Lindsay Clancy was convinced she was doing her three children a favor by killing them, a forensic psychiatrist testified Friday. Dr. Phillip Resnick stated that Clancy held a distorted belief that if she died by suicide, her children's lives would be so difficult without her that she should kill them as well.
"In her mind, she believed she would be doing her children a favor by having them go to heaven with her rather than remain on Earth without her doing the mothering," Resnick said in court. "Her mind was distorted like that."
Resnick further explained that Clancy "believed her children would be miserable. And she couldn’t imagine them continuing to exist and have a decent life without her being there as a mother." He added that in this distorted state, "she did what she believed was morally right, even though she understood that ordinarily killing a child is against the law, she believed that she was doing what was right for her children with her distorted psychotic symptoms and her children’s need for her."