BONUS: The Prosecutors Legal Briefs -- The Lindsay Clancy Case with Mama Psychologists

All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the strawberry water melon refresher. And the mango pineapple refresher with popping boba to grafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Six all new drinks are here. Now at McDonald's. Refreshers contain caffeine. I'm Alice. And I'm Brett. And this is the prosecutor's legal place. Welcome back to the prosecutor's legal briefs. I'm your host Alice, and I'm joined as always by my psychologically understanding co-host Brett. You know, Alice, when I was in college, I thought about taking psychology, being a psychology major. And I'd been philosophy instead, which was different. Probably says something about me and my sanity. But anyway, I've always been interested in psychology. Can I speak for everyone who's ever talked to you? Thank God you're not a psychologist. I'll do respect. I forgot that part. So sorry, the Southern and me. I'll do respect that you're not a psychologist. And I'll tell you why. Because you guys are about to hear from two of the most knowledgeable and interesting psychologists you will ever hear from. We have with us, Dr. Caitlin Slavins and also Dr. Chelsea Bodie, registered psychologist who have spent their career focusing on couples and especially postpartum women. Caitlin and Chelsea, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having us. And to the side note, we're not doctors. Sorry of our masters. Yes, I just didn't want to. It would even be better if I called you master Slavins. We're already off to a great start, y'all. I just hand out Dr. Titles like they're candy. You can be this. You can be that. But here's the thing, guys. You know, they are registered psychologists. You're going to learn so much about them and also what they do to support moms and postpartum women. We're going to dive into how this relates obviously to true crime, postpartum psychosis. Obviously, that's been in the news. But before we get there, Caitlin and Chelsea, you guys have really built something incredible in this kind of social media world. Can you tell us about how you came to be registered psychologist and how you guys paired up to start mama psychologists? Yeah, so we started working together many moons ago, working with children and adolescent mental health at our hospital. And then through that program, we became fast friends, best friends. And then fast forward, we become registered psychologists and we have kids. And that journey is not easy and it's not smooth for either of us with our first ones. And then we found really even as psychologists, there just wasn't a bot of information on postpartum mental health. There's a lot about postpartum depression, but I struggled significantly with postpartum anxiety. And back in 2017, there really just wasn't a lot of good information out there. And even as a therapist, I'm like, I didn't even know how to deal with it. And even recognizing it in myself, I didn't necessarily do that right away either. So that's really how mama psychologists came to be and we wanted to give some education out in the community and then the pandemic happened and everybody was struggling. And it kind of just grew really fast from there. What about you Chelsea or exactly the same? I mean, we have very similar stories and very similar backgrounds. The only thing is I had my first, when Caitlin was having her second. We weren't exactly the same timeline and then my journey was more related to like NICU and birth trauma and living away from home and in the hospital. And so our member, I think we were both in our like postpartum fog. Yeah, I had my second. And Caitlin's like, do you want us to our social media? And I was like, yeah, I mean, the NICU, that sounds like a great idea. I had so much time. What else am I going to do? I was just pumping away. I was pumping. So we just like jumped into it kind of not really realizing what we were, you know, trial by fire and we managed to stay friends through the whole thing. Which is actually really easy. Business, social media. So tell people who may not, you guys should go follow them. I follow them on Instagram. But, you know, what do you do through your social media reach because you're obviously able to reach many more people than just the patients that you may treat? Yeah, absolutely. So we have a following of about six, almost 700,000 on Instagram. And we provide a lot of educational content in the form of carousels, pictures, a lot of reals, just short information that people can just take and kind of understand and grab on to. And then through that, we've had different resources and workshops that we posted on postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, mom rage burn out. And then three years ago, now we wrote a book called Not Your Mother's Postpartum. And that was a lot to write a book. I don't know if I do that again, but it reached so many. And just the positive reviews and feedback that we got from that was just so inspiring and knowing that so many people have it on their shelves and reach for it in a moment where they're just feeling so overwhelmed and anxious and just low after having a baby. So I'm the odd man out here because I've never personally had a baby, but my wife has. And one thing that I noticed that was shocking to me. Maybe this wasn't shocking you guys or maybe it's shocking to even women is everything about women's health, particularly when it comes to babies is horribly understood. It seems even by doctors and I've got to imagine, you know, mental health is always less understood, less treated than physical health. I've got to imagine when it comes to postpartum health, there is just a void of information of help for women. So I imagine you get a massive response when you start doing this stuff on social media. Yes, absolutely. The one thing that is actually really interesting too is that we post about parenting as well, right, kind of the challenges of parenting, you know, toddlers or school age kids, but always the parenting piece will do so much better than some of the postpartum stuff. So it just kind of really speaks to that people will always prioritize their kids and it's like, okay, I got to figure out my kids, but I can, whatever, I just won't really worry about myself. So that's yeah, an observation we've had throughout our journey and putting content and educational material out there is that, yeah, it's still not as popular as you would think it would be still. That's such an interesting insight because I know that many people when they talk about the void of understanding and postpartum health for women, it's often said, doctors don't care or that it's not studied because who cares about women, that sort of narrative, but what I might be hearing is we also have to advocate for ourselves because of course, like you hold a baby and you're like, well, my whole life is going to be dedicated to you now. And of course, if you're thinking about, I had never thought it quite in that way that by prioritizing one and not speaking up about your own mental health, it may actually be causing this like domino effect. So can you help put it into perspective for us because we hear all the time now it seems like we can talk more about it now that there's not this negative whatever bias about it that you can talk about your own struggles, postpartum. But what are the numbers because women, even when they're going through it will think it's just me Susie across the street had a baby, she's out jogging, you know, with her baby and a jogging stroller here I am nine months out still feeling like there's a dark cloud over me. So can you maybe shed a little bit of light on what you see in your practice and what you were researching for your book with respect to the numbers as it relates to just different types of postpartum mental struggles that can affect women. Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of varied COVID really like influx the number. So it depends on what study or reading at what time and when it was done. I'll also caveat by it's probably very under reported. So the numbers we have may not be that accurate. But when we're looking at like postpartum or perinatal is kind of the word they like to use from trying to conceive to one year postpartum, we're looking at a range of mood disorders that can come up typically. So we're looking at you can tell me if I forget any depression anxiety, OCD bipolar and then postpartum psychosis are kind of the main ones that are often kind of talked about even though they're all kind of under talked about except for depression and anxiety is probably more to talk about that it used to be. But when we're looking at anxiety, the numbers used to say approximately about 10 to 20 percent of postpartum mothers in COVID, that skyrocketed to like 75 percent. And then depression is kind of the most research that the most talked about. So often the numbers reflect a little bit higher. And then it kind of decreases as they go often because they're less studied, but also they're less common. So that number is incredibly stark, right? Oh, and you said during COVID, it jumped to 75 percent. So as a non-doctor that signals to me that social support or community has a huge role in that. And you know, can you speak a little bit about that that COVID was that factor that you can't control for typically? You can't just like isolate women to be like, what's going to happen to your mental health? But it happened during COVID. So we did see that. What does it tell you when the numbers skyrocket like that in terms of what can support women? And are we doing those things to help support women? Yeah, I think it's multifaceted. I think community is a big one or even the perception of community. So it's like not that every mom is able to go out and like our winters, for example, sometimes you don't want to bring your baby out or it's cold in flu season or whatever that looks like. But I think just knowing that there's resources out there can be really helpful whether they're accessing them or not. I think the other piece really highlights health-related anxiety. So a lot of especially new moms or new parents are really worried about illness and things impacting their children. We look at intrusive thoughts, for example, in worrying about harm that could come to your child and how that just was everywhere. You couldn't escape it really. You're isolated in your home, you're staying away, you're watching the news briefs and all of this information was coming at you. So it's new and scary on top of being a new parent or having a new baby whether it was a new parent or not. And so I think that was another thing that really was highlighted through that. Yeah, no, I think the importance of bite that village and not everybody will have a village, but the ability to have people come and support you if needed. And then of course, as Chelsea said, that increased everybody was anxious and then the health piece and the risk and the unknown really just exacerbated that. So for women out there who who are getting ready to have a baby or planning on having a baby, you're thinking about having a baby. Obviously, we've talked about community and having support in your life. And we've talked about the numbers and how honestly it seems like we don't really know how many women are affected by mental issues like this after they have a baby. Are there any known risk factors? Are there any particular things that women out there could say, hey, you know, I have X. So I'm more likely to suffer from this. So I'm going to be prepared. I'm going to be looking out for it. That kind of thing. Are there any risk factors that we know of? Yeah. So definitely a history of mental health struggles, right? So if there is a history of depression or anxiety, that would be what we would call a risk factor. If you're going through rate of tumultuous relationship and if use of relationship, any really like unhealthy relationships, that could increase that risk factor. How do you feel about the pregnancy? Planned unplanned. There's another big one. We each have the mother as well. So that's also significant with if they're younger and unplanned, then they are at a high risk of a mood disorder as well. And then we would be looking at any health related concerns actually during the pregnancy. So if they had it trying to conceive journey, if they have any kind of physical or medical condition, that can also increase it. And then we look at like the birth experience. So if there was perceived or actual risk of life threatening incident during the birth, that can also increase the risk after. What about multiple pregnancies? You know, we're going to talk about cases, but we've also seen really sad cases where postpartum, anxiety or depression is undagnosed. And then the woman gets pregnant again. And then it seems to kind of compound or snowball. Can you talk about what that does in terms of if that's even studied? I don't know if it's studied. I do know that we know that subsequent pregnancies aren't necessarily a risk factor. Like it can kind of go either way. Like, can I use samples? So Caitlin's first pregnancy, she had really bad postpartum anxiety. Her second, she didn't. So it could be that like different interventions were in place. It could be her knowledge base at the time was different. Like, there's so many factors. So we would kind of categorize it as like risk factors and protective factors. And that one can kind of fall under that being said, if there is an untreated mental health illness, that's going on. And then there was already postpartum struggles. And then a quick pregnancy, the likelihood that I would probably be a risk factor, I would say, is higher, but again, it is understudied. Yeah. And I think we obviously see some of these cases, these really just horrific cases, where mothers will murder their children, some of them seem like they're related to some sort of postpartum psychosis. Some of them don't. I mean, it just depends on which ones you're looking at. But obviously right now in the news is the Lindsay Clancy case at a Massachusetts. And you guys had reached out to us back when that case first came up. And we were talking a little bit about this because it is so difficult for someone who has not experienced anything like this. And I think probably even for women who've experienced some postpartum mental issues to wrap their head around the kind of psychosis that she was going through for those who don't know Lindsay Clancy, a mother from Massachusetts who on January 24th murdered her three children, attempted to kill herself and is now going to be on trial for those murders. That trial is coming up. It's starting, by the time this comes out, it may have already started. I believe July 20th is the first day of trial. So one of the things we wanted to talk to you about was this condition, this postpartum psychosis. I felt like it used to be we just talked about postpartum depression. I'm not sure exactly when people started to recognize the psychosis aspect of it. Can you give us a little bit of the history of this and what it means? Yeah, so postpartum psychosis. So it is incredibly rare. And it's they've looked at rates are about one in one thousand women will experience postpartum psychosis. And really it is a breakthrough. It's a little higher than I would have thought. It is when you think of like, okay, how many thousands of women have babies, right? So it is higher than maybe one think. I mean, this is also rare that what happened with Lindsay Clancy and Andrew Yates said it actually gets to that extent, right? And that there isn't necessarily that effective intervention before. It is when you're not accurately interpreting reality, right? It's that break from reality. And they may believe things that aren't true. They may have these fixed delusions that aren't rooted in reality. They may become paranoid, see things or hear things that aren't there. It may be more of that belief that their evil babies evil. They're really fixed false beliefs that they become very strongly pulled towards. So the difference when we kind of look at postpartum anxiety and intrusive thoughts and postpartum psychosis is that the brain is not interpreting reality correctly. Whereas postpartum anxiety is a fear, psychosis is there is no reality happening. So I'm familiar with like, there's also psychosis, not related to postpartum, like you can suffer from psychosis. And