Karen Frank-McCarron (born December 20, 1968) is a German-born American pathologist convicted in Illinois of first degree murder of her autistic daughter Katherine “Katie” McCarron. Background Early life, education and career Karen Frank-McCarron was born Karen Frank to Erna and Walter "Robert" Frank on December 20, 1968, in Germany. She graduated from Maine South High School in Park Ridge, Illinois and from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Illinois in 1995 with a Doctor of Medicine degree. Frank-McCarron, a pathologist, worked at Methodist Medical Center and Proctor Hospital, both in Peoria, Illinois. She volunteered as a clinical assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria. Marriage and family Karen Frank met her future husband, Paul McCarron, when they were both students at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Frank-McCarron and Paul's first child, Katie (born July 22, 2002), was diagnosed with autism in 2004. In September of that year, Paul and Katherine moved to Apex, North Carolina to live with Paul's mother, so that Katie could attend The Mariposa School, a special education school for children with autism and related conditions, in Cary, North Carolina. Paul and Katie returned home to Illinois on holidays. Frank-McCarron, who was a pathologist with the Peoria-Tazewell Pathology Group, stayed in Morton, Illinois with their younger daughter Emily, and visited North Carolina occasionally. After 20 months, Paul decided to return full-time to Illinois with Katie. Paul McCarron took her to their home in Illinois on May 3, 2006. On May 7, 2006, Paul returned to North Carolina to fulfill the last three weeks of his work commitment. Katie remained in Illinois under the care of her mother and maternal grandparents, along with her younger sister. In addition to her mother and grandparents, Katie had two paid, full-time caregivers. Psychiatric issues Frank-McCarron was a patient of a psychologist while she was a resident doctor at a medical clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2005, Frank-McCarron was a patient of a psychiatrist who treated her for depression. She had been prescribed antidepressants but apparently stopped taking them in early 2006. At trial, it was admitted into evidence that the psychiatrist she had been seeing from about August 2005 to February 2006 did not observe any delusional thinking in Frank-McCarron. Katherine's murder On the afternoon before Mother's Day, Saturday, May 13, 2006, Frank-McCarron killed Katie by suffocating her with a plastic bag. After