Hidden True Crime - FILICIDE: The Lindsay Clancy Case Part 2: What led Clancy to her crime?

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

Recording of our Hidden Hour LIVE SHOW, February 10, 2023. Each Friday night our Hidden Gems can ask our host--forensic psychologist Dr. John Matthias--questions on our YouTube Channel: Hidden True Crime A Massachusetts's mother--Lindsay Clancy-- is arraigned from her hospital bed and we learn more of her alleged crimes. She is charged with strangling her three children. Were Clancy's crimes premeditated? What does this new information mean when it comes to Clancy's alleged crimes? NOTE: If you are thinking of harming yourself or a child, call 911 or your local emergency number. The National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: 1-833-9-HELP4MOMS (1-833-943-5746) provides access to trained counselors and resources 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in 60 languages. All parties discussed are innocent until proven guilty. HIDDEN: A TRUE CRIME PODCAST is: CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY REINVENTED. Join a forensic psychologist and journalist (who happen to be husband and wife) on a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind and the unconscious motivations that drive human behaviors in order to understand the world and ourselves.  Subscribe for Friday night lives, psychological analysis, and insider interviews for an in depth look at crimes.  DR. JOHN MATTHIAS is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with 30 years’ experience in both clinical and forensic work. He serves as an expert witness for the federal government and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases for District Attorney’s offices and defense attorneys in several states. In the forensic area, Dr. Matthias has developed expertise in personality assessments, hidden behavioral motivations, complex trauma and criminal psychology. In the clinical realm, he has worked with numerous victims. He received his Master’s degree in Marriage, Family and Child counseling, as well his doctorate degree, from the University of Southern California.  Dr. Matthias graduated with honors in philosophy from Princeton University, and he won the prestigious McCosh Thesis prize while there. In high school he graduated valedictorian from a large public high school in Chicago where he was chosen to participate in a ground-breaking valedictory study that continues to this day.  Dr. Matthias has been an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Nevada Las Vegas clinical psychology doctoral program since 2007. He supervises UNLV doctoral students on forensic assessments, clinical case formulation, and various therapeutic approaches to clinical work. LAUREN MATTHIAS has worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in East Idaho, Boise, and Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah. In 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award. She left the reporting world to produce the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. Your support helps us produce these podcasts/videos. We have some big plans to explore the true crime terrain in a way that no one else has attempted.  WEBSITE: https://hiddentruecrime.com/ TO SUPPORT:  https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime https://cash.app/$hiddenTruecrime Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lately, I've been trying to be more intentional about what I wear, intentional about everything, just choosing pieces that feel effortless, still put together, timeless, but also not overthinking it every morning. It's why I keep going back to quince. Their pieces just make getting dressed easier and I feel so classy. I feel elevated. The fits are flattering. The fabric is really high quality. Everything is wearable day to day. I actually got this really, really, beautiful yellow V-neck midi dress from them, and I paired it with some Italian leather sandals. It's one of those outfits that just works. It feels polished but still comfortable. It's exactly what I've been looking for. What surprises me, though, is the quality for the price. Quince

uses premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, but they cut out the middleman. So everything is priced way lower than you'd expect. Refresh. your every day with luxury you can actually use. Head to quince.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, quince, q-u-in-cce.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hidden true crime. Hidden gems. It's Lauren with Hidden a true crime podcast. As a TV reporter, I learned the art of visual storytelling. So if you're like me, you enjoy listening, but also viewing. You can actually head to our YouTube channel, Hidden True Crime, to watch these interviews. Hit the subscribe button for surprise lives and breaking

news and for exclusive content. Become a Patreon member at patreon.com slash hidden true crime. You'll find bonus episodes, early releases, and insider info. Thank you for your endless support. Hidden, a true crime podcast, a forensic psychologist, and journalist explore the hidden motives behind unthinkable crimes while examining our deepest fears along the way. Hello, Hidden Gems. Thank you for coming here tonight for an important case that Dr. John and I have been covering. We talked about it last week to give a brief overview of those that are our new Lindsay Clancy

is a mother in Massachusetts, 32-year-old mother who strangled her three children. Of course, she's not guilty of anything yet. Let's point that out. She was presumably murdered her children. While her husband went to grab takeout. We discussed postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis last Friday. And this week we have an update. Lindsay Clancy was arraigned.

And we want to show a bit of that arraignment to help explain and give a summary of what we learned this week and then discuss it. It presents a different picture than last week for sure. It's worth discussing because the prosecution, the DA had a lot of information that we did. know and it's interesting information. I'm not sure it changes anything. I still think that Lindsay Clancy fits probably the category that we talked about last week of psychotic slash depressed type mother for Philicide. I don't think it changes that, but it certainly raises some questions.

