What the Lindsay Clancy Trial EXPOSES About Society, North West's Disturbing Look, and Hayden Panettiere Blame Game, with Dr. Drew | Ep. 1385

The Megyn Kelly Show

This episode of The Megyn Kelly Show explores the high-profile Lindsay Clancy trial, examining claims of postpartum psychosis and altruistic

Key takeaways

• The prosecution challenges Clancy's claim of hearing voices during the killings, calling it an unusual and potentially fabricated symptom pattern.

Main topics

• Lindsay Clancy murder trial and postpartum psychosis defense
• Altruistic filicide and religious justification in criminal cases

Notable quotes

"It smells. It seems convenient. It seems made up in order to help get you off."

Conclusion

The episode underscores the intricate intersection of mental health, lega

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Speaker 1 (0:12) Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Happy Tuesday. Well, today we've got updates for you on Hayden Panettiere and what's going on with Brad Pitt's daughter. But first, the trial that's been riveting the nation, the murder case against Lindsay Clancy, now winding down. Clancy admitted that she killed her three children, five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan in January of 2023. But she has pleaded not guilty thanks to mental disease or defect. Her lawyers arguing that she had postpartum psychosis, which left her unable to understand what she was doing was wrong. There is dispute about whether in fact she was suffering from psychosis or not. Prosecutors acknowledge that she was having. mental health issues, but psychosis is something that's particular. And their experts over on the prosecution team have said that is not something that typically affects women eight months after birth. And now we're getting into the testimony about whether she did or did not hear alleged voices. Prosecutors yesterday calling forensic psychologist Dr. Kirk Heilbrunn to the stand, who cast doubts. on Lindsay Clancy's claims on this front about did she hear voices or did she just hear her own internal thoughts as she decided to kill her own children? Watch. Speaker 5 (1:40) But the way she described this as happening is that she heard a voice that she'd never heard before, experienced an hallucination, and she's never experienced it since, but she only experienced it. for the 18 minutes or so that it took to kill the children. And to put it mildly, that would be a very, very unusual. Speaker 5 (2:12) pattern or manifestation of how this kind of thing comes about. Very unusual. I've been doing this kind of evaluation for many, many years, and I'm always very careful when someone tells me that they experience the symptom only during the course of committing an offense. Speaker 1 (2:33) Of course, because it smells. It seems convenient. It seems made up in order to help get you off. This is the prosecution's witness. He was called as a rebuttal witness as they finished their case. They rested their case. The defense then rested its case. These are rebuttal witnesses meant to rehabilitate the prosecution's main argument. The defense objected to Dr. Heilbrunn's testimony when we covered this in AM Update this morning. he brought up, the prosecution did not bring it up, but he brought up a reference to Lindsay Clancy's Catholic faith here. Speaker 7 (3:11) Could describe for us the evidence that you saw for suicide combined with altruistic filicide. Speaker 5 (3:17) Yeah. Altruistic filicide is a term that's used that means killing your kids out of love so that you could basically Speaker 5 (3:34) they wouldn't have to suffer, so you could prevent their suffering. Speaker 7 (3:37) And further evidence that you saw for the suicide combined with altruistic suicide? Speaker 5 (3:43) There was. One of the things that she said when asked about what happened is that in the course of strangling each child, she said, go to God, baby, go to God. Speaker 5 (4:00) And that was part of her expectation, that she and the children would be together in heaven with God. She was raised as a Catholic, and this, as I understand, Catholic considerations, that's not necessarily what happens. But when I asked her about that, when I said, isn't suicide a mortal sin? Speaker 4 (4:28) Yeah, can I see counsel over here? Speaker 1 (4:34) Honestly, this is ridiculous. This is much ado about nothing. You're not allowed to get into the defendant's religion. This is a passing reference on a discussion that they had, and they tried to blow it up into some huge deal with Clancy's attorney, Kevin Reddington, who he just, this came up a week ago, there was a reference to her religion. And the... question by some of her supporters was, oh, there should be a mistrial. And Kevin Reddington then said, why would I want a mistrial? I don't want to start this thing all over again. But now he saw an opportunity to at least put a little chit in there for an appeal, just in case this thing doesn't go his way. And so like any good defense attorney, he decided to sort of do a masquerade, in my opinion, of being deeply offended by this passing reference to. whether Catholicism allows you to kill Speaker 6 (5:27) your kids and then yourself. A newsflash, it doesn't. Speaker 1 (5:32) Anyway, he called for a mistrial. Here it