Psychologist testifies Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible

Add ARY News on GoogleFollow on Google DiscoverLindsay Clancy, looks toward reporters in the courtroom during proceedings in her murder trial. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, Pool)AAResizeIt was a critical twist in the high-profile murder case of Lindsay Clancy, as a key prosecution expert argued that the Massachusetts mom was criminally responsible for the death of her three children.

As a rebuttal witness, forensic psychologist Dr. Kirk Heilbrun testified before a Massachusetts court that he had compiled an extensive psychological report, which was based on three days of in-person clinical interviews.

His testimony directly undermined the main defense argument, which was that what had happened to Clancy was an inexplicable, near-fatal postpartum psychosis, or hearing voices she couldn’t help but ignore.

Heilbrun’s rigorous assessment offered the prosecution ample clinical proof to rebut post-partum insanity claims made by her defense attorneys.

Expert Dr. Heilbrun told the jury that Clancy was morally aware, knew what she was doing and had sufficient cognitive clarity and executive functioning to understand her actions during the killing at her family’s home in Duxbury.

The defense counsel claimed that mental state was quite fractured due to changes in her psychiatric medication and so many mental health issues, while the state’s expert said her responses represented intentional behaviors, not a psychotic break from reality.

The prosecution’s case largely depended on the timeline of the five-year-old’s, three-year-old’s and eight-month-old’s strangulation deaths.

Dr. Heilbrun pointed out that carrying it out must have been thought out carefully, through a series of steps, within 18 to 20 minutes while her husband was out briefly running an errand.

She said Clancy had a premeditated desire to end her life, but her intention to take her children with her was motivated by her own belief system, rather than a psychotic compulsion, in favor of her action, which was part of the state’s case that she was legally responsible.

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