it sounds a lot like what you're saying now. So like in Lindsay Clancy's case, what about postpartum would trigger that psychosis? Is it that they never would have, and of course, you would never know this, but like, how is it different than kind of a general population diagnosis of psychosis? Or is there a difference? Yeah, we're kind of looking at the timeline, honestly, usually, like when we have postpartum kind of stuck in there, it's the timeframe of when the symptoms started arising or being noticed and within that timeframe. So when you're talking to like medical doctors, usually they're going to say that postpartum is within the first year of giving birth. So that's kind of like their gauge and their timeline and kind of for their cut-offs and criteria and things like that. Typically, it's going to be about a year. And then we would be looking at also some of like the delusions and the hallucinations. They could be more related to the baby versus a typical psychosis. It could be like demons and angels and like different the themes might be a little bit different. I guess is what I'm trying to say in terms of what's kind of coming up. And you noted that in at least Lindsay Clancy's case, there were interventions. And this is something I want it before we talk about, you know, the Clancy case specifically. A lot of women who reached out to us when we've covered these types of cases, I think in the midst of the anxiety or the depression or even the psychosis, there's a fear that they can't reach out because there's no fix for it. So what types of interventions are there? I know that's a huge spectrum, but what types of interventions are there for women who may be facing this? Is there help? Can you get help? Can it help in the end? Oh, absolutely. And I think one part is advocating for yourself, your partner. And it's saying that this is not this person, right? This person is not sleeping there. You know, it's saying things in doing things that just don't necessarily make a lot of sense. They're not sleeping at all. All right, their perception of reality is cute. And then in terms of interventions, it's not going to your doctor, going to the psychiatrist and advocating that sometimes there's pharmaceutical interventions, sometimes it's hospitalization, sometimes it's therapy, right, depending on what is going on for that person. But yeah, individuals can be successfully treated with postpartum psychosis. So I know folks in your field hate to diagnose people they've never seen. But we're going to talk about Lindsay Cleansley, because I am curious about your thoughts on some of the things that happened in the run up to this. She had three children, all of which she strangled to death, a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and an eight-month-old. So the eight-month-old was born in May of 2022. The murders happened in January of 2023. Okay, so just give you some facts about her, which you probably know this, but our listeners may not. So she has severe anxiety after her baby is born. I think you would probably say that was postpartum anxiety. She's diagnosed with sort of a generalized anxiety disorder. So it's not quite identified as postpartum, but obviously it happens right after she has a baby. So I think we can say that's probably consistent. Now what's interesting to me, and I'm curious on your thoughts on this, because you mentioned medical intervention. Between October of 2022, in January of 2023, she was prescribed 13 different drugs. Anti-depressants, benzodiappines, sleep medications, mood stabilizers, and seroquel. And she took, not all at once, they were sort of going through different ones to try and find out what would work. She was taking about four different drugs a day at the time of the murders. Is that consistent with what you would expect? Does that seem like over medication, could medication have played a role in taking this from anxiety to some sort of psychosis? - I think it's also looking at the timeline too. And right after, I think it was three months after baby was born the last one. And there was a lot of this increased need in energy and decreased need for sleep and she's working out. And there was so much energy going on there that it was like, oh, okay, three kids, new baby. She's getting up at four in the morning, working out, cleaning, everything is like great. And then there's this crash where then it's like, okay, we're not getting out of bed. It's your spending hours in bed and having this huge struggle to kind of get up and care for yourself or the kids. It's looking at all of those symptoms and it's, okay, what was going on for her at that time, right? And could it have been looked at and then treated at that time for what it was rather than kind of peace-mealing, meaning something here or something there and then things kind of progressively getting worse. If that answers your question. - Yeah, and it does seem like it was progressively getting worse. And she, I believe at the beginning of January, she actually admits herself to a hospital. And she said that she was hearing voices. Now, her husband says she never told him that, which doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't hearing voices, but I know she said she's hearing voices, a male voice that was telling her to kill her children. Is that a common symptom of postpartum psychosis to the hearing voices? - Yeah, yeah. So the hallucinations, whether it's like auditory, like hearing things that aren't there or seeing things, I