is. Speaker 4 (5:35) I have to move for a mistrial reluctantly. The reason is that this is intentional misconduct on the part of the prosecution. You know that this whole idea of injecting Roman Catholic faith, the concept of mortal sin, Speaker 4 (5:54) into this trial occurred, I don't even remember now, about a week ago. And I objected, but before I could get the objection out, your honor had us at the sidebar at the same time and very forcefully, in my opinion, indicated to the jurors that they should not consider that to any degree. The fact that this is not the... First time that it occurred during the trial and the prosecution has previously brought up the concept of mortal sin. Based on your ruling in the past, in conjunction with the fact that they brought it up again, I believe it was intentional misconduct and I feel that the court should grant the motion for mistrial. Speaker 1 (6:38) Is anyone confused about Christianity and Catholicism finding suicide a mortal sin? And is that a big newsflash to your average juror in Massachusetts, which is heavily Catholic? I think we're good. This is ridiculous. The prosecutor noted that she didn't actually ask a question about religion and that. Really, all the witness was doing was recounting a conversation he had with her about it. She was trying to justify it, saying, oh, you know, I wanted them to go with God. I was going to meet them there. And he was saying, hey, are you so sure that's where you were going? As Catholicism recognizes suicide as being a mortal sin. Whatever. This is all much ado about nothing. What Catholicism says and her understanding of it. I mean, this is not at the crux of the case. She may have been saying, go with God, go to God, baby, as she killed her children. That's relevant. Speaker 6 (7:37) But even if this is altruistic filicide, killing your children because you think it's what's best for them, it's not a defense. That's not a defense. Speaker 1 (7:47) It's not a defense. Judge William Sullivan rejected the motion for a mistrial. But he wasn't exactly pleased with the prosecution. Speaker 4 (7:55) He testified she was raised as a Catholic. And as I understand Catholic considerations, that's not necessarily what happens. How is any of that proper at this point? But it was not. Oh, Speaker 1 (8:13) good Lord, the theatrics. Speaker 4 (8:18) I'm not going to declare a mistrial at this time. What I am going to do is I'm going to bring the jury in. I'm going to tell them to disregard it. I'm going to tell them that it's an inappropriate area of inquiry and that this witness's understanding of Catholic dogma or Catholic teaching is irrelevant. Speaker 1 (8:42) Okay. Dr. Kirk Heilbrunn is back on the witness stand this morning as the case moves toward its conclusion. We could have closing arguments as soon as this afternoon. Joining me now to react to this case and more is board-certified internist and addiction specialist, Dr. Drew. He is the host of Ask Dr. Drew. Speaker 1 (9:03) We are still a couple months out, but the midterms are fast approaching. And make no mistake, if the house flips, it's a big deal for our economy. Speaker 6 (9:11) That Speaker 1 (9:11) uncertainty Speaker 6 (9:12) is one of the reasons to consider diversifying now with gold from Birch Gold Group. In the three months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, the price of gold jumped over 12%. Why? It's a hedge against uncertainty. If you do not own gold, consider talking with Birch Gold. They will discuss your goals and explain how precious metals can fit into your savings. They could even help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold for no additional money out of pocket. Text the letters MK to the number 989898 and get a free info kit and some solid information. The midterms will be here before you know it. Don't wait. Text MK to 989898 now. Speaker 6 (9:56) Dr. Drew, great Speaker 1 (9:57) to see you again. I mean, what did you make of that? Well, first of Speaker 8 (10:00) all, it makes me sad that you're not practicing law anymore because we need you out there Speaker 3 (10:04) with a common sense approach to the reality. But there's so much to unpack here. And you did a great job of sort of bringing up the relevance and the legal issues. But let me talk a little bit about the medical stuff. And then I want to get at the philosophical crux of what's going on in this case, which is that the altruistic filicide is somewhat. from the standpoint that it's common. It's a common preoccupation in psychosis of various types, not strictly speaking postpartum psychosis. And the doctor on the stand was absolutely correct. To have a postpartum psychosis eight months after pregnancy is odd and to have only transient hallucinations is unusual. Though we don't know the extent to which she was connected to reality leading up to that, which is really all that counts. And the second issue that keeps getting brought up that really should have been, seems to me, sort of discussed here on the stand, which was, yes, it's unusual, but her medical management was also unusual. And it is certainly a possibility that the medication she was receiving could have made the psychotic symptoms worse. Because they clearly thought they were treating depression. And sometimes when people