Postpartum depression murder trial — Massachusetts v. Lindsay Clancy

Currently Playing: Psychologist Says Lindsay Clancy's 'Control' Needs Led To Chidlren's Murders

Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague finished her direct-exam of forensic psychologist and rebuttal witness Kirk Heilburn this morning (Tuesday, August 25, day 7), and she questioned him about the decisions Lindsay Clancy had to have made when she strangled her children. "That's the kind of thing that you experience when you're going through a very frightening or traumatic set of situation or circumstances or whatever, and it's the sort of thing that you can experience in the sense that you kind of feel that things are unreal or that it's not you." "It's like you're watching yourself go through actions, and so on, and it's the sort of thing that if you talk about it, it sounds like it could be psychotic, but it's actually a recognized, more likely to be a recognized aspect of going through a traumatic situation or set of circumstances that many people going through something like that would experience." Heliburn testified he doesn't believe Clancy was psychotic when she killed the children on Jan. 24, 2023, and instead killed them because she wanted to stay in control of them after she killed herself. You can watch Heliburn's testimony from Monday here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhOsl3GNoGo 01:06 "And when you say going through something like that, are you talking about when the defendant was strangling her children?" "That would be some. That would be one example because that was very traumatic for her." 01:36 "Doctor, the choice of where to strangle the children. Does that have to be a choice of where that happens?" "Yes." "The decision of how to strangle them is that is that a decision that needs to be made?" "Yes." 03:38 "What to use to strangle the children is that a decision that has to be made?" "Yes, it is." 05:21 "And were there any differences in her demeanor or her way of answering questions between the first day and the third day?" "Yes, actually, I interviewed her and worked with her on testing for three days, and during the first and the second day, She was quite attuned to the question. Her recollection was good, even considering that we were more than three years away from some of the some of the events in question. She had, I thought, a very good memory for for dates and medications and dosages and times and other relevant details, and she continued to have to be attentive and responsive, good attention concentration, that sort of thing." "On the second day, on the third day, when we were talking about mental state at the time of the offense and the circumstances of what was going on with the alleged offense, she appeared to me much more cautious and guarded." 09:54 "So the the two differences where at Brigham she's saying, the voice said you. Have to kill yourself so you can kill the children, and that the children would suffer without her. Versus after that, when she says the voice only said, you have to kill the kids so you can kill yourself. Is is the fact that the she's giving two different statements significant in your evaluation?" "As I talked about in my testimony yesterday, when there is inconsistency, that's something that alerts me to the possibility of inaccuracy. And two statements that are mutually exclusive or inconsistent suggest to me that there there is a problem. One of them, at least, is not accurate." 10:46 "And doctor, did you find any significance in your evaluation to the fact that she was able to complete a phone call with her husband during this time frame of killing the children and herself?" "Yes, that was very unusual in my experience to have a crucial time interrupted by something like a phone call, because one of the considerations there is that you then not only can document the time that it happened, and that helps be more precise about the time, but you also have whoever is on the other end of the phone, and this was her husband when she when he called her at 5:33." "She didn't pick up, but she called back immediately at 5:34. And when I talked to him during the collateral interview, one of the things he said is that she sounded, on the short call, distracted, and like she was in the middle of something. But it wasn't anything that struck him as that unusual." 14:51 "One of the considerations is why she got to the point where she decided to take her own life. ... She's an individual who, for most of her life, has been disciplined and liked to control things, liked to work hard, like to accomplish things." 16:16 "She was experiencing bipolar two disorder, depressive symptoms, and there were other things that were exacerbating that, making it worse."