think she just reported auditory hallucinations. And then also kind of beyond that is that delusion, right? That fixed belief that things are bad. Like the kids are evil, I'm evil, right? I need to do something to save the children, which is also a common delusional belief, right? When you look at that evil piece. So I think the medications part, like we can speak to that in terms of, we have no idea in terms of her actual history, but it could be appropriate given what was going on, but we really, unless you have all of her records, you really have no idea. - And this is obviously, you know, hindsight, you have the benefit of hindsight right now, but it seems like she is not the type of case where in complete denial, if she was self admitting, she was seeing doctors, she was getting medication. I don't know how much she recognized it at the time, but at least it seems like she was the type of patient who was trying to get help and ended in the most horrendous way, right? Three children are dead. She had tried to hurt herself as well. Her husband, the father of these children is, I mean, his life is shattered. Was there, like, did something, I mean, a lot of things went wrong, but looking backwards, they may not have known at the time, but like, what could have been done? Should she have been kept, she did self admit, they have to let you go at some point, you know, what could be done to prevent something like this? - And one thing that comes up for me is that she may be somebody that they look at as they choose a lot of protective factors, right? They come from a higher financial status. She had three children, family was involved, like heavily involved, supportive husband, she was highly educated, she was a nurse too. And I think maybe sometimes there's, well, you're a nurse, you know what to look for, right? You know yourself, so there could be that expectation that maybe put on her, that it's like, she'll be okay, right? She's a nurse, she's doing, you know what? She's not doing great now, but her husband's there, her family's there, they can maybe hire help, right? They have a lot, I guess, need the privilege, so to speak. And that maybe one of the reasons where it was like, she'll be okay, she's struggling, but maybe wasn't taken as seriously as say somebody like Andrea Yates where there was definitely more risk factors and it still ended up in the same outcome, but there was a longer documented psychiatric history. There was people that weren't really positive in her life where maybe Lindsay Clancy, they didn't take her seriously as maybe it should have been. - So obviously, a jury's gonna have to decide whether or not she was legally insane. One of the things that I know the prosecution's gonna point to and we'll talk about the legal standard for insanity and misuse is here in a second, but one of the things I know that they will point to is how planned this feels. She, I mean, apparently she seemed like she was better all of a sudden, like, oh, she'd been, now she's, she's feeling so much better and she's telling her husband, oh, I'm fine, you know, why don't you go get us some food? Let's have some takeout and he goes to get some food and she uses that opportunity to kill the children and apparently to attempt to kill herself. She did not die, obviously, but I think she's paralyzed now. It was pretty serious. She jumped off the house basically and is now paralyzed. That sort of planning is that consistent with postpartum psychosis. - If somebody can be experiencing psychosis and still be able to plan, right? And still be able to form like logical thoughts and plan a meal or go and drive somewhere, right? It doesn't always look like acting like super bizarrely and saying things that don't make sense and behaving in really odd ways. You can have that fixed delusion and still seem like okay, right? Still call and have conversations and order a meal. So that the planning piece, you can still be actively in psychosis and still plan. - And that's really interesting and this is where the interplay of y'all's profession comes with the law because in the law, when you're looking at premeditated murder, you have to be able to premeditate it. And there's that question where I'm hearing, you can plan when you're in psychosis, but whether that's the legal definition of premeditation is actually what's really at play in this case, is the ability to plan, make a meal lie? So that the husband has to be sent off to an errand to create the opportunity, is that the same type of premeditation we would see in like a cold blooded assassin who is in his right mind, not with a psychosis diagnosis. It's fascinating. - It really is and you can still have that logic in psychosis but is that criminal intent, right? When your logic is driven by psychosis and this delusion and this fixed belief. - And real quick, right now, she is no longer struggling with psychosis, otherwise she would not be going to trial. Was that right? - Yeah, that's correct. - I don't know what to say. - Is that science for a fit for trial? - Yes, I would. - Yeah, you know the, this case is really difficult and you think about, you know, this isn't like Susan Smith, you know, to do Smith kill the kids because she was dating a rich guy, didn't want kids. - Yeah. - If you know of one, I'm happy to hear it. My understanding, there's no motive here. Like Massachusetts isn't saying, oh, in reality, she has this deep motive to kill the kids for money or for love or for freedom or whatever. There's