aggressively treat depression in somebody with bipolar, and we know she has bipolar because she was on Lamictal, which is a mood stabilizing medicine that puts her... Well, Speaker 1 (11:28) we Speaker 3 (11:28) know they... What's that? Speaker 1 (11:29) Someone concluded that she was bipolar. The husband disputes that. Okay. Speaker 3 (11:33) They put her on meds for it, so someone died. Diagnose that. And that increases the probability of postpartum psychosis dramatically. The vast majority of postpartum psychosis is in bipolar patients. But could the medical team, which was very fragmented, a lot of it was done by ER doctors, were completely unequipped to do this. And is that a possible reason that this was so odd? Speaker 1 (11:59) Yeah. I mean, I definitely see the medical community as having had a hand in where this wound up, for sure. I mean, it's just, who hasn't had the experience of, you know, one doctor tells you this, Speaker 6 (12:15) another doctor tells you that, they don't coordinate. I mean, honestly, like, and I am somebody, I have means, I can pay out of pocket for these doctors, and it happens to me. If you don't have good insurance and, you know, you're... just dealing with the system Speaker 1 (12:30) as it's set up, you are definitely going to get conflicting medical advice. I mean, I've never had it on like, I don't take any mental health drugs, but just regular drugs on like whatever, your flu or whatever you're battling. And this poor woman, as you see like the number of people weighing in, the cacophony of meds that were thrown at her, you can see the cocktail was dangerous and not well-managed. But that doesn't mean... She didn't plan, knowing what it would do and what it would mean, the murder of her children. And you said that the extent to which she was connected to reality leading up to the murders is relevant. I mean, yes, it is. And it doesn't bode well for her because she sent the husband out. She made sure he was going to go out to get meds. She made sure he was going to go to a restaurant to pick up food, one that was farther away from the one they normally went to. And that all looks like somebody who was planning. Speaker 3 (13:26) Right, for sure. And I've seen several cases where women have done that in the belief that something horrible was about to happen to their kids and themselves. So they kill everybody to protect them from that. That's the altruistic filicide. That's what he's referring to. It happens. It happens more than we want to admit, both to schizophrenics and to postpartum psychosis. It's an awful thing when it is missed. And I want to make one quick pitch on what you said about the health care system. underlying the deficiencies is the evisceration of primary care. There needs to be a well-trained primary care doctor supervising all of it, taking in the information, being the ombudsman for the patient and guiding him or her through it. Most of my time these days is spent guiding my family and friends through the healthcare system. And I think to myself, What would have happened if I hadn't been here? It's just unbelievable how deficient the system is in terms of the care that people get. Speaker 1 (14:24) Well, and I actually think we're seeing some of that. play out in another way than the Lindsay Clancy trial. In my experience, so I've been on the air with this show for about six years. And in my experience, there is a vast delta between traditional medicine and functional medicine. And you can wind up with diametrically opposing points of view from doctors in those respective camps to where you as a civilian have no idea. what to do. And it's a matter of life and death. And a lot of the people who are just disgusted with what's happening to Lindsay Clancy, many of them are more functional medicine people who don't really believe in these psychotropic drugs to begin with and can't believe that this medical system just completely drugged her up so severely. And then some are still in the old traditional medicine mindset and just don't understand why there wasn't, as you're pointing out, a primary care physician who was... At the helm, who is running herd on these very serious drugs being poured into this woman's body. Speaker 6 (15:32) 100%. Speaker 3 (15:33) And yeah, Speaker 8 (15:35) I am very in favor of medical freedom. COVID taught us that people, the government, much to my amazement, can get involved. That most doctors are employees now and the employer Speaker 3 (15:45) can get involved. You need to maintain the freedom for yourself and your family. But primary care needs to be a part of that because. No matter whether you choose somebody more functionally or allopathic oriented, educate yourself and act accordingly. But there's something deeper in this case that I wanted to get. It's a perfect day for me to talk to you about this because I've been thinking a lot about this, which is a philosophical question, which is that when somebody engages in violent acts of any type. There's always reasons for it that are of a psychological, psychiatric nature, whether it's where you were brought up or the violence you experienced or the trauma you experienced in childhood or something happened, you know, whatever it might be. There are many different causational influences on