A jury is to determine whether Lindsay Clancy is criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023 in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She was being treated for postpartum mental health issues when she killed the children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was 8 months old. Plymouth County Superior Court Judge William Sullivan is presiding over the jury trial, which began on July 27 and is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Curated by: Meghann Cuniff (223 videos)
A senior psychiatrist in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Analysis Unit testified on Tuesday that he didn't see delusional statements or beliefs surrounding the time that Lindsay Clancy claimed to hear a voice that commanded her to kill her children. Prosecutors seeking three murder convictions against Clancy called Gregory Saathoff as a witness to rebut defense testimony about Clancy's mental state when she killed 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan in their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home on Jan. 24, 2023. Clancy's lawyer Kevin Reddington argues she was experiencing postpartum psychosis and should be declared not guilty because she didn't know what she was doing. Saathoff is the final witness. He'll continue testifying on Wednesday (August 26, day 21). Attorneys are expected to give closing arguments on Thursday, then the jury will begin deliberating. Saathoff's analaysis was similar to testimony from psychologist Kirk Heilburn, another rebuttal witness. Saathoff said Clancy "had not spoken about hearing voices before that in any of the any of the mental health professionals, the psychiatrists, the nurse practitioners, the physicians, and staff in the emergency departments or at McLean [psychiatric facility], and so this was the first time that she reported that was was documented, but also that she experienced an auditory hallucination, according to what she told me." "So that was that was unusual, And then, also, what was very unusual was the fact that the voice stopped with the death of or the the strangling of her of of her youngest son, Callan," Saathoff said. "Is it typical for someone in psychosis to hear a voice only one time, never before, never after?" asked Jennifer Sprague, an assistant district attorney in Plymouth County. "No," Saathoff said. "And is it typical, based on your training and experience, for someone to hear command hallucinations and then for them to stop abruptly?" Sprague asked. "No, committing the act is not curative of the voice. I've not ever seen that," Saathoff said. You can watch Saathoff's entire direct-exam on my YouTube channel and Facebook page.