Wife of mental patient files for divorce

CHESTER, Ill. -- When Canadian Millie Strom married Rodney Yoder, the mental patient who recently fought and lost a battle to be released from the Chester Mental Health Center after 12 years, she said she was "sentencing him to a lifetime of love."

After two months, Strom apparently has commuted that sentence, filing for divorce last week from the man who in the past severely beat two women and, while incarcerated, wrote 130 letters to public officials threatening to kill them.

Strom, who was married to legendary blues man John Lee Hooker in the 1970s, has even asked the facility to stop Yoder and others who know Yoder from contacting her.

Reached at her Vancouver home, Strom said she filed for divorce because of a "breakdown of our marriage," adding that one reason is that Yoder was committed and they would not be able to live together.

But that's something Strom, who has called herself an opponent to "forced psychiatry," knew when she married Yoder. They wed in December inside the mental institution, two days after a high-profile commitment trial in which a Randolph County jury found "clearly and convincingly" that Yoder was severely mentally ill and would likely hurt himself or someone else if he were released.

Asked to comment further, Strom said, "I really don't want to." She also said she was not interested in knowing what Yoder claimed about the breakup.

"Of course I still love her," Yoder said Monday during a phone interview from the maximum-security facility for the criminally insane. "I'm not angry at her. There's a lot of hurt, though. You can't imagine all the hurt."

During the trial, which Strom flew from Canada to attend, Yoder argued that mental illness is a myth.

Yoder said that Strom began having misgivings and on Dec. 20 sent an e-mail announcing that she wanted the marriage annulled. That was eight days after the marriage. There was no honeymoon -- the institution doesn't allow conjugal visits, Yoder said.

"She knew she was leaving behind a husband who might be incarcerated for the rest of his life," he said. "Then she went home to all of her liberal friends. Because I repudiate the myth of mental illness, I am the devil to them. I'm sure she was ostracized because of our marriage."

He also said that Strom was afraid she might lose disability payments she receives from the Canadian government. Yoder has some money in savings, and Strom thought that might make her ineligible, he said.

Yoder said Strom maintains her disability is an alleged mental illness. Yoder guesses it is depression or bipolar disorder.

"She's admitted to me that this is hypocritical and duplicitous," Yoder said. "She doesn't want to lose her meal ticket, and this is what she's been forced to do."

Will contest divorce

As for his part, Yoder plans to contest the divorce because he said Strom knew he was committed when they got married. He said he wants to preserve the history of being the first person married in a mental institution.

"There's a lot of stuff going on," Yoder said. "There are a million different factors."

Yoder resists the suggestion that Strom, 50, may have been attracted to him because of the national attention he got from news organizations such as Time magazine.

"Initially she read about me in Time magazine," he said. "But I don't think it was about that. She said she loved me."

Yoder said he realizes there's probably little chance of a reconciliation.

"But a marriage isn't the only sort of relationship people have," he said. "There's friendship. Maybe we can have that."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137