I don't have any answers here. I think we need to have a discussion about this. I'm not professing to have a strong opinion here. I think ultimately the Lindsay Clancy case will be decided by experts who interviewer and spend a lot of time with her and really do a deep dive and figure out what's going on and that is not me at the moment. But I think the new information is interesting and it's worth talking about and I think it can hopefully enlarge our understanding to fill aside. Let's play a bit of this enraignment. Count one murder, juvenile one. Count two, 265 section one murder, juvenile. So please if not guilty, we'll be entered. Please be advised while this case is pending any violation of state, federal, local law may result in bail being revoked.

be held without pain. One of the first questions that Lindsay Clancy asked was, do I need an attorney? She knew that she had murdered her children and she had the clarity, focus, and mental acumen to focus on protecting her own rights and interests. On the morning of Tuesday, January 24th, 2023, the defendant took her five-year-old daughter court to the pediatricians for an appointment. She interacted with a receptionist, nursing staff, and a doctor. There were apparently no issues with the defendant's demeanor or behavior as she completed the appointment and was allowed to leave with Corps without any issues or concerns. When she returned home, she went outside with

Kor and a three-year-old son, Dawson, to play in the snow. They built a snowman. The defendant sent photos to her mother and to her husband. She texted with them. Nothing in the text was out of the ordinary or any sign of any distress or trouble. Back inside later that day at 4.02 p.m., the defendant searched on her phone, Kids Miralax. She then searched at takeout 3V via her cell phone at 4.13 p.m. Immediately after doing that, she used Apple Maps on her phone to determine how long it would take someone to drive from her home in Duxbury to 3V restaurant in Plymouth. So she would know how long someone would be gone if they were in that errand. At 4.53 p.m., the defendant texted her husband, who was working in his home office in their basement. She texted, any chance you want to do takeout from 3V.

I didn't cook anything. It's been a long day. This was an unusual request, as when the family ordered takeout, they usually go somewhere closer to home, but it was a place that they had been in the past. Patrick Clancy texted back yes, and then the defendant asked him to check the menu. At 5.06 p.m., the husband texted the defendant asking what she was going to get. She responded, a Mediterranean Power Bowl. She spelled it correctly, and it was something that was on the menu. He then told her that he wanted the scallop and pork belly risotto.

At 510 p.m., the defendant called 3V restaurant to place the order. She got the order correct. She gave the correct name for pickup, Patrick. The hostess who took the call said there was nothing out of the ordinary about this call. She was able to understand the defendant that her voice was not slurred or impaired in any way. At 5.15 p.m., Patrick Clancy headed out the door to run these errands at the defendant's request. As he left, she texted him PDLX liquid stool softener. Surveillance footage shows Mr. Clancy at CBS on Summer Street in Kingston at 532 p.m.

He goes to the medication aisle, the children's medication aisle. Phone records show that he called the defendant at 533 p.m. And she did not answer the phone. She then calls him back at 5.34 p.m. and the call lasted 14 seconds. He's there at the store unsure of which medication to get. And she tells him exactly what she wants. He had no issues communicating with her. It was a completely normal call, although he did mention that she seemed like she was in the middle of something.

He is on surveillance footage during this time exiting that aisle and appeared to be using his phone. He then heads to the register and makes his purchase and leaves the store at 537 p.m. He's next seen on footage at 3V restaurant at 5.54 p.m. He picks up the food and he's out of there within a minute. When he arrives home, the first thing he noticed was the silence. He did not see or hear the defendant or the children. He actually called her cell phone at 609 p.m. looking for them, and she did not answer. He went to their bedroom on the second floor and the door was locked.

He was able to open it, and when he looked inside, he saw blood on the floor in front of a full-length mirror in the window open. He immediately runs downstairs and into the backyard, where he finds the defendant laying on the ground. She appeared to have cuts on her wrists and neck, but he stated to 911 that those wounds were no longer bleeding. She was conscious. He called 911. During this time he asked the defendant, what did you do? She responded to him, I tried to kill myself and jumped out the window. During the 911 call, Patrick can be heard asking the defendant, where are the kids? He later told police that she replied, in the basement. So immediately after this happened, she knew what she had done and she knew where the kids were. When E.M.

When the M.S arrived, he asked them to stay with her so he could go find his kids. The 911 call kept going. Patrick can be heard on the 911 call entering the home and heading to the basement. At one point he calls out, guys. He can then be heard screaming and agony in shock as he found his children. His screams seem to get louder and more agonized as the time passes. Cora and Callan were on the floor in the den area of the finished basement, which is to the left when you walk down the stairs, while Dawson was alone on the floor in his father's

home office, which is to the right when you go down the stairs. Each child still had the exercise band that was used to strangle them, tied around their necks when their father found them. Dawson and Callan were faced down on the floor. Cora was on her side with her torso turned towards the floor. He removed the bands and begged them to breathe. He could, continued to scream uncontrollably and screened for officers to come to the basement. The dispatchers are hearing this and they send help down to the basement and when they encounter Patrick, he yells out she killed the kids. The police rushed the children to ambulances that brought them to the hospital and unfortunately Cora and Dawson were declared dead at the hospital. Callan was med-flight at the Boston Children's Hospital.