somebody being violent. Why do we draw the line right here is the question. You know, why do we say, well, what do you mean? at psychosis what there's a reason she became psychotic there was a mess here there was a lot of reasons but you look at anybody being violent i'm just proposing this as a as a sort of a polemic which is everybody has horrible backgrounds when they are violent it's always the case there's a lot of stuff there psychiatrically psychologically now why do we differentiate that from say this Speaker 1 (17:05) Hmm. That's a very good question. Yes, exactly. If you picked your average gangbanger off of the streets in South Chicago and looked at his childhood experience, you'd be horrified, horrified. And you would accurately predict that he'd join a gang and participate in gang violence himself. But her, yeah, it's a different story. Now we're like, we're looking for a more specific reason. Did the drugs do it? What did it? That's an interesting question. It is. I mean, I don't. What do Speaker 3 (17:35) you Speaker 1 (17:35) think? Speaker 3 (17:36) Because Speaker 1 (17:36) we expect more, I think, of Speaker 3 (17:39) mothers. Yes, we do. Speaker 1 (17:40) And and and a person like Lindsay, who doesn't seem to have had a lifetime of trauma leading up to this horrific act. Speaker 3 (17:46) That's right. So so there's one caveat, I would say, which is, you know, we in this country talk a lot about evil and we seem very confused about what that means. But there are people who enjoy hurting other people that exist. That's evil. There's no doubt about it. Speaker 8 (18:00) And Speaker 3 (18:00) there are people who end up hurting other people and feel like they're either doing good or they're justified in doing it. But there are people who develop states, brain states, where they're transiently violent. That seems to be Lindsay Clancy's situation. Seems to be. You're trying to say she's a bad person, right? She's somebody who would kill her kids. That's a bad person. Or she's somebody who is in a transient brain state. Or could she go into that state again? That's really the question here. Speaker 1 (18:29) I mean, to me, it's like from the law, from a legal perspective, we took a deep dive on self-defense cases when Nick Reiner got arrested. Not self-defense, insanity. And the standard is just so impossibly high. I just don't Speaker 6 (18:50) see it here. Like, I mean, you have guys who are basically frothing at the mouth, unable to put two sentences together. who are still psychotic when the cops Speaker 1 (19:00) show up. You know, not like her. I mean, she was injured, but as soon as she woke up from her, you know, her trauma, she was asking about herself, not her kids. Those people are not allowed the not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect finding. So, like, I Speaker 6 (19:20) look at her, she's a lot closer to sane than they are. And I just legally, the standard's so high, I don't see it. And I don't really care because she's ruined her life. Her earthly time here is effectively over, whether she's alive or dead. You kill your three children. I don't think you're ever going to be happy, ever. Oh, Speaker 2 (19:39) no, Speaker 6 (19:39) no, no, no. And if you are, most of us are going to begrudge it to you. So I don't have a lot of care in my heart for what happens to Lindsay Clancy. I don't care if she goes to the... mental institution for the rest of her life, if she goes to a prison for some limited amount of time, my lawyer friends are telling me she might be out on the streets earlier if she stays within the prison system than Speaker 1 (20:02) if Speaker 6 (20:03) she goes into a mental facility where they tend to hold you longer. So that's, I mean, for people who really want to see her punished, query what they should be rooting for. For me, I'm like... This woman's life is effectively over either way. I Speaker 8 (20:15) completely agree with you. But let me, I want to go back to the legal standard. It's really important to understand the medical Speaker 3 (20:20) standard, legal standard are completely different. And the legal standard is any evidence of consciousness of doing something wrong, essentially. And very state by state a little bit, but generally it's almost impossible. That's why lawyers don't even try not guilty by reason of insanity because you can't prove it. It's impossible to say because everybody has to plan. whatever it is they're doing, even if it's just to get a machete. And there it is. Ah, he knew he was doing something wrong because he went to a criminal to get the machete, whatever. All you have to do is the slightest evidence of doing you aware that you're doing something wrong or that other people would even understand it as something wrong. And that's no longer insanity. But boy, you're bringing up some really interesting stuff. And it also brings up the issue of there's a lot of heat around women sympathizing for her. And people want to politicize that, but I don't think it's Speaker 1 (21:10) a Speaker 3 (21:10) political thing, though. I don't think so. Speaker 1 (21:13) Let's talk about that because I think a lot of people are deeply disturbed by the nutcase so-called mothers out there. Okay, there are a lot of women who deal with postpartum and it's a real