Family sues Bay Pines VA after suicide with medications

Lawsuit: Bay Pines VA sends suicidal woman three months worth of pain pills
By William R. Levesque, Times Staff Writer
Posted: May 15, 2012

TAMPA — The Bay Pines VA Medical Center mailed a three-month supply of pain medication to a Treasure Island woman with a history of suicide threats who died after overdosing on the pills, a lawsuit filed this month says.

Linda Abrams Dresel, 56, an Army veteran who came to prominence in the 1990s as a supporter of anti-government causes, died May 9, 2009, at her home after she ingested the entire supply of pills, said the suit filed by her husband.

The former Indianapolis lawyer was better known by the name Linda Thompson, which she apparently discarded after her marriage to a Pinellas County man three years ago.

Her brother, Stephen Capps, said in an interview Tuesday that the pill bottle found after her death showed a physician's assistant at Bay Pines wrote the prescription. Capps said his sister had been committed to Bay Pines in Seminole six times under the Baker Act for suicidal threats in the month prior to her death.
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