Medical staff was able to restart his pulse but not his brain activity. He was placed on life support for several days before Patrick. passing away. The defendant was transported to South Shore Hospital and then to a Boston Area Hospital where she remains. She sustained several broken bones in her back and her rib cage. The police were able to find several notebooks in the defendant's home pursuant to a search warrant and also notes on her phone that were similar to journal entries. In the months, weeks, and days preceding January 24th, 2023, the defendant meticulously detailed her daily activities, her children's lives, her mental state and her medication use. Her writing was clear, precise, and articulate.

She never indicated that she was hallucinating, delusional, or had disorder thoughts or speech. In all of her writing, she appears to know who she is, where she is, the date, and with whom she's interacted. She wrote a note on her phone the day before killing the children, stating that she had, quote, a touch of postpartum anxiety. End quote. around returning to work. So you have a paraplegic who can't walk, who is definitely a danger to herself, and the government wants to put her in, where?

Framingham State Prison, Plymouth House of Correction? There's no way that any humane person would do that, especially within the structure of our criminal justice system, where a person is presumed innocent, and I'm not suggesting what the first. facts that the government has read, but she has a good defense. She's got a damn good defense to this case because that's what happened. And I just want to share with you, Your Honor, one of the things that's interesting, when I was in the house, I came across a draw that

had a bunch of pill bottles in it, and I called the DA and I said I got these pill bottles and made arrangements I'm going to be giving them to them. And it's all the Prozac and the and tracetone and all that stuff. But inside the draw was this little vase. And I didn't know what it was. It just looked like a little vase to me. And my wife said to me, oh, that looks like a wish base. I said, what's a wish base?

She said when people write down little wishes and they put little pieces of paper and they put them inside the vase. And there are literally dozens of these little pieces of paper that talk about, Mrs. Wies' wish for happiness and health for her children, that she could get pregnant again, that she would be able to be with her children, Little Callan, Gerson, Cora, that they would be happy, healthy, and successful. This is not a woman, Your Honor, that had any reason to harm those innocent children. My request, Your Honor, is that the court would put on a GPS if you feel that's required

and let the doctors continue to treat her, let her go to spolving rehab. Clearly a very difficult thing to listen to for us to hear the new details, which is why John and I keep discussing this case in our home, because it's just so hard to make sense of for me. And so here I am asking Dr. John, who happens to be, for those new to our channel, my husband. So sometimes he's Dr. Babe. He's a forensic and clinical psychologist. And I am his wife. I am a investigative journalist and was a TV reporter for 10 years. After watching that, I want to ask you, John, what your thoughts are,

because this new information really threw me through a loop this week, trying to understand it. It certainly complicates the picture quite a bit. I think for me, this raises more questions and answers. I don't really have a strong opinion here, but I do want to rate some questions. I noticed we're already getting some great comments, so I think we'll have a dialogue about this. Oftentimes, when I think of Philicide, I think of the famous quote from Hamlet. So at the beginning of Hamlet, there's a couple of centuries on the roof of the battlement. They're protecting the castle, and Hamlet's father's ghost appears. And Hamlet's father's ghost, who's King Hamlet, he says, murder most foul, strange, and unnatural.

It's a famous line from Hamlet. I probably won't win any awards for my Shakespearean interpretation there, but this whole idea of murder being foul, strange, and unnatural, I think applies to Philicide. But I think Philicide is one of those types of murders. It's really, really hard to understand and to wrap one's mind around, including myself, no matter how. many times I see it or think about it. It's so unnatural. That quote, I think, really strikes me emotionally

when I think of suicide and I think of this case because most of us recognize that killing children is not normal and it's so outside the range of normality that it can have such a huge impact. So having said that, I want to address what the prosecution talked about. And I'm going to read a quote here from Alice Walker. Alice Walker is a Swiss psychiatrist. She's well known for a book called The Drama of the Gifted Child. She also wrote a book called About the Criminal Mind that most people, less fewer people are aware of called For Your Own Good. This is from that particular book. Walker says every crime contains a concealed story that can be deciphered from the way the misdeed is enacted and from its specific details. The Walker quote,

I think is important in this scenario or this context in terms of asking the question, is there a concealed story here? And how can we decipher that story from the misdeed? So when you learn that the children are strangled with an exercise band, I noticed somebody said in the comments that they'll never see exercise bands the same way. I agree. When I heard that, I was taken back a little bit because when you strangle a child with an exercise band, that's not an immediate death, that takes time. In other words, I think there's quite a bit of suffering that you're witnessing and experiencing with your child when you do something that extreme. And when a child is screaming and begging for their life, and we're talking minutes to kill someone with, you know, multiple

minutes to kill someone with an exercise ban, I guess depending on someone's strength, that when a child is begging for their life and you continue, does that, and this is the question, does that indicate that the person is not having any remorse or empathy, does it indicate potentially? And again, I'm just raising questions here. Does it indicate that maybe there's a sadistic component to this? Is there a dark side to this story that we don't know? So let's go back to Alice Walker.

What's the concealed story? I don't know. That's what I want to know. I don't know what the concealed story is. I think none of us know. I think we're going to start trying to figure that out. But the manner of death here, as Walker point, out gives us maybe some clues. Now, it could be as simple as she's psychotic. And one of her

explanations was that she was hearing voices that, you know, so perhaps this could be a psychotic break with command hallucinations, which when it comes to psychosis, command hallucinations could be a motive. Maybe it's that, but it certainly raises questions. And the whole idea of premeditation that the prosecution brought up about sending her husband out for food and knowing the exact time, how long he would be out, definitely raises questions about her mental state at the time, whether she was oriented and understood the consequences of her actions, whether she understood the wrongness of her actions. So an insanity defense will typically involve those components of understanding consequences and understanding the difference between right or wrong.

Again, those are probably issues that a mental health professional is going to have to sort through and figure out. One of the things I think about when I think about, sometimes when I look at a crime scene or think about a crime scene, I think about is there something metaphorical in this crime scene that can help us understand it? And this is speculation. I could be way off base here, but I'm going to throw this out just as food for thought that the exercise bans indicate that the children suffered. Their deaths were not immediate and quick and painless. They were prolonged. And so that certainly raises interesting questions. The other side of that is this crime is about suffocation and strangulation. And the metaphor I sometimes think of with

her maybe is, does she feel suffocated by her life? Does she feel suffocated by the pressures of work and family and being a mother and by her high expectations of being a mother and by maybe her own perfectionism? I don't know. You know, that's a question I have. And so maybe that's part of this, is those really high and unrealistic expectations she has about being a mother and balancing work and family and all these other components of her life. And maybe that was overwhelming for her. I don't know. Again, what's the concealed story in this crime scene? Which we don't know. But as we... We don't know. But as we follow this case, we hope to learn more. And when we do, we'll talk about it. A lot of great questions here.

I want to thank everyone who leaves their comments and their questions on our YouTube channel after our lives. We go back and look at those before doing our next live to bring up interesting questions and comments. So thank you for those. Always leave your comments and questions if they're not answered on our YouTube channel. Eves writes, and Eves mentioned she's a therapist of 30 years when they write this. I'm guessing that the husband would not have left his wife alone with the kids to get takeout if he had had ever so slightest inkling of what she was about to do. That says to me she was probably pretty good at hiding her inner world

and how desperate she ultimately was. That level of subterfuge really complicates assessment and ongoing care. This podcast is the first I've heard of this unspeakable tragedy and my heart bleeds for all those directly affected by this horrific event. I cannot imagine what in any universe what that poor husband and father must be going through. Yeah, this is a really interesting insight because this gets to some of the issues I want to talk about tonight. And that is, and I want to read back a little part of that quote again, which is she was probably pretty good at hiding her inner world and how desperate she ultimately was. That level of subterfuge really complicates assessment and ongoing care.

Absolutely. That's a great point. So it raises the question I want to raise here, which is, and this isn't talked about that. that much when we talk about philicide. Last week I talked about the two main types of philicide, and those are psychotic depressed, which is indicative of mental health issues. And the other category of philicide would be more of the psychopathic narcissist type. Those are categories by Jeffrey McKee.

He's a forensic psychologist. He's done some interesting work on philicide. And I would still maintain that Lindsay Clancy fits the psychotic depressed type for sure. And as we talked about last week, perhaps somebody like Lori Debel fits more of the psychopathic narcissist type. So we talked about that last week showing the distinctions and categories. But this idea of subterfuge brings up the question of, or it leads to the question I would ask about Lindsay Clancy, which is who is Lindsay Clancy in short. We know that her coworkers really loved her and thought she was kind and compassionate and her husband felt the same way. Even after she murdered her children, of course, she's not guilty of anything yet. Let's point that out.

Presumably murdered her children. One of her co-workers, a nurse said, I do not know a better mother than Lindsay Clancy. She lived and breathed for her children. Erica Severe. To just an example of numerous letters that were sent to her defense attorney, half of them coming from her nurse coworkers. Right. And again, I'm raising questions. I'm not saying this is true. her. This is something that forensic psychologists and psychiatrists are probably going to spar over and clash over. They're going to try to figure these issues out. But when it comes to fill aside, there is a question about what I would call pre-morbid functioning. Or in other words, how was this person psychologically? What was their mental state prior to maybe having a family

growing up? Were there any issues? Were there any mental health issues? Were any issues growing up as a child, and how would those factor into a crime of this nature? And I think those could be important issues because there is some argument that developmental failures or deficits which impact mental health, which then impact or our personality. So developmental deficits might impact mental illness and or characterological issues, which then impact our ability to cope with stress and potentially in a psychotic break when there's psychosis, that would easily overwhelm any ego controls or defense mechanisms we might have, which would then essentially potentially lead to some type of maybe some type of repressed rage. And so the question I would

have, as this comment mentioned about her hiding her inner world and the subterfuge, is there some type of repressed rage from her childhood that we don't know about? Are there developmental deficits or traumas or adverse childhood experiences that might be impacting some of her behaviors here? And again, this is not to say that she's not psychotic and that she wouldn't be judged to be legally insane. I'm just asking questions that any good forensic evaluator would ask, which is how was she functioning as a child as an adolescent? What was she like pre-family before she had children?

Was this psychotic break highly unusual? Were there any indications of psychosis as a child? Were there any indications of personality disorder deficits, such as borderline personality disorder or narcissism? And I don't know. It doesn't appear to me that those would be accurate assessments of her, but I honestly don't know. Exema is unpredictable.

But you can flare less with ebbglis. A once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month- or longer dosing phase, about four in 10 people taking ebb glist, achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. Emglis, Librichizumab, LBKZ. A 250 milligram per 2-millimeter injection injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults

in children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88. pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical topical therapies. Ebglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems.

You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglis. Before starting Epgless, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about Ebglis and visit ebbglis.com or call 1800 lilyrx or 1,800. 500 545-979. What's one financial lesson you learned the hard way? I'll go first. It's not too late to start saving. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you have right now. And one of the best things about acorns is they allow you to see projected growth on their website. Simply go online, type in how much money you'd put in and see

the potential future balance of your account. Sign up now and join the over 13 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $22 billion with Acorns. Head to Acorns.com slash Hidden True Crime or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns Tier 1 compensation provided. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC in S& SEC registered investment advisor. A few important disclosures at acorns.com slash hidden true crime.

Has losing weight and getting healthier been on your mind lately? Have you heard about groundbreaking GLP1 treatments like OZMPIC and WeGO? With Effecti, getting access to these powerful medications has never been easier or more affordable. Starting a new medication is always a bit scary when you aren't sure what to expect. And using Effecti makes it so much easier with their hands on support, which gives unlimited access to license. doctors so you never have to jump through hoops for help with any dosing questions or just other support when you need it. Effecti uses rigorous testing and their products are backed by research so you can rest assured. Ready to level up your weight loss game right now. My listeners can get

$50 off of GLP1 weight loss treatments at effecti.com with code hidden true crime at checkout. That's effecti.com, eFF-F-E-C-T-Y dot com and use code hidden true crime to get $50. off your first month of GLP1 weight loss treatment, no hassles, no memberships, and no hidden fees. Get started today. Hormonal changes are so hard to see the least. Hot flashes, anyone else. Add in the thousands of hormone disruptors that are in our environment, and it is even worse. From our water, food, the air we breathe, and the clothes we wear, they are everywhere. But the good news is that when hormone harmony enters the picture, it can help reduce hormonal symptoms in women of all ages. Harmony is a supplement that contains science-backed herbal extracts called adaptogens.

The best thing about adaptogens, they help the body adapt to any stressors like chaotic hormonal changes that happen naturally throughout a woman's life. Hormone Harmony is actually part of my personal 2024 playbook. Hormone Harmony makes no compromises when it comes to quality and it shows. For a limited time, you can get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com. That's Happy H-A-P-P-Y mammoth. m-a-m-M-M-O-T-H.com, just use the code hidden true crime at checkout. That's code hidden true crime.

Use that with happy mammoth.com for 15% off today. So I think the plot here thickens a little bit based upon the nature of the crime scene, maybe the concealed story that's going on there, and this whole notion of premeditation. And again, somebody can have psychosis. We talked about this last week. Somebody can have psychosis and still engage. in a certain amount of premeditation. So that doesn't necessarily mean that she's not psychotic,

and this isn't a mental health issue. I think it probably is, but I think all these pieces need to be sorted out. I'll say a few things that people are saying. Could she be killing the child that she once was? Hearing that she was such a dedicated mother, you wonder if she understood if she had a separation between herself and her children.

Those are a few things that are being asked. Shelly Shell, thank you so much. Thank you for delving so deeply, she says, into darkness in order to bring what is hidden into light. Shelly Shell, thank you for understanding what our podcast is about. Thank you, Shelly. Let me quickly address your last point. There is a type of philicide that we did not address last week, and it's called extended suicide. An extended suicide is essentially when a mother sees the child as an extension of themselves.

And so if they're going to commit suicide, they want to take their children with them because they don't believe anyone could possibly raise the children as well as them. And they see themselves as ultimately as the only real protectors and people that care for their child. They see themselves as the only ones that can reasonably care for their children. So it's not as common, but there is this category called extended suicide, which goes alongside altruistic, thilicide. and psychotic philocyte.

So altruistic filicide and psychotic philicide, there is this other category called extended suicide. Can I share a story about that? You're making me think of a story.

I know I've told you before. Yeah. It happened about 10 years ago. And I had a girlfriend that I would travel with. She was a single mother. And as we were traveling on an airplane,

she said to me that when she travels with her son, which she loved to do, they were big travelers. she would sometimes worry about the plane crashing. And she told me that if the plane ever crashed with them on it, she hoped that they both died. She did not want to leave this child without her.

I was shocked and I remember saying to her at the time, I think that I would do everything in my power to make sure that my child, that my child was saved. I would die for my child. And this friend disagreed. And she said, well, you don't have a child. child yet, you don't know. And lo and behold, now I have a child. And I can say with certainty that if something happened to me or you, John, I would do everything in my power to make sure our child was okay,

even if we both lost our lives. And so that gets to what you're talking about with extended suicide, that there are mothers, at least what I experienced or parents, that in some way believe that their children aren't going to do well without them. I don't really understand it. And we've talked about this before, but I just thought I would bring this up. Right. And in this category isn't mutually exclusive. You can still have psychosis. You can still have a break from reality and still have that belief. It's possible to experience mental illness and still fall into this extended suicidal typology of suicidal mothers. But it is interesting to think about that as a potential option here.

In our last Hidden Live, we mentioned religion. We discussed religion and how it plays a role in certain cases. And so I wanted to delve into this. Samantha writes, I wish when you talk about religion in these contexts, you would be more careful to point out that the overwhelmingly vast majority of religious people who make up the majority of the world's population do not murder their children, and that religion doesn't typically cause murder. Colts maybe, but not Main Street, Christianity, and other religions, and the many,

many non-religious and religious people do both commit these types of crimes. While some of evil dictators have killed in the name of religion, others have killed who are atheists. Do you want to explain why you brought up religion when it comes to philiccation? Well, so yes, let me clarify. I think it's always a little bit of a risk to mention the word religion in any context on this show because people are so passionate about it and have such strong views about religion. So I always try to be careful. And let me clarify my point. My point was not that religion was the cause of the murders or the phyllisides. My point was that religion sometimes, not always, sometimes. plays a role when people are psychotic, when people are disintegrating, when their selves are completely fractured and they have nothing to hang on to. Sometimes if there's religion involved or religious beliefs, they will grab onto those beliefs, often in an extreme way. So you'll see during psychotic breaks or when there's psychosis, the religious

beliefs tend to be more extreme. And they give that person a lifeline. So, my point was that in the case of, for example, we were talking about Lori Daybell, that in many ways, if she does fit this category of borderline personality disorder, religion became a way for her to shore up her identity. It became a way for her to feel more coherent as a self and more whole. And so rather than feeling fractured and disintegrating, it was the religious beliefs and specifically extreme religious beliefs that gave her a bit of a lifeline. And so I wasn't saying that religion was the cause of her behaviors or Lindsay Clancy's behaviors or anyone's behaviors.

I was merely pointing out that sometimes during psychotic breaks, that religion or political views or ideology usually more extreme, it's more expansive than religion, but oftentimes more extreme beliefs come into play because a psychotic person will look for a way to shore up their disintegrating identity. And oftentimes that will be something that involves ideology or religion. And so I'm not making a causal connection between religion and murder at all. In fact, I'm just pointing out that the role that religion or ideology might play in terms of helping people cope with mental illness or more specifically psychosis in suicide cases. It makes sense to me. Our beliefs help create who we are, right?

They're a crucial component of our identities. And so psychosis is the potential loss of our identities. And so again, that's why somebody may resort to extreme measures or behaviors when they're psychotic, because they've lost that sense of self. They've lost that sense of identity. They're fracturing. They're falling apart. And I think that has to be one of the worst feelings in the world, because it feels like you're not grounded on anything. There's nothing to see. stand on. Your world is, you're falling into the abyss. And when you're falling into the abyss, you're more likely to resort to extreme behaviors. Not always, again, like many psychotic mothers, many women and mothers experience postpartum psychosis who never murder their kids. They have a very

hard time. They get treatment. Lindsay Clancy sought treatment. She did receive some treatment. They come out of that fine. So I'm, only talking about, even with psychosis, I'm only talking about outliers or extreme cases, not all cases. This next question is kind of heavy. You ready? Because I think that this might be something that's on everyone's mind or maybe I shouldn't speak for everyone.

How about this? It's on my mind. Okay. I think that's better. It's from Matt B. He writes, it's interesting for who and for what mental health conditions we choose to have more sympathy. Some suffering appears to be more valid, and maybe it is. A boy who cannot connect with

people, has a bad home life, gets bullied, doesn't receive any mental health help, and then acts out with violence like a school shooter, is morally reprehensible. However, an adult mother who also has severe mental health problems is getting treatment, kills three young children, is more understood and her pain is felt. I am not sure I agree with how our society selectively applies compassion. I hear you, Matt. How do you choose? I don't know if he's referencing Brian Colberger here,

but let's say for the sake of argument he is. You know, you and I, as you know, Lauren, you and I uncovered, or you more than I uncovered the Tapah Talk. forum discussions. Our team uncovered. Our team did, yeah. New York Times and covered that. Kidding. Yeah, the New York Times uncovered it. Right. Let's give them a shout out. We're referring to Brian Coburger's Tap-a-Talk forum where he was a young teenager sharing some mental health symptoms that he was having on a health forum. The 16-year-old Brian Kohlberger, certainly in my mind, deserves compassion.