nothing like that. So it really is just as, it seems like even everyone agrees. - She agrees. - She says that she admits that she did this. - Yeah. and she was insane before not guilty, right? - So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the standard in Massachusetts. So in most of the United States, I'm not sure what it is in Canada, you guys might know. In most of the United States, it's the McNaughton Rule, which is from Jolly Old England. The bar is very high for insanity under the McNaughton Rule. Basically, if you understand what you're doing is wrong, you're not insane. Even if you're hearing voices, even if you're seeing things, if you know you shouldn't do it, you're guilty, right? And that's the rule in most places. It's not the rule in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has a broader insanity defense than most of the country. And essentially, it's according to this case, I'm looking at Commonwealth versus McCool. It's the defendant lacks criminal responsibility. Even if they understand the act is wrong, if they lack the substantial capacity to conform their conduct to the law, and it doesn't have to be that they're completely unable to control themselves, it only has to be there's something that is substantially interfering with their ability to do the right thing. That can be sufficient for this kind of defense. And it would seem like she has a pretty strong claim based on what I'm hearing from you, given that legal rule, if they can establish, which it seems like they have a lot of evidence that she's under this postpartum psychosis. - Yes, and I believe there's two lawsuits against the doctors, two or the doctor, that are still ongoing that alleged this, that this diagnosis was missed, and subsequently she became worse and worse with each medication she was prescribed. - But what's interesting, like when we look at moms that we've worked with or just in general, there's often this fear to self-report, and there's often a fear to like go to the doctor and to say something's wrong and to admit that these are going on. So in theory, she kind of went against that and was able to like, no, she was unlawful enough to go and try to get help, which a lot of moms will tell us, like I'm scared. Like their biggest fear of judgment and scared of, like my kids being taken away, and they don't necessarily report that I'm having, it may be suicidal thoughts. Even in truths of thoughts and part of intrusive thoughts with postpartum anxiety is having these thoughts that I may cause harm to my baby. So we hear that it's like I'm walking down the stairs with my baby and I think of just like throwing her against the wall. And the key distinguisher is does this thought scare you, right? And most moms are like, oh my god, like it's terrifying. I feel terrible what kind of person would have that thought, and that's like a protective factor, right? That thought scares you and it should. But with postpartum psychosis, if you were to ask a mom, like, well, does that thought scare you, then the answer would be vastly different. So you know, yeah, which is like for us, we'd consider it a medical emergency. Like if we were talking about intrusive thoughts and they were like, yeah, it doesn't disturb me. It feels like this needs to happen, right? It would be like, we need to take you to the hospital now. You can't be left alone. Like a clear sign. You know, it's so weird because in some ways, her recognition of her problems almost cut against her because she didn't realize this was happening to her and she's descending into this and she just snaps. She's walking down the stairs and slams her baby against the wall. And just this, you know, she saw this. She admitted herself to the hospital. The doctors failed her, may have failed her. I don't want to prejudge that case, but they're certainly being accused of failing her. Why not just separate herself from the children? Maybe that's a stupid question, but if you're feeling this way, why not just say, I have to go. - I think that comes down to wanting to be with your kids and wanting to be, you know what, that mother to your children and feeling this sense of obligation and not wanting to burden, right? I think her husband was still working, family was coming in stain with them, feeling like, okay, I've got to like, I've got to do this. I've got to get it together, right? And I think, yeah, this was over months too, right? And it just was getting worse and worse and worse until this happened. - Yeah, I mean, I think you're putting words to something that we hear from a lot of women that I think a lot of us, especially those who are educated, you know, like you said, she was educated. She was of a good kind of pedigree. She treated others. She was a caregiver. She was not the one who sought care typically. Everyone knows that motherhood, that cuts both ways. Social media is like, yes, motherhood and parenthood is so hard. So they're thinking, well, it's hard for everybody. So why am I going to be the one who raises a white flag when it seems like everyone out there can do it just fine. And there's this resistance to recognizing the problem and then quite literally finding the time to be treated. She had a five, a three, and an eight-month-old at home. Like, when was she gonna leave? Her husband was at work, you know? And I hear this from women often. They're like, I'll take care of myself later. There wasn't a later in this case. Later was too late. And I know those are things that you guys