm that day, police responded to a 911 call placed by Gunnar Schumacher's friend reporting a suicide.
Officers who arrived at the Schumachers' apartment at 8 Carmichael Street in Essex Junction discovered the bodies of the 14-year-old boy and his father.
According to investigators, the high school student died from strangulation at the hands of his father, who then took his own life by hanging himself.
© WikipediaCommitted: Christina Schumacher had been at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington for more than a month
According to Vermont Family Court records, the 48-year-old mother wrote in her complaint that her husband flipped over a bed over their son in February 2013 and later overturned the dining room table in a fit of rage.
Christina Schumacher, an expert in finance and operations, also accused her husband of hitting her across the face in front of their daughter, Elise, pulling on her hair and manhandling her.
Ludwig Schumacher, a career National Guard officer and former pilot, was recently let go from his new job as a consultant with Timberlane Dental.
For some reason, I have less sympathy for the -uhhh- 'well-to-do'--highly paid consultants and financial experts and such.
It is almost as if they become a victim of their own sting.
Wasps would never sting each other would they?
ned