The Voice Lindsay Clancy Says Told Her to Kill Lasted Just 18 Minutes. A Psychologist Says That’s ‘Very, Very Unusual’

Lindsay Clancy is accused of intentionally killing her three young children

Her defense attorney has argued that she was not criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis

A forensic psychologist testified that Clancy said a male voice told her, "This is your last chance. You have to kill the kids so you can kill yourself"

A psychologist testified that Lindsay Clancy reported hearing a male voice for the first and only time during the roughly 18 minutes the killings of her three children occurred.

"She only experienced it for the 18 minutes or so that it took to kill the children," Kirk Heilbrun, who evaluated the mother of three, testified on Monday, August 24, the Boston Globe reported. "And to put it mildly, that would be a very, very unusual pattern or manifestation of how this kind of thing comes about."

Heilbrun told the court that Clancy said the male voice told her, "This is your last chance. You have to kill the kids so you can kill yourself."

Heilbrun said the timing was unusual and said it could be a way to lessen her culpability.

Prosecutors allege Clancy deliberately strangled her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan — with exercise bands at their Duxbury, Mass., home in January 2023.

After killing the children, she jumped out of a second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt, leaving her paralyzed.

Clancy, 36, does not deny she killed her children.

Her defense attorney has argued that she was not criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the murders.

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Heilbrun also testified that Clancy killed her children because she thought the children would suffer without her and that killing them would allow them to be "together in heaven."

During testimony on Tuesday, August 25, forensic psychiatrist Gregory Saathoff, testified that Clancy, who he interviewed twice in 2026, told him she first killed her son Dawson, then Cora and then her youngest child.

"All during this time where this voice is over and over, over again saying, "This is your last chance. You have to kill the children before you kill yourself," he testified.

Asked by a prosecutor if there was significance to the fact that the voice told her to kill the children, but did not tell her how to kill them, he responded, "Yes."

"You know, just like adults, children have a will to survive — a strong, strong will to survive. I think it's just part of being human," Saathoff said. "I mean, they are active. They can walk. They can run."

The closely watched four-week trial held in Plymouth County Superior Court has drawn national attention and sparked debate about postpartum mental health and the treatment of women experiencing psychiatric crises.

More than 70 witnesses have testified during the proceedings including medical experts, friends, law enforcement and Clancy's ex-husband Patrick.