Psychologist testifies Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her 3 children

After nearly a month of testimony, jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial are hearing Tuesday from the final witnesses in a case that has largely been about her mental state when she strangled her three young children.

Testimony resumed from a forensic psychologist hired by prosecutors to evaluate Clancy’s psychiatric history and assess the defense claim that she had acute postpartum psychosis when she killed Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy in January 2023 in the basement of their Massachusetts home. The rare mental illness can follow childbirth.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

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Kirk Heilbrun told jurors that he didn’t believe Clancy’s claim that she hallucinated a voice telling her to kill her children, who ranged from 8 months to 5 years old. He said he instead believed she took their lives so they wouldn’t “suffer” after she killed herself.

“Everything I did as part of this evaluation, the evidence much more strongly, in my opinion, supported the second explanation, which was the serious suicide attempt accompanied by killing the children out of love,” Heilbrun said.

Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, challenged Heilbrun about his conclusions, including whether he had made up his mind before he interviewed Clancy this year at the state hospital in Tewksbury where she stays.

“Would you agree with me, sir, that before you met with Lindsay in Tewksbury, you pretty much had an idea this woman was a beast, killed her three kids didn’t you?” Reddington asked.

Heilbrun disagreed with that characterization, adding that he “did his best to have an open mind.”

Reddington also highlighted earlier testimony from Clancy’s friends and family, including her former husband, Patrick, that she was “an incredible mother taking care of her kids.”

“Bringing her life experience, which you’ve testified yesterday, that she never had any abuse in her life, was raised by loving mother and father, good student, hard worker, great mother, good friend, wonderful wife,” Reddington said. “She then randomly decides to kill her children by strangling them. Those are the facts we’re dealing with?”

In the months before killing her children, Clancy had sought treatment for mental health problems from multiple providers and admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital.

Heilbrun told jurors that Clancy had bipolar disorder and depression, conditions made worse by her insomnia and adverse reaction to medications she was prescribed. But he concluded that Clancy was “criminally responsible” for the killings.

“She retained an awareness of the illegality of killing others, including her children,” he said. “Her moral awareness of this killing was influenced by her strong desire to die and, if she was dead, not to leave her children behind.”

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.

Heilbrun said Clancy’s actions involved a set of choices that she had to make and ran counter to her claim that they involved no decision-making on her part.

“This is difficult but important to say. There are many ongoing decisions that have to be made to accomplish a killing like this in 18 to 20 minutes,” Heilbrun said. “For example, why the basement? Who among the children goes first? What do you say to the kids to keep them from panicking.”

Prosecutors are expected to call at least one more expert witness Tuesday. That will be followed by closing arguments, likely no earlier than Wednesday.

Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.