The trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of murdering her three children, heard on Friday that she was suffering from a 'command hallucination' at the time of the killings. Defence witness Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist and expert in filicide, told jurors he believed Clancy was 'clearly psychotic' when she killed Callan, Dawson, and Cora Clancy in January 2023.
Defence expert describes psychotic state
Resnick, who also testified in the 2001 trial of Andrea Yates, said he spent hours interviewing Clancy. He described several categories of filicide, including abuse-related killings, psychotic killings, and what he calls 'altruistic' filicide — a killing committed 'out of love rather than hostility'. Resnick said Clancy's case involved both of the latter categories, but he found no evidence of abuse.
Resnick testified that 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.'
Puppet analogy and delusional beliefs
Resnick 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.' He 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. He said she believed they would be better off dying with her and going to heaven. '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 argue 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 about her mental health struggles. 'She was begging for help,' former mother-in-law Susan Clancy told jurors. Clancy's mother, Paula Musgrove, said her daughter had loved her children and was dedicated to them, but from October 2022 she frequently stayed at Clancy's home after receiving a text saying: 'It's just really scary and I don't want to be alone.' Musgrove said Clancy told her and Patrick in December 2022 she had thoughts of harming the children. The couple divorced after the killings.
After the defence rested, prosecutors called rebuttal witness Dr Avram Mack, who agreed Clancy suffered from a major depressive episode but said he found no evidence of mania, hypomania, or psychosis leading up to the killings. Mack said Clancy recounted hearing a loud male voice telling her to kill the children so she could kill herself, and recalled strangling them while saying 'go to God'. 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.
