"Almost Like She Was a Puppet": The Expert War at the Heart of Lindsay Clancy's Murder Trial

The defense rested its case in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial on Friday at Plymouth Superior Court, capping an 18-day proceeding with testimony from one of the country's most prominent forensic psychiatrists — and setting up what is expected to be an explosive final week of rebuttal witnesses, followed by closing arguments as early as Monday. The case turns on a single, fundamental question of criminal law: when Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children in the basement of her Duxbury, Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023, was she a mother who made a deliberate and rational choice to kill, or a woman so entirely consumed by psychosis that she had no meaningful control over her own actions?

The competing answers offered by the two sides' psychiatric experts — given in testimony that has ranged from clinical and methodical to quietly devastating — have reduced that question to its sharpest possible form.

What the Defense Expert Said: "A Puppet With Someone Else Pulling the Strings"

Dr. Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist with expertise in postpartum disorders and a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, testified as the defense's final expert witness via video conference as he recovers from an unexpected hospitalization. The Boston Globe

Resnick was direct in his conclusion: "She was clearly psychotic on that day. Not only did she hear a command, but she felt that her body was taken over by an external force where she was in a dream state and did not have control of her own body. It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings." CBS News

Resnick testified that he believed Clancy was "frankly psychotic" on the day she killed her children and labelled it a "postpartum psychosis," citing the change in her mental state when her third child was born. He added that Clancy was hearing not only a voice he called a "command hallucination," but that she felt what is known as a "delusion of influence" and that an "external force" took over her body. The Boston Globe

Resnick testified that the command hallucination struck after Clancy's then-husband Patrick Clancy left their family home to run errands that evening. He noted that even just hours before the killings, Clancy wasn't "frankly psychotic" every minute of the day — she had built a snowman with her children and taken her daughter to the doctor for an annual checkup, a level of functioning that indicated she wasn't psychotic until the command hallucination began. ABC NewsThe Boston Globe

Resnick also said Clancy may have believed she was doing what was right for her children. "She was obsessional about caring for her children," he said. "She believed that she would be doing her children a favor by having them go to heaven with her rather than remain on Earth without her doing the mothering. Her mind was very distorted like that." CBS News

Resnick, who has consulted on several high-profile criminal cases including Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrea Yates, testified that he evaluated Clancy and interviewed her parents and found she was severely depressed and had bipolar disorder that started after giving birth to Callan, her third child. He has previously testified in the Andrea Yates case — the Texas mother who successfully brought an insanity plea citing postpartum mental health conditions and was ultimately acquitted of murder charges after killing her five children. WBUR NewsThe Boston Globe

What the Prosecution Expert Said: She Knew It Was Wrong

For the prosecution, Dr. Avram Mack, a psychiatrist who practices and teaches in Pennsylvania, testified that in his opinion Clancy was suffering from "major depressive disorder," not psychosis. He said she methodically killed her children, even though she knew it was wrong, and said she should have done more to stop herself from harming them. ABC News

While Mack spent much of his testimony pushing back on the defense's claims that Clancy was experiencing psychosis or was bipolar when she killed her children, he argued that even in the throes of psychosis, Clancy likely would have been able to tell the difference between right and wrong in his opinion. ABC News

During cross-examination, prosecutor Jennifer Sprague noted that in an article Resnick wrote called "Faking It," he said command hallucinations are among the symptoms most commonly feigned by defendants. Resnick responded directly: "No, Ms. Clancy had impulses to harm her children and she did resist until the command hallucination when she was overwhelmed." CBS News

Earlier in the trial, a separate prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. Sejal Shah, testified that she examined Clancy multiple times at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital in January and February 2023. In a January 30, 2023 assessment, Clancy denied having suicidal or homicidal intentions, denied having hallucinations or delusions that day, and her thought-process was "organized" and "goal-directed." In another assessment in February, Clancy was focused on her legal and physical situation and was looking forward to her rehab. CNN

What Actually Happened on January 24, 2023

On January 24, 2023, Clancy fatally strangled her three children — five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan — in the basement of their Duxbury, Massachusetts home using exercise resistance bands. She then cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window in a suicide attempt, leaving her partially paralyzed. CNN

According to testimony during the trial, Clancy said "go to God" as she strangled each of her children. The defense attorney Kevin Reddington noted that the prosecution will call three rebuttal witnesses. Closing arguments are expected early next week. The Boston GlobeCBS News

The Insanity Defense and Its Standard

Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder. The defense has admitted to the killings but argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not "criminally responsible." Under Massachusetts law, a defendant is not criminally responsible if, as a result of a mental disease or defect, they lacked the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of their conduct or to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law. The prosecution's theory — articulated in opening statements — is that she "deliberately and meticulously" killed her children and "acted intentionally, rationally, and swiftly to accomplish a very specific goal." CNN

What the Trial Has Exposed About Postpartum Mental Health

Beneath the competing psychiatric testimony lies a dimension of this case that advocates for maternal mental health have been watching closely from the beginning: the question of whether Clancy's many providers in the months before the killings failed to recognize and properly treat a severe postpartum psychiatric illness. Resnick's assessment supports a defense theory that Clancy's many mental health providers who treated her for postpartum anxiety and insomnia failed to properly diagnose her or prescribe appropriate medications in the months before she killed her children. The Boston Globe

That allegation — that what Resnick ultimately concluded was bipolar disorder with postpartum psychosis was missed or undertreated by multiple clinicians — will remain one of the most painful and consequential aspects of this case regardless of the jury's verdict. Three children are dead. A mother is on trial for their murder. And the trial has exposed, in granular and devastating clinical detail, what can happen when severe postpartum psychiatric illness is not identified, not properly treated, and not caught before it reaches its most catastrophic possible expression.

The jury will begin deliberating following closing arguments early next week.

Sources

1. Boston Globe — Expert witnesses give dueling assessments of whether Lindsay Clancy was in psychosis the day she killed her children
2. CBS Boston — Lindsay Clancy told children "go to God" during murders, prosecution psychiatrist says at trial
3. CNN — Lindsay Clancy's triple-murder trial nears its end as defense attorney rests his case
4. CNN — Lindsay Clancy was 'calm and cooperative' days after killing children, psychiatrist says
5. ABC News / Good Morning America — Psychiatrist calls Clancy's mental state into question in testimony after defense rests
6. Boston Globe — Lindsay Clancy said 'Go to God' as she strangled each of her children, psychiatrist testifies
7. WBUR News — The defense rests in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy