Hidden True Crime - Forensic Psychologist Takes the Stand in Lindsay Clancy Trial - Interview with Dr Leslie Dobson

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Forensic and clinical psychologist Dr. Leslie Dobson joins Lauren Matthias of Hidden True Crime to examine the Lindsay Clancy case, including the critical questions surrounding postpartum mental health, psychosis, insomnia, medications, and Lindsay’s state of mind. With more than 20 years of experience, Dr. Dobson has worked in private practice, court-ordered psychological evaluations, the Los Angeles County Jail, and state mental health facilities, with additional clinical experience in postpartum and fertility-related care, insomnia, infant sleep, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis. As testimony continues in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, Dr. Dobson brings her clinical and forensic perspective to the evidence and testimony we’ve heard in court—and the central question of this case: was Lindsay Clancy experiencing psychosis when she killed her three children? About Hidden True Crime What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, Hidden Jams. Joining us today is Dr. Leslie Dobson. Just like my co-host, she is a forensic and clinical psychologist with more than 20 years of experience. Dr. Dobson or Dr. Leslie, as many of us know you on TikTok and your podcast, you have worked across a wide range of settings from private practice, court-ordered evaluations, to the Los Angeles County Jail and state mental health facilities. Your clinical experience does include postpartum and fertility-related care, infant sleep, insomnia, cognitive behavioral therapy for

what else other than psychosis. So that combination, honestly, of experience, particularly in the postpartum, mental health, psychosis, and sleep. We want to know your perspective because we just heard from Dr. Zaisal. We're watching the Lindsay Clancy trial together. Dr. Leslie, thank you for joining us. The defense, Kevin Reddington, just brought the Dr. Zaisal on the stand, a forensic psychologist. I want to know your thoughts. And then I have questions. But anything you want to say after just listening to him on the stand today? I mean, the first thing I want to say is that he brought humanity back to this case. And because the prosecution has led this case so far, it has felt disgusting to most of us moms and women and people around the world.

So I applaud him for doing that. And he described it in so many ways, the inhumane environment. But further, I see him already debunking what the prosecution experts are going to come in with. And that's because we're likely using the same evaluations and the same assessments and interpreting them differently. So I see this all as kind of pulling the rug out under the bow bitches feet, the prosecution. Yeah, yeah. No, you know, a couple things cross my mind. The amount of times that he said he met with Lindsay Clancy was an interest to me.

As a forensic psychologist, does that play a large part in like how much time you spend with the patient or I don't know, a client patient? I don't know what you'd call Lindsay. Yeah. I guess she would be a client at this stage. But certainly, when it comes to such a complicated case and it's so high profile and we have three children that aren't with us anymore, insanity evaluations are extensive. And it's not a surprise to me that he spent so much time with her. Yeah.

One of the things he said, it was a strong statement, was that she heard of all. voice commanding her to kill herself and her children. I mean, that's so hard for people to process, but can you explain what that is? Was she in psychosis? Can you hear, was it a command hallucination? Is this classic postpartum? Do you think this is also, what do you think about this? Do you think this is going to play a big deal for the defense or for this case or trial? Yeah, I mean, I think he also mentioned that she had told McLean that she had thoughts about hurting the children. So I think what we're seeing is actual information, right, that the prosecution has not wanted in the case. But when it comes to hallucinations, you know, 8% of people around us hear voices. And we don't talk about that.

And largely because they're not bad voices, they're not negative. Hallucination, schizophrenia, it does not equate to violence. But when the voice is a commanding hallucination, and I'm not just saying command, like, hey, you sit down. It is an all-encompassing delusional hallucination where you truly believe what it is telling you, and it sounds like it is coming from outside of your brain and your body. Imagine, like, if you're in the Truman Show and God is speaking to you, it is that real and vivid. Okay. Okay. You know, for a lot of the public, you're clearly on the side of the defense, which is why I'm interested in talking to you too. The public watching, you know, and let's even say the prosecution who says, you know, murder is murder.

You know, hearing Dr. Zaisal say, no, like, this is, I mean, essentially, Dr. Zaisal is saying she did this because of, of, I'm like, man. How can you explain that to those of us, they're like, well, but, but, Murder is murder, those watching this trial or would you've worked with people? Well, so there's psychosis and then there's postpartum psychosis. So postpartum psychosis is definitely faster. It's a way more rapid onset. You don't have time to say, oh, wait, maybe I should get into therapy. Is this a delusion or not? No, it's like speedy. And then it's almost like delirium, where you're also unsure of what's going on. She wasn't feeling grounded. And so we see the escalation into psychosis with the ideas of reference where she's her mom is driving her and she thinks the

school knows that her mom is driving her and that there's something wrong with her brain. That's her taking a neutral event and making it about her. That's an idea of reference. It's a symptom of psychosis. And so as this progressed and quickly with the medication, it turns into what you're thinking, your thoughts. They're intruding on you. They're weird thoughts.

They're crazy, right? They can be externalized. They can turn in your brain into what feels like no longer your thoughts, but somebody else talking to you. And quite literally, I've sat with psychotic people who have gotten very quiet. And I've said, are you trying to listen to them? And they've said, yeah, can you just give me a minute? Wow. You're being too loud.

I can't hear the voice. Really? That's interesting. So it's a literal separate. entity talking to them almost, would you say? Yes, when it gets to that extent. I mean, oftentimes it can be voices you hear of people in your past. It can be a lot of different voices and you're not really sure who they are.

But with Lindsay, it really appears like it concretized into a male voice who was domineering and in charge. Wow. Would you say that this testimony by Dr. Zizal, is going to counter some of the prosecution's expert witnesses because they did have, you know, some people saying that, you know, implying that, no, this is not what, I mean, clearly the prosecution is saying, no, this is murder. Where Dr. Zaisel seems to be saying, no, this was her not understanding what she was doing.

Do you think that Dr. Zaisal is going to counter some of the prosecution's witnesses? Definitely. in the sense that Massachusetts has to prove that they're beyond a reasonable doubt. No one can even question. Lindsay was completely sane. So Dr. Ziesel, I don't know. I love them though.

Zel Zazel, great names. Either way. Dr. Z, he just did that. And so now we've got to maintain that. And when we have the other experts coming in, I'm very curious because I know them,

and they're also quite honorable men, but they are affiliated with the Andrea Yates fuck up in that case. Yeah, yeah. That's going to be interesting. I like Dr. Z, by the way. You know, I'm going to call them Dr. Z myself because it's easier. All these names, by the way, I was joking, like pronouncing all these witnesses. I suddenly say I feel like I'm in a Charles Dickens novel.

Like, you know, and we've got Buckingham and our bow and we'll call him Dr. Z because these names have been tough for me. What did you think it was important that he mentioned today as a forensic psychologist? I think he really spoke to the psychosis that he saw in Lindsay. I mean, this is a guy who's done a thousand cases. He was basically in combat, in Afghanistan, and he has seen it all. He's a trustworthy, noble man, and that came across. And what he saw in her were these ideas of reference, like we talked about the car. But I think most importantly, he saw the dissociation, the depersonalization.

And that's where when you ask about, you know, like, how do you really, how does a command hallucination work? Well, the depersonalization part is when you don't feel like you're in your body, you feel like you're out of your body and you're looking down on yourself. So take that into account with a commanding hallucination that literally it feels like it's moving your body. And a great example is when I used to work with individuals with schizophrenia, a form of psychosovo, in group therapy. I would give them a white piece of paper and I would say, draw yourself. Well, can you guess what they drew?

What? The whole paper, we have the whole paper here. They would draw themselves as these tiny, tiny little objects in the corner. Huh. Because that's how they felt. Interesting. So do you think then the command or the voices is a larger, part of that picture then? Yes, it's all encompassing. And I think that it's very hard for people to

understand it unless they have actively seen it. Just like catatonia, he spoke to her, her having catatonia, where she was slow and sluggish and tired and she couldn't find her words, couldn't get out of bed, and she was mute. But then he made sure to say that that waxes and wanes. It's like waves in the ocean. And I can tell you how many times I have seen patients heavily medicated on Seraquil, catatonic with a psychotic disorder, laying on the couch, and then all of a sudden they pop up and they beat the shit out of someone really fast. Wow.

So I know that this case doesn't fit inside anyone's box of understanding. It fits inside of mine. This is my world right here in this case. Yeah. What did you think about it when there was a witness yesterday, by the way, her old coworker in front who said that she actually brought up Andrea Yates to Lindsay Clancy. Did you hear that part? I did.

And Lindsay cried and said, why would a mom ever want to hurt her kids? I know. I know. That was a moment for me. You know, hidden true crime, we're following the evidence. I've actually interviewed Andrea Yates attorney. I've also interviewed Susan Smith's attorney. You know, we're trying to understand these cases.

Some people are worried. I'm going to throw this out because I'm kind of watching our comments and I'm watching the differing opinions on this case right now. Some people are saying, well, if Lindsay Clancy is essentially innocent due to insanity, does that mean other women will then use this, the Susan Smith of the world? Or the Casey Anthony's, even though Casey Anthony's innocent, I guess. accordingly. People have different opinions. But yeah, I'm going to say no, no, she did. Like, I'm like, I don't know. Um, innocent,

you know, but, uh, you know, thoughts on that. Do you know what I mean? Like a lot of people think, well, she, she's manipulating. She's faking it. You know, or, or do you feel like Dr. Z, as we call him, showed otherwise, you know? So I guess I just ask me three questions. So let's, let's, let's ask you just one. I don't make your mind crazy. First off, would you say to people watching this case saying, well, if Lindsay Clancy is innocent, does this mean every woman can pull in Andrea Yates and Lindsay Clancy here under the guise of postpartum psychosis? No. And it's because we haven't seen the intense psychological assessment that has been conducted, right? So, you know, what happened in those 45, 65 days?

You know, how do we have objective measurements? We have objective testing. We have the MMPI, the Minnesota multifacic personality test. We have lie detection capabilities in these tests. There are scales that you can't fake them. I've never seen anyone be able to fake them because then the test tells us you're trying to fake me. So we have a lot of tests and we're going to see those come forward. But in particular, if you're exaggerating or if you're minimizing or if you're inconsistent, you're infrequent, giant red flags go up. up and Zee's saying there weren't any after thousands of evaluations and being in combat he's willing to say under oath that she was insane so she's not innocent right she would still be not guilty

by reason of insanity not criminally responsible she would still be civilly committed and held responsible, but while in a state of insanity. So it's not like she's getting out of jail for free. Andrea Yates has turned down her reviews in the hospital every year. She doesn't even want to leave. She's so depressed. Yeah. That actually helped answer both my questions. So thank you. You did it. You did. The answer them both. But right. So in other words, that's not so easy. You would have somebody that attempted this and the psychological assessments and the evaluations would show, and there's so much more to this from behind the scenes. Correct.

And, you know, a big thing we need to talk about is violence, risk, recidivism. So how likely is somebody to do this again? Well, with Andrea Yates, with Lindsay Clancy, we don't have a normative sample, right? So they're an extremely high risk of doing it again because we don't understand it enough. We don't have science to say, okay, like she's in the clear. a low risk. So that, to me, matters even more that they're going to be in for even longer because we can't justify to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that she won't hurt anyone again. She won't have a psychotic break again.

Okay, okay. You're helping to answer a lot of, I think, the questions that people have. And so, you know, there's a lot of, I'm just going to share what people, I'm seeing, and I'm sure you're seeing it, too. On your end, I also see. see people saying, again, going back to the manipulation, well, she's a narcissist, and wouldn't this be like a family annihilation type case, you're saying that behind the scenes with all the medical professionals and the MMPI, that that's, there's the stuff we're not seeing behind the scenes, or what would you say to people that are kind of seeing that, you know, that this is another, this is another family annihilation case. And she wanted to take her kids with her. and was done with life. She wanted a fourth baby. She had four months of clearly struggling. She had exacerbated symptoms from the first baby to the second to the third.

And we have a clear path of mental illness that was exacerbated further by the incompetent psychiatrists. So that to me, we've painted this picture of the woman's mental state. The prosecution, like, painted it for us because they did such a crap job. But we're going to learn more. And I think we need to wait, and especially for Philip Resnick and for Spinelli, because it's not annihilation. It's altruistic phyllicide. And that's very different.

And that is when, you know, in her civil complaint, she detailed it that she said, go with God as she wrapped a band around each baby's neck. That is her truly believing that she's saving their souls. And then once she takes her life, she'll go and have them back. that is psychotic, bizarre. That's what she believed. And the civil complaint details it very well. I don't really think a lot of people have read the two civil complaints. Yeah, I don't think they have either, which we did.

We actually went over them totally before trial, hidden true crime. But I think you're right. A lot of people have not. So for those that want to know everything, we have that. In fact, I'll pin it in the description of this video, because I think you're right. A lot of people have not done that. So in other words, altruistic filicide, thank you. So what this is is not a narcissistic, vengeful thing, but you would put this in the category of altruistic filicide.

I would. And a psychotic, delusional woman. I mean, I'm going to be honest. You know, I've always said, you know, I'm staying open to the evidence. I'm staying open to the evidence. the prosecution is done and admittedly, I didn't see the best evidence for premeditated first-degree murder, which is what they're saying. I have to be honest. I was like, that's it. That's what you got. Even today, even today with the exercise ban, she gets it out and she's getting all hyper,

she's a little huffed up. This is Bobich, too. And she's so excited. like, oh, I get to like really shove this in the doctor's face. You're saying that an exercise band is just going to stay on their neck and the tension is going to hold itself. So she gets on the gloves and she opens the evidence bag and she blops it on the desk.

And the doctor says, well, okay, it didn't stay together how you did it. And then they close. Yeah. Yeah, the jury, Kevin Reddington left that for the jury because common sense shows that Lindsay Clancy did not just plop down the bands. Right, right. You know, also, and this is just you and my chatting now, just like, just me kind of processing and watching, but like I thought the, you know,

when they brought the Selbright witness in, I always am really interested in the Cellbrite, because it's a little bit like voyeuristic, right? We get to see what people are searching on Google and, and what they're typing and they're texting in their phones, right? We're like, oh, let's like lay it all out. And their notes. It's always their notes.

Their journals. You know, it's so, you know, it's digging into people's private lives, essentially. And you know they're going to have everything, like the things that are on our phone. And so the fact for me, this is just me talking, that all they had was a search for self-harm in August. and then symptoms of psychosis, which could go either way, depending on how you feel, I was like, that's what you got for planning. So for me, that wasn't great because I just feel like if you're digging into people's private lives and phones, you're going to find more.

But you're right. For me, it was a lot of, there wasn't any planning, right? So here's a question for you then. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. Oh, I was just going to say, I think the lack of their evidence has really fueled a lot of the conspiracy theories online. Yeah. I mean, and you know what? You're on TikTok like every day.

I feel like that's where a lot of them are. Is Patrick the biggest one right now? Yeah. I mean, I... I have two phones. I have one. Like, I have a burner phone and a real phone. And I, so I was holding both of them. And I was checking into the gym this morning, trying to, like, I was watching the trial on YouTube on one and then doing the check-in app. on the other. And the girl at the front was like, oh my God, are you watching the trial? And I was like, yeah, I'm watching the whole trial. And she's like, who do you think did it? Wow. And I just like, oh, God, I can't. And now she's probably 20. And I was like, wow, you have no idea what is going on in this trial. Yeah. But going back to, as you say, the conspiracy theory is online. Yeah. You know, I, again, I've mentioned to people, I was in the courtroom when that 911 call was shared. and I will never forget Patrick Clancy's screams. And he stayed with his wife having no idea what he was going to find in the basement.

I'll just share that. It was so clear to me. I don't think he could have ever processed that his wife could have done this. No matter what you believe as far as why Lindsay did this, from all of the evidence I've seen Patrick had no clue that she was capable of this, which, you know, I guess, leads me to me to. my next question and I know that you are busy today so thank you for your time dr. Leslie but when it comes to Lindsay Clancy ultimately um do you feel like dr.

Zaisal is going to be like a star witness or where do you think the defense is going right now overall oh definitely I mean they're they're laying the foundation to see her as human and somebody who didn't get help and wanted help and loved her kids. And, you know, how could, how could he be so comfortable with a giant monster, with a serial killer, mass murderer? You know, he's also showing his comfort with her because she's okay now and she isn't a psychopath. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else you want to say before we conclude? I think the biggest thing for me is to just, you know, let this be the focus on maternal mental health, women's mental health. Like, let's continue this opportunity when we talk about it like it's the 1950s.

And the whole world is watching this trial right now. Let people educate who understand, give them platforms, stop the conspiracies. And let's actually make good change in the world. well, we have the opportunity. We're looking at psychiatry. We're looking at health care. We're looking at big pharma and medication. And we're going to start Luigi Mangione's trial, right?

So we have this opportunity to really, really put some, to shine light on huge problems in this country. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Leslie. Last but not least, can you share where we can follow you and find you as you watch this trial and others? Yeah, so Dr. Leslie Dobson on YouTube, which I'm kind of starting and Instagram and then TikTok. And then I have a couple TV shows coming out this year. So Oxygen and Bravo, maybe Peacock. Lisa Vanderpump and I are working on something called Rich Bitch Rampage.

Well, this will be interesting. All right. Well, we'll be certainly seeing more of you. This is so exciting. Yes, I love it. following along and so we're just so grateful for your time and for your expertise and sharing that with hidden chew crime we hope to have you back so thank you for having me yes thanks dr leslie we'll see you