A suburban Illinois mother has been charged with murder in the killing of her son, 2. Prosecutors said she had “become very invested” in the Lindsay Clancy case.
A mother in suburban Illinois has been charged with murder in the killing of her 2-year-old son after she reportedly developed a fascination with the Lindsay Clancy case.
Corie A. Walsh, 40, of Frankfort, Ill., has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, the Frankfort Police Department said in a Sept. 4 news release. Prosecutors say a neighbor found Barrett Walsh, 2, on Sept. 1, hanging from a rafter in the family’s basement.
When police arrived at about 4 p.m. local time, the neighbor had taken the toddler down and was performing CPR, but the child had no pulse, according to court documents cited by NBC News, ABC 7 in Chicago and CBS News. The child was taken to a local hospital where he was later pronounced dead. Three other children at the home were unharmed, police said.
Officers found Corie Walsh in an upstairs bathtub “fully dressed, surrounded by bloody water,” according to the filings, cited by NBC 5 Chicago. Walsh had injured herself with a knife, ABC 7 in Chicago reported.
She was taken to a local hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, police said. On Friday, Sept. 4, Walsh was taken to Will County Detention Facility, according to inmate records.
Walsh’s husband was out of town at the time of the incident, according to the filing. Among the three other children in the home were an infant and two children who returned home from school at about the time the neighbor found the 2-year-old, according to the filing.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, their loved ones, and everyone affected by this heartbreaking tragedy,” Chief Leanne Chelepis said in the news release posted on Facebook. “We ask our community to keep them in their thoughts and prayers and to respect their privacy as they navigate this profoundly difficult time.”
Illinois case eerily similar to that of Lindsay Clancy
The case in Frankfort, about 35 miles southwest of Chicago, in some ways echoes the Clancy case, which captivated the nation for weeks.
Clancy, 36, was charged with three counts of murder in the January 2023 strangulation deaths of her three children – Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months – at the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home. Clancy pleaded not guilty; her defense argued that she was not criminally responsible – also known as an insanity defense – because she was suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis at the time.
The trial ended Friday, Sept. 4, in a hung jury and the judge declaring a mistrial.
Corie Walsh had “recently become very invested in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial,” prosecutors said in their petition to deny her pretrial release, NBC News reported. Walsh had been “actively discussing the case” in group text messages with friends on Tuesday, Sept. 1, just hours before the neighbor and police came to the Walsh home.
According to court documents, Walsh told investigators that she committed the act because her son was the “devil” and the “anti-Christ,” ABC 7 in Chicago reported.
“This is a tragedy, for the Walsh family all of whom are mourning the loss of this child,” Andrea Lyon, an attorney representing Walsh, said in a statement to USA TODAY. “It is also a tragedy in that Corie herself was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time this happened. It is our hope that through a thorough presentation and investigation of the facts, that all of us will come to see this heartbreak for what it is.”
Contributing: Christopher Cann and Melina Khan
Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com.