are fighting against every day in kind of what you do on social media as well. But I think it's worth noting because there are just so many factors at play here. The most devastating thing for me here is just that she was getting help. It's so hard because I hope what that doesn't do for women who are watching this case or men who are supporting. The mother's in their life is that this seems like an outlier case, and maybe you can speak to that whether this is an outlier case. Most people who I know who do seek help, there is a happy outcome that it does not reach the story of an outcome. But there is going to be a whole separate suit about whether she was over-medicated misdiagnosed that whole thing. Her case does seem extreme on many levels. And I hope what the effect of this case is not that women will look at her and say, she even sought help and it ended in this. So I'm not even gonna seek help. Like it's not going to help me and I don't have the time. I don't have the money and I don't have a problem. So, you know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how much of an extreme case is this? - Oh, absolutely. And I believe it really, really is an outlier that just so many things just did not happen in her favor where the diagnosis and the medication and she just, unfortunately, even though she was seeking help and receiving help, she still fell through the cracks because it wasn't really addressed with the fall scope it should have been. And it really is that we don't see this happen, right? Why it's taken like kind of the world by shock and horror is that we just really don't see this. - So what should have happened here? - It feels like a load of. - I mean, the husband, the husband talked about. - Yeah, you guys can be the judge here in a completely different jurisdiction. You know, the interesting thing is the husband here has said, you know, like he forgives her, like this is not her. And it's again, I can't even imagine the complexity of emotions he has because he's lost his entire life and his children, but he has said this is not her. That's not who killed my children. Yet, in the United States, prosecution actually is not brought by an individual. So you can have someone who says, like, I don't want charges. He actually is not the only one who would be a victim here. The children are actually, you know, also the victims. But the state can move forward even if there are direct impacts on family members who, you know, may say they don't want prosecution. - And I want you guys, I have three unfair questions. (laughing) I don't want you to answer all of them. (laughing) So the first one is, and your impetus for the day, Canada has now conquered the United States, you know, over the entire continent, except for Mexico, which maintains this freedom. So you can do whatever you want. In a situation exactly like this, what should be in place? Should someone have been able to have committed her involuntarily? What steps should police the state, hospitals, whatever be able to take in an extreme situation like this, because it feels like once she went home, it was a matter of time. She was gonna find a moment when he was asleep or he wasn't there, and she was gonna kill her kids. What should have happened? Or what should be able to happen in a situation like this? - In an ideal world, and this is hard, because don't necessarily know that it was vocalized that I'm gonna harm my children, but there was that risk to herself, and anytime somebody's a risk to themselves, they really shouldn't be supervising children at all. - She should have, in an ideal world, been committed, right? Been hospitalized until there was substantial, and not just a day or two of like, yeah, I'm doing better. Okay, yeah, come back for outpatient therapy, right? Not just, yeah, don't have any more thoughts, because it's easily, right? - Well, she would have formed beat, I think, here. So in the hospital that we live near, two doctors can write somebody to be institutionalized, like, into the hospital, against their will, for up to 30 days, I think. And then they're, you know, assessed, and not that that's a perfect system either, but that could be kind of a failstriple. - I would hope that would happen here. - Yeah, that's what would happen. - Like in the United States, you can check out against medical advice. you just sign away. I mean, there are some states where you can be involuntarily committed, but I don't know the message. It's one of them. I don't like the message. It's one of them, right? You can check yourself out on a form, but you can't leave if you leave, then the police will come get you. We should follow Canada's lead on this one. That's my first unfair question. And do you think this is also an unfair question because it's not like you treated this lady. You think, and I know it's hard to put aside what we know now. But even without hindsight, do you think there was enough there that she should have been involuntarily committed in January? In a hypothetical scenario, I think, yes, I would have felt very, like, which particular factors, you know, push that scale over to, yes. Emitting herself right the fact that she was deteriorating significantly with that increase to Sarah Quill, her husband said I think she's a thousand times worse. And one or two days of like, I'm feeling better now like that could be mania too, right? That could be, okay, yeah, I'm feeling better now because I'm experiencing this mania. And it's like, yeah, I want to go home and