The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three children, has heard she was suffering from a 'command hallucination' at the time of the deaths. Clancy, 36, does not deny killing Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, whose bodies were found in the basement of the family home in Duxbury in January 2023. Her lawyers argue she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Defence expert describes 'clearly psychotic' state
On Friday, the defence called its final witnesses, including Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist and expert in filicide – the killing of a child by a parent. Resnick told jurors he spent hours interviewing Clancy and believes she was 'clearly psychotic' at the time of the killings. The expert, who also testified for the defence in the 2001 trial of Andrea Yates, described several categories of filicide, including killings involving abuse and what he called 'altruistic' filicide – a killing committed 'out of love rather than hostility'. He said he found Clancy's case involved both of the latter categories but found no evidence of abuse.
Resnick said Clancy suffered from severe depression, showed evidence consistent with bipolar disorder and reported hearing a voice commanding her to kill her children. 'My opinion is that Ms Clancy was, due to her mental disease, unable to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law on the day that she took the lives of her children,' he told jurors. 'It was a matter where she was just following the command rather than being able to make any decision to do it or not.'
'Like she was a puppet'
He added: 'Psychosis can indeed wax and wane. For example, on the day of her crime, I'm not suggesting she was frankly psychotic every minute. She was functioning at a level that was not frankly psychotic until she had a command hallucination while her husband, Patrick, was out doing a couple of chores.' Resnick continued: 'She was in a dream state and did not have control over her own body. It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings.'
Resnick said Clancy had a delusional belief that if social services took the children or if she killed herself, her children would suffer without her. 'She believed that she was doing what was right for her children,' he said. 'In her mind, she believed that she would be doing her children a favour by having them go to heaven with her rather than remain on earth without her doing the mothering.'
Prosecution rebuttal and family testimony
Prosecutors say Clancy contrived to get her husband out of the house on the day of the killings by sending him to collect takeout food and pick up medication for one of the children. He arrived home to find Clancy on the floor, with a 911 call picking up his reaction: 'She killed the kids!'
Clancy has observed her trial from a wheelchair after being paralysed from jumping out of a window following the killings. Family members, including her mother, former mother-in-law and sister, gave evidence earlier this week describing her mental health struggles and thoughts of harming herself and her children in the months before the killings. 'She was begging for help,' former mother-in-law Susan Clancy told jurors. Her mother, Paula Musgrove, said that from October 2022 she began frequently staying at Clancy's home after receiving a text message saying: 'It's just really scary and I don't want to be alone.' Clancy told her then-husband and Musgrove in December 2022 'she had thoughts of harming the children', Musgrove said. The couple divorced after the killings.
Clancy's sister, Allison Osga, testified that around that time she learned Clancy was 'feeling numb', having suicidal thoughts and seeking treatment. In late December, 'she told me she had had suicidal ideation every day for a month', Osga testified. Under questioning by a prosecutor, Osga, a social worker required by law to report suspected harm to children, said she never had enough concern about the children's safety in January 2023 to file a report about her sister.
Prosecution expert disputes psychosis
After the defence rested, prosecutors began calling rebuttal witnesses. Dr Avram Mack agreed Clancy suffered from a major depressive episode but said he found no evidence of mania or hypomania to support a bipolar diagnosis – or of psychosis – leading up to the killings. Mack said Clancy recounted the killings to him, saying she heard a loud male voice telling her to kill the children so she could kill herself. She recalled strangling the children and saying 'go to God' as she did so, he told jurors.
Mack said Clancy was experiencing severe mental illness when she killed her children but that it was a continuation of the depression she had experienced for months, during which she was able to control impulses and distinguish right from wrong. He said: 'There's no reason that psychosis in and of itself inhibits a person's ability to know right from wrong.'
Clancy faces life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder. If found not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility, or by reason of insanity, she would be committed to a state psychiatric hospital for evaluation.
