Livestream: Lindsay Clancy murder trial continues with prosecution’s final expert witness on the stand

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On the stand: Dr. Gregory Saathoff, senior psychiatrist for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia

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The prosecution’s final expert witness in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial returns to the stand Wednesday ahead of closing arguments later this week.

Dr. Gregory Saathoff, a forensic psychiatrist who also works with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, previously told jurors that Clancy had a long history of misleading her family and health care providers about her mental health before she strangled her three children and attempted suicide on Jan. 24, 2023. 

According to Saathoff, the text messages and photographs Clancy shared in the weeks and months leading up to the killings “really portrayed something very different than what she stated, later stated, was going on inside.” 

Clancy, now 36, has admitted to strangling 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan at home in Duxbury on the 24th. However, she maintains she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis and heard a voice in her head instructing her to kill the children and herself. 

Saathoff cast doubt on Clancy’s psychosis claim Tuesday, noting the timing and content of the purported hallucinations varied across her conversations with other experts who evaluated her. He testified that Clancy told him the voice had one constant, repetitive message: “This is your last chance. You have to kill your kids and then kill yourself.’” 

Saathoff also described it as “unusual” that the evening of Jan. 24, 2023, was the first and last time Clancy reported experiencing auditory hallucinations. 

“And also, what was very unusual was the fact that the voice stopped with the death of, or the strangling of, her youngest son, Callan,” he said, adding that he hasn’t seen an instance wherein acting on a command hallucination is “curative” in getting rid of the voice.

Another prosecution rebuttal expert, forensic psychologist Kirk Heilbrun, testified earlier Tuesday that, in his professional opinion, Clancy retained control over her actions on the night of the killings and should be held criminally responsible. He previously told jurors he thought Clancy’s actions that night were more in line with altruistic filicide than with acute psychosis accompanied by command hallucinations. 

Though Clancy reported worsening depression and hopelessness leading up to the 24th, “she retained an awareness of the illegality of killing others, including killing her children,” Heilbrun testified. “Her moral awareness of the wrongfulness of this killing was influenced by her strong desire to die and, if she were dead, not to leave her children behind.” 

He also suggested Clancy experienced peritraumatic dissociation, which he described as more common than psychosis during trauma. According to Heilbrun, peritraumatic dissociation can result “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.”

Clancy, he said, showed signs of peritraumatic dissociation regarding the killings.

“She talked about feeling like it wasn’t her, like she was watching herself, like she was going through what she called ‘no thinking, no decision-making, only responding to the voice and taking action,’” Heilbrun recalled.  

Still, he argued Clancy did show some decision-making capability as she strangled her children and attempted to take her own life. 

On cross-examination, Heilbrun rejected defense attorney Kevin Reddington’s assertion that before he even met with Clancy, he “pretty much had an idea that this woman was a beast who killed her three kids.” 

“I would not agree with you at all,” Heilbrun shot back, adding, “I did my best to have an open mind.”

Judge William Sullivan told jurors testimony in Clancy’s trial is expected to wrap up Wednesday, with closing arguments likely slated for Thursday.

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between. She has been covering the Lindsay Clancy murder case since January 2023.