A forensic psychiatrist told jurors in Lindsay Clancy's Massachusetts murder trial that she was experiencing a 'command hallucination' when she killed her three children in January 2023, saying she believed sending them to heaven would be doing them a favour.
The testimony came on Friday as Clancy's defence presented its final witness in a case centred on whether she was legally responsible for the deaths of Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan.
Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, with her lawyers arguing that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time.
Psychiatrist Says She's Unable To Control Her Actions
Forensic psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, who evaluated Clancy after the killings and reviewed her medical records, told the jury that her mental state had left her unable to control her actions or understand them in the way the law requires.
'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,' Resnick said.
He described what he believed was happening in her mind as more than a single hallucination. According to his testimony, Clancy experienced a 'command hallucination' alongside what he called a 'delusion of influence'.
Resnick said Clancy was effectively following a command rather than making a conventional decision to kill.
'It was a matter where she was just following the command rather than being able to make any decision to do it or not,' he told jurors.
His account goes directly to the central question in the trial. The defence does not dispute that Clancy carried out the killings. Instead, it argues that the severe psychiatric illness she was experiencing meant she should not be held criminally responsible for what happened.
Resnick also testified that Clancy likely could not distinguish right from wrong on the day of the deaths. In her state of mind, he said, she believed her children would be better off accompanying her to heaven rather than remaining on Earth without her.
'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,' Resnick testified.
That claim remains the defence's interpretation of Clancy's mental state, rather than an established finding by the court.
Lindsay Clancy Trial Puts Postpartum Psychosis Into Spotlight
The prosecution has offered a starkly different account. Prosecutors allege Clancy made a calculated decision to intentionally kill her children before attempting to take her own life by jumping from a second-floor window.
She survived the fall but was paralysed and has attended the trial in a wheelchair.
The killings took place in the family's Massachusetts home in January 2023. Prosecutors allege Clancy strangled the three children using fitness bands before jumping from the window.
The defence has argued that her behaviour was linked to a deterioration in her mental health following the birth of Callan. Clancy had been receiving psychiatric treatment and checked herself into a psychiatric hospital for several days shortly before the deaths.
Earlier in the trial, members of Clancy's family described changes in her mental health after the birth of her youngest child. Her former mother-in-law, Susan Clancy, described her as a 'very nurturing, very loving' mother and told the court that she had been 'begging for help'.
The testimony has placed postpartum psychosis at the heart of the proceedings. The NHS describes the condition as a rare but serious mental illness that can develop soon after childbirth and stresses that it is different from the 'baby blues'.
'It's a serious mental illness and should be treated as a medical emergency,' the NHS says.
For Clancy, however, the medical explanation must now be weighed against the prosecution's claim that she deliberately carried out the killings. The jury is expected to begin considering the case early next week after almost a month of testimony.