do all these things and get back to it. But then it's like, okay, there can be that delusion, right? So it's like, yeah, of course you're your friend. But it was such self-awareness with her. I think she journaled pretty heavily, right? When she wrote, she had enough self-awareness to be able to recognize it was a good or a bad day. And again, that's like her education in some ways may have been her detriment that she was so self-aware. And what happened those last couple days when she checked herself out and they said she was feeling better. It's like, well, I don't think she was better in the sense of, I am aware of my actions and my feelings and reality, right? So it's like, what is that better look like? Is it just you saying, as I'm feeling better, I'm not suicidal anymore? Or is it like, okay, everybody's noticing, right, your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviors are more you, your sleep more, right, your eating, things like that? And you know, that was an unfair question because she wasn't exhibiting the, if you haven't known someone with psychosis, maybe you've seen it on movies or something. She wasn't exhibiting those kinds where she had complete disconnect from reality. She wasn't wandering the streets. She wasn't speaking in tongues or two things that weren't in the room. And she wasn't acting completely detached from a reality that looked sane. In fact, it was the opposite. Now, masking is obviously something that can happen. I don't know if that's the right medical term, but I have seen someone in the midst of a psychosis episode, be able to turn around and talk as if they're like perfectly fine, but they can't keep it up for long. Now, so she wasn't in that kind, and I say this because involuntary commitment, if allowed in certain states here in the United States, such a high bar, you basically have to be out of your mind, your pupils are dilated, you can't see straight, you're walking into walls and you're talking to demons or in tongues, and she wasn't doing that. So if Massachusetts had a voluntary commitment, I don't know that she would have actually qualified at that level. And I think that's the problem. I think every state you can be involuntarily committed if you're like truly psychotic in the traditional sort of sense of the word, right? But I think the ability to involuntarily commit someone like her, where it's not, it doesn't feel as imminent, it's not like she's walking around with an axe, calling people demons and saying she's gonna chop their heads off. It's a much more subtle thing and a problem, and I just, it's a very difficult situation, and I don't know that really the tools existed to deal with it. I think this one would have been so hard to catch, too, right, depending on what was reported or not, right? I think there's a bit of discrepancy in terms of, it was reported to the doctors and then they say it wasn't in terms of hearing voices, so it's so tricky. So, no, no, you do your own fair question first. I have a second unfair question, and slightly unconstitutional question, but we're gonna ask it anyway. So you're both hired as jury consultants for the defense based on your experience with social media and your work and interacting with lots of women. Do you tell the defense put women on the jury or men on the jury? Well, I can see it going either way, and that would be, I would have a lot more questions for the women. Yeah, I feel. I feel like they could either be empathetic or judgmental, especially if they are a mother, if they weren't a mother. If they're on a jury, they likely didn't kill their children, so I mean, truthfully, right? They don't have a criminal record, and that's a little hard. But I think women, a good understanding, right, of mental health, too, because if you don't know it's just this, like, how in the world, there has to be that awareness and understanding more empathy. I think, yeah, I think I would go with women, too. I'd go with mothers, specifically, because even if you're a mother who did not struggle with it, I think that I see this on y'all's Instagram feed, postpartum is hard for everybody. There's different levels of hard, but there is like no easy postpartum, and so like someone who recognizes that they are not diagnosed with psychosis or anxiety or postpartum depression can still see a thread and be able to empathize. I would think, if I'm the jury consultant, that they were like, you know what, those first few days, when I was wearing an adult diaper, and my body wasn't my own, and I had to take care of this little thing, was the least I felt like myself. Now, multiply that by, you know, a million, I can empathize. Absolutely. I'm putting 12 men on the jury, because they would just all look away and be like, I can't, I don't know. I just, I don't know. I'm not going to be a woman hater here. Yeah. And then my last unfair question, and I keep Alice probably has questions to you, but I've got my three-hand fair question, so when I ask him, my last unfair question, it's kind of the ultimate question, is she criminally responsible or not? Is she a murderer? No. I think one of the absolute worst things I would imagine for her is when she is actually treated and doing better and realizing what she did. I don't think there's any, like, worst punishment than that. And along those lines, like, who wins if she is found guilty here? And they doesn't bring back the kids. You know, her husband has already lost his kids. Now, he already has lost his wife in a lot of