The family of Madelyn Linsenmeir, whose 2018 obituary urged compassion for people addicted to drugs, has settled its wrongful death lawsuit against authorities in Massachusetts, where she died in custody.
Linsenmeir’s family will receive $1.5 million: $900,000 from the City of Springfield, Mass., and $600,000 from the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department.
Linsenmeir, a Burlington native who suffered from opioid-use disorder, died in custody. Her sister, Kate O’Neill, wrote an obituary that dealt frankly with her drug use yet emphasized the person she was.
“To some, Maddie was just a junkie — when they saw her addiction, they stopped seeing her,” O’Neill wrote. “And what a loss for them. Because Maddie was hilarious, and warm, and fearless, and resilient. She could and would talk to anyone, and when you were in her company you wanted to stay.”
The tribute resonated around the world. O’Neill eventually agreed to take on a project that became “Hooked”: a 2019 series that combined observations about her sister and reports from the front line of the larger opioid crisis.
Hooked: A Love Story From Vermont’s Opioid Crisis
Hooked: A Love Story From Vermont’s Opioid Crisis
Writer Kate O’Neill reflects on what she’s learned since her sister Madelyn Linsenmeir’s death in October 2018. “Since my sister died,” she writes in the final installment of her yearlong series, “I’ve been asked over and over what people can do to help others with opioid-use disorder. A year ago I didn’t have an answer. Now I have many.”
By Kate O’Neill
Opioid Crisis
Seven Days and Kate O’Neill Receive the 2020 Jack Barry Communications Award From Recovery Vermont
Seven Days and Kate O’Neill Receive the 2020 Jack Barry Communications Award From Recovery Vermont
Writer Kate O’Neill’s 2019 series “Hooked: Stories and Solutions From Vermont’s Opioid Crisis,” published in Seven Days, received this year’s Jack Barry Communications Award from Recovery Vermont. The award presentation took place during the nonprofit advocacy organization’s annual Recovery Day event in Montpelier on February 12.
By Cathy Resmer
Inside Seven Days
Linsenmeir was arrested on a probation violation warrant in Springfield on September 29, 2018. During her booking interview, which was recorded on a surveillance camera, she repeatedly said she was sick and needed medical care.
“I have a really, really bad chest, like I don’t know what happened to it. It feels like it’s caving in,” Linsenmeir said. “I can’t breathe.”
She had endocarditis — a dangerous heart infection common in people who use intravenous drugs.
Nevertheless, she was brought to a regional women’s prison run by the sheriff’s department, where her symptoms were ignored for days, the legal complaint alleged; she was taken to a hospital only after she could not be roused. That’s where she died.
She was 30 and left behind her 3-year-old son.
Lawsuit: Denial of Medical Care Led to Madelyn Linsenmeir’s Death
Lawsuit: Denial of Medical Care Led to Madelyn Linsenmeir’s Death
By Matthew Roy
Off Message
The ACLU of Massachusetts, Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, and the Boston law firm Goulston & Storrs filed a suit on behalf of the family in 2020. The settlement was finalized this week.
It includes a requirement for the sheriff’s department to improve the health and safety of people in its custody, as well as a payment of $600,000 to be placed in trust for the care of Linsenmeir’s son.
In an interview on Friday, O’Neill touched on her now-familiar themes.
“It’s just much easier to turn away from people when we are uncomfortable with the way they look, when we’re uncomfortable with their suffering,” O’Neill said. “But everyone who [my sister] was incarcerated with is somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s mom.”