With just days to go before the murder trial for Lindsay Clancy concludes, a forensic psychologist called by the prosecution testified on Monday that he did not believe she was experiencing acute psychosis when she killed her three children.
Kirk Heilbrun, who reportedly performed psychiatric tests on Clancy in April, told the court that he questioned her claims that a hallucinated voice commanded her to commit the act, and that he believed she took their lives so they wouldn’t “suffer” after she killed herself.
“The way she described this as happening is that she heard a voice that she’d never heard before, experienced a hallucination and she’s never experienced it since,” Heilbrun said during his testimony. “To put it mildly, that would be a very, very unusual pattern or manifestation of how this kind of thing comes about. ”
Clancy allegedly jumped from a second-floor window after the killings. She is paralyzed from the waist down.
Clancy’s mental health is central to her defense. Her attorney Kevin Reddington is arguing that the Massachusetts mother was suffering from postpartum psychosis – a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth – when she killed the children in ۲۰۲۳, and should not be held criminally responsible. In addition to postpartum psychosis, Reddington has also claimed she had bipolar disorder and was overmedicated.
Prosecutors say the former labor and delivery nurse planned the killings and contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him to pick up medicine for one of their children and dinner for the family.
Clancy, ۳۶, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of Callan, eight months; Dawson, three; and Cora Clancy, five years old.
The trial was expected to head to jury this week and the outcome will largely depend on testimony from expert witnesses. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to show Clancy either was not suffering from “a mental disease or defect” or that she had enough capacity to understand “the wrongfulness or criminality of her conduct”, at the time the killings took place.
Helibrun’s testimony came as part of the prosecution’s rebuttal to several expert witnesses who told the court last week that Clancy was suffering from severe mental health issues.
Dr Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist and expert in filicide, or the killing of a child by a parent, testified on Friday that Clancy was “clearly psychotic” on the day she killed her children and was not in control of her actions. “It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings,” he said.
That echoed another defense witness, psychologist Paul Zeizel, who concluded Clancy “had no appreciation for the wrongfulness of her act”.
Heilbrun testified that he concluded Clancy killed her children because she wanted to kill herself but didn’t want to leave them behind.
“One of the things that she said when I asked about what happened, is that in the course of strangling each child, she said, ‘Go to God, baby. Go to God,’” he said. “That was part of her expectation that she and the children would be together in heaven with God.”
Heilbrun also mentioned Clancy’s Catholic faith, prompting a request for a mistrial from Reddington that Judge William Sullivan denied.
He later instructed the jury to disregard the reference to “the religion that the defendant was raised with,” calling it “an absolutely inappropriate area of testimony.”
Heilbrun is the latest prosecution witness to say that while Clancy was mentally ill, she still knew that what she was doing was wrong.
On Friday, Dr Avram Mack, a forensic psychiatrist, testified that he found no evidence of mania or hypomania to support a bipolar diagnosis – or of psychosis – leading up to the killings. He 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 in which she was able to control impulses and distinguish right from wrong.
However, Heilbrun said he did determine Clancy has bipolar ۲ disorder, while saying it was difficult to diagnose at least in part “because of all the diagnoses in the records and all the symptoms that she experienced”. People with bipolar ۲ disorder experience cycles of depression and hypomania, which is less intense than the mania experienced with bipolar ۱ disorder.
Earlier in the trial, the jury heard that Clancy had sought treatment for mental health problems from multiple providers and even had admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital.
Closing arguments are expected later this week. If Clancy is acquitted by reason of insanity, she will be admitted to a state psychiatric hospital. If she is found guilty by the jury, she will be sentenced to life without parole. A separate civil case has also been brought by Clancy and her former husband against several mental healthcare providers. Two of them, whom she visited before the killings, also testified during this trial.
The case has brought more awareness to postpartum and maternal health care in the US, and the severe struggles often faced by new mothers. One in seven women experience postpartum depression, a condition associated with extreme sadness after giving birth. Postpartum psychosis, which affects up to two women every ۱,۰۰۰ births, can cause even more severe symptoms, including delusions and hallucinations.
But there are also concerns that the fervor and sensationalized interest in the case will damage more widespread and nuanced understanding of postpartum conditions.
Last week hundreds of women dressed in pink demonstrated at the courthouse in support of Clancy.
“Women are being dismissed, neglected and ignored when we speak up,” attendee April Vincent told the Guardian. “We’re scared because nobody takes us seriously.”
In the US, you can call or text the ۹۸۸ Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at ۹۸۸ or chat at ۹۸۸lifeline.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone ۱۱۶ ۱۲۳. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is ۱۳ ۱۱ ۱۴. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
The Associated Press and Edward Helmore contributed reporting
