Lindsay Clancy didn't have acute psychosis when she killed her 3 children, psychologist says

Lindsay Clancy did not have acute psychosis when she killed her three children but rather took their lives so they wouldn’t “suffer” after she took her own life, a forensic psychologist testified Monday in her murder trial.

Kirk Heilbrun said he ruled out acute psychosis with command hallucinations because he didn’t believe Clancy when she said she heard a voice telling her to “kill the children so you can kill yourself.”

“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. But she only experienced it for the 18 minutes or so that it took to kill the children,” Heilbrun testified. “To put it mildly, that would be a very, very unusual pattern or manifestation of how this kind of thing comes about. Very unusual.”

A key issue at trial is Clancy's mental health. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington does not dispute that Clancy killed the children in January 2023 but says she shouldn’t be held criminally responsible because she had postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that 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.