Odessa American: Religious Sect Member Sues Own Mother

Religious Sect Member Sues Own Mother

Odessa American/1972-01-14

Miriam McClendon, 18-year-old member of the Children of God sect who was committed to two mental institutions last year, has brought a $300,000 damage suit against six persons, including her own mother.

Miss McClendon, now living with the Dallas chpater of the Children, claimed in a civil lawsuit filed here Thursday that her civil rights were violated by her mother, Mrs. Juliette McClendon, two Grayson County officials, a lawyer, and two physicians.

The action, filed by Dallas lawyers James Johnston and Thomas Dixon, seeks $150,000 in actual damages and the same sum in exemplary or punitive damages.

Miss McClendon alleges that she was taken from the Fort Worth chapter of the Children of God and incarcerated against her will at Tomberlawn Psychiatric Hospital in Dallas and then at Wichita Falls State Hospital between Nov. 5 and Dec. 21, 1971.

"Plaintiff was denied and deprived of her right to ro free exercise of her religious beliefs, her right to freely associate with those persons who share her beliefs, and was forcibly and illegally confined against her will" it is alleged in the suit.

The defendants in addition to her mother are: Jim Dunn, her court-appointed lawyer who handled the committment proceedings; Grayson County Judge Les Tribble, who ordered her committed, Grayson County Clerk Paul Lee; and two physicians - Dr David H. Darling and Dr. J.H. Stout - who said she needed treatment in a mental hospital.