thing and they get through it and they do what they need to. There's an infinitesimal number of women who actually would murder their child resulting from postpartum depression. But weirdly, Speaker 6 (21:37) there's a large number of women who will post. a picture or video of themselves with their beautiful baby online with the soundtrack of Kevin Reddington, the defense lawyer, saying all the terrible things that, you know, Lindsay was feeling. And they're fine with it. They're like showing themselves with their own child as though they might hurt their child, just like Lindsay, because this is like somehow, you know, common. It's horrifying. I think the, I mean, 99.99 % of the women out there, the only pictures we've ever taken with our child, nevermind would consider posting, would be ones showing how much we adore and love and treasure and protect them. So it's like completely turning the image of motherhood on its head. Do Speaker 1 (22:27) we have an example of that, Deb? You play it. Speaker 6 (22:29) Stand Speaker 1 (22:29) by. I'm Speaker 4 (22:30) completely overwhelmed trying to take care of the kids. I'm drowning every day. I feel guilty that I'm spending my family's money and not making any. I feel like I spend way too much. She wrote that, right? I'm terrified of Callan getting sick. He's a sick baby. A sick baby is miserable. He's sick now with a double ear infection. Clearly has a bellyache. It's miserable. I feel like the other kids are going to get him sick all winter long. She wrote that. Like it's abusive to let the baby cry and not respond. But I made the decision. I did it with Cal. There's way too much crying. It's incredibly stressful. She wrote that, right? Correct. He's okay. He will be okay. Speaker 1 (23:06) Oh, people showing their little children, their babies, and the captions on the screen read, same, me too, Lindsay. Your thoughts on it, Doc? Speaker 8 (23:16) I mean, it's mind-boggling that they would think that identifying with that is something that should be expressed publicly. But they're getting at two things, it seems to me. One is the fact that to have thoughts of harming a baby is not uncommon. common, believe it or not. But you're right. No one does it. But it's always something Speaker 3 (23:39) that women have. It's out of the shadows now with this case. And so women are like, oh, maybe I'm not such a horrible person because I had that thought. That's one thing. Speaker 8 (23:49) But Speaker 3 (23:49) on Speaker 8 (23:49) the other side, they seem to be saying, wanting acknowledgement for how stressful and difficult mothering is, which it is. It's a tough Speaker 3 (24:00) job. And only mothers can do it. do it when when there is a mom involved the child wants mom a lot uh and yeah it's tough it's probably also tough for your spouse to keep everything together and support it and moving things forward and making sure you're okay it's hard to raise kids and i maybe we Speaker 8 (24:19) need Speaker 3 (24:20) to help people understand that and also there's another feature in here that i i wanted to bring up which is this country does not do well with ordinary misery Ordinary misery is good. It's how we develop and strengthen and develop grit. When Dr. Freud arrived in this country, I like telling the story, the reporters came to him and said, what do you hope to understand here in this country? He said, well, ultimately, I hope to understand the difference between serious mental illness and ordinary misery. Because it's hard to tell the difference sometimes. But in this country. Look, we just went through the 90s and early 2000s with the opioid thing. No pain in America. No one should ever feel any pain in America. Here's 60 Vicodin, everybody. And now we're doing the same thing with other sources of discomfort. Ordinary misery is good for us. Speaker 1 (25:11) I have a question for you on this. I don't really believe in. Speaker 1 (25:19) I don't know. What is it? Like, I don't believe in sitting around thinking about how miserable you are. I don't believe it's good for you. So like when I hear you say it's hard, I mean, I recognize that it is hard for a lot of women. For a lot of other women, it's not hard. It's actually really joyful most of the time. And when the hard moments come, they have a very good perspective on them because the vast majority of it is so joyful and wonderful. Speaker 1 (25:48) Now, I don't know how helpful it is as a mental health approach to say to the women who have decided that new motherhood is incredibly difficult, right? They've put it nine out of 10 on the scale of difficulty, how helpful it is to validate that as opposed to helping them shift their Speaker 6 (26:10) mindset around it, Speaker 5 (26:11) which is Speaker 6 (26:12) sure there are tough moments, but overall. So many blessings associated with Speaker 1 (26:17) this, and you should be focused on those as a mental health tactic. Speaker 8 (26:21) Don't disagree. I Speaker 3 (26:22) don't disagree, except we have done so much coddling that we've created a population that avoided ordinary misery and does not have the resiliency and the adaptability and the emotional regulatory system in place. plus our families have been a mess for like 30 years now and the family the family unit is where people develop