And I agree that why would we disregard that? Why would we disregard that and potentially extend more compassion to Lindsay Clancy? I will say this. So that's a question. I don't have an answer. But I will say this, though, that I talked a lot about, when we talked about Kovberger, I talked about a lot about the research of Peter Langman. And Langman essentially makes a very similar distinction.

So interestingly enough, Langman essentially categorizes school shooters or mass shooters into three categories. The two most prominent of those categories are psychotic and psychopathic. Does that sound familiar? So in other words, if we look at Langman's research and we look at some of the research on philicide, those are the two broad categories of both mass shooters and people who commit women or men who commit philicide. And so I think this idea of compassion would extend more. My take on this for Matt B would be that I think we tend to have a lot more compassion for people with mental health issues as opposed to people that are psychopathic. So the psychopath who has no remorse and no conscience and doesn't care about, you know, so we haven't heard from Colberger, but it seems that he doesn't seem to have a lot of remorse.

I mean, I guess we'll find out more. Maybe he does. I think there's a presumption that mass shooters, at least as adults, as they get older, really just don't care. They lack empathy and remorse. And it's hard as a community, I think, you can't have a functioning community without people that have empathy and care about their neighbors. So I think it's harder to extend compassion to people that we either perceive to be psychopathic or that are psychopaths, as opposed to people that are having mental health problems. that reach out for help and want help and seek help, and they still commit a horrendous act. And by the way, in the forensic world, this is a really important distinction because mental health issues are much more likely to be seen as something that would qualify for an insanity defense as opposed to a personality disorder like narcissistic personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder. Personality disorders are seen as way more entrenched and way more difficult to change and not necessarily related to insanity. I think that is part of the answer to this question too, that in general, I think even in

forensic world, even in forensic assessments, that people with psychosis are seen differently than people with personality disorders. If somebody perceives even the 16-year-old Koeberger to be utterly deficient of any empathy, he's probably going to receive less compassion that somebody like Lindsay Clancy, who seems very compassionate and she's a nurse and people seem to universally love her, she's naturally, I would assume, going to receive much more compassion, which, by the way, would take us to the next question. I'm going to read the next question. I'm just imagining waking up to myself one day and realizing

that I killed my children and the extreme pain of that. I just can't even think about it without crying. I guess that's not a question, but it's an extension of the discussion we're having which is that I would imagine Lindsay Clancy in the same way, waking up one day and realizing what she did and feeling guilty for the rest of her life and not having a day or a minute go by where she's not feeling some sense of remorse and guilt. In some ways, the worst punishment you could ever give her

would be to have her deal with that day in and day out. Whereas I think somebody like Brian Coburger, he would not wake up day after day with the same. same pain and the same suffering that Lindsay Clancy probably would, that he probably doesn't have a lot of remorse. I could be wrong. We haven't heard from him, but let's say in general, let's say we're not talking about Colberger. The psychopath isn't going to wake up with the same guilt day after day and remorse, whereas I could envision somebody like Lindsay Clancy doing that. This is an extended, this is my extended answer to the previous question. And this response here is spot on. I agree.

that CSC says, hell on earth is killing your precious children and being paralyzed to think about it 24 hours a day, exactly. And so I think that's why we have more compassion for somebody like Lindsay Clancy than we do for a psychopath or somebody that kills without remorse. Jerry writes, this case is very different to me than Andrea Yates. She was known to be suffering for months with severe mental illness. This one seems much more spontaneous. But I will say There was something about Andrea Yates that I read to John earlier. And it felt like there was some planning on Andrea Yates part as well. She had put the dog, you know, in a separate room that she usually didn't put the dog.

She realized how long her husband would be gone and that this was the moment to be able to do this. I do fault him a lot more. She was seeking help. There were a lot more warning signs. It was very clear she had tried to commit suicide multiple times before. All of these things are very different. But premeditation, you know, she was, and she was, she was charged of murder at first. But I guess what I'm trying to say is I see a bit of premeditation there too.

Right. In fact, Andrew Yates was initially convicted of murder because one of the original evaluators talked about the fact that she put her dog in a kennel, and that was an example of premeditation. And she had filled up the bathtub earlier in the day with the intent of drowning her kids. So she didn't drown them immediately after she filled up the bathtub. She drowned them later. So that showed some premeditation too. I think the question here, though, is about, I think the argument she's making that Jerry

is making here is that Andrew Yates suffered from much more severe mental illness over a longer period of time versus Lindsay Clancy perhaps being more impromptu and spontaneous. And I think that's part of the question I'm asking is we don't really know. We need to know more about Lindsay Clancy's mental health history and her pre-morbid, in other words, pre-psychotic functioning. It's possible she suffered from some mental illness, maybe depression or anxiety, but we don't know how severe it was, at least the members of the public. We don't know. We don't have that information yet. Again, I think that forensic evaluators will have to tease all that out. I think

that's going to be their challenge is really trying to figure out if this was impulsive and spontaneous as opposed to something that could have existed well before the crimes were committed. People are asking where Andrea Gates is now. She remains. She's in a state mental hospital. So she's not imprisoned, but she's more than likely going to be, I would imagine, she's going to be confined to a state mental hospital for most of her life or potentially the rest of her life. I remember reading once a few years ago that her ex-husband still visited her and checked on her, that they would still talk about the kids. But also learned that she had the choice to leave, but it's chosen not to. She's chosen to stay there. Haley asked the question.

Does premeditation automatically invalidate plea of insanity, hidden true crime? That's a great question because if you know what you're doing, you know, that's what we always say about Lori Vala. Well, she knew what she was doing, which is true. She did. She manipulated people. She knew what she was doing. She plotted. She manipulated.

She planned. But does that automatically invalidate a plea of insanity? Clearly, Lori Vallow is now competent to stand trial, so we won't discuss that with her case. But when it comes to this case or others like Andrea Yates. It makes it more complicated. The main distinction with an insanity plea is does the person know how to distinguish between right and wrong? And then as an adjunct to that, does the person understand the consequences of their actions? Premeditation would suggest that they do understand the consequences.

Again, these are going to be issues for the forensic evaluators. So I'm glad I'm not in their position at the moment. I think this is going to be a really complex case to figure out. But premeditation would imply that someone understands the consequences of their actions, whether they understand the difference between right and wrong, whether they understand that whether Lindsay Clancy understood that killing her children was wrong. I don't know. That's a much more complicated question to answer. But premeditation certainly would speak to a better understanding of consequences as opposed to a violent act that seems to come out of nowhere with no premeditation.

This is a great question, but this maybe gets into evaluating and tests, and maybe criminals you evaluate in general. How can we know where Lindsay's responses are authentic and when they are perfected, as they have been prior to the incident? I'm not sure you can know. Somebody doing a forensic evaluation is going to have to do a lot of testing. And so I always say that there's three components to forensic evaluations. there's multiple methods, multiple sources, and multiple hypotheses to figure it out. So the more sources you talk to and the more methods, meaning tests and interviews, the better, the more data, the more information you have, the better you're going to be able to answer these questions.

So I think you're going to have to, in this case, I think there's going to be a lot of interviews and a lot of information that needs to be obtained to start sorting it out. but getting back to one of the first questions you read about how she hid a lot of, she potentially hit a lot of her inner life and maybe her inner turmoil. That certainly makes it more complicated. Well, that was the next question for me, actually. Your wife has a question, your co-hosts. What her perfected responses imply the way she keeps her life looking perfect to outsiders,

that there's a lot more in there and that she is. hiding what's really going on inside there that we don't know. That gets to the idea that psychosis potentially can overwhelm one's defenses or one's ego controls. And so psychosis has the ability to whatever's repressed, let's say that somebody who commits philocyte has a lot of repressed rage. You would never see that rage. But with psychosis, when the defenses become overwhelmed, then that rage may be more likely to come out. So she could have defended against some type of anger or rage most of her life,

and it was never seen. And then for whatever reasons, because of the psychosis or maybe some triggers in her life, I'm not sure, but some of those defenses could have been overwhelmed. And hence, you get more of these types of murderous impulses. Stephanie May mentions, like, do you think she was wearing a mask of despair from her families and coworkers? You just sort of spoke to that. I just, I want to say that question as a comment almost, is what could be possibly be going on. Thank you for being here tonight.

And thank you for encouraging everyone to join Dr. John's Book Club and to get any bonus episodes. You can head to patreon.com slash hidden true crime. We do bonus episodes. And we have Dr. John's book club where this month we're discussing the examin life, which is a book I love. And it's relevant to what we're talking about now. so I want to bring it up. These things and events that happen in our life and the masks we wear and the things that are

buried, they are examined in this book, hence the title. This idea of wearing different masks, I think it seems like Lindsay Clancy might have some perfectionistic tendencies based upon some things that people have said. And I think that would speak to this really strong desire to keep any dark elements of her personality hidden or to keep any type of anger or rage hidden. And so you wouldn't expect, I think with somebody like Lindsay Clancy, you wouldn't expect to see that often, maybe at times when she's really stressed out at work or, you know, maybe some of her coworkers would see some of that occasionally.

But I think she's the type of person that would keep that sort of thing really well hidden and under wraps. I'm seeing a lot of people sharing a lot of their stories of mental health. And I want everyone to know that we did share a phone number in the description of this video for those that are looking for help for postpartum depression or for those you love, for resources, anything that is in the description of this video. I want to remind people of that. Everyone, thanks so much for being here tonight. And until next week. Good night.

I knew about investing, but I really didn't know how to go about it. Meet Corey, a wealthfront client. With Wealthfront, it could put money in, and it would automatically distribute it into a diversified portfolio. Then it starts to compound. The compounding compounds on the compounding. Just let it run, and it's great. Over 1 million clients trust Wealthfront. Get started at Wealthfront.com.

Client was paid $1,000 for their testimonial, creating a conflict of interest. Outcomes vary. Investment management and advisory services provided by Wealthfront Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. Investing involves risk to principle regardless of the strategy used. Task performance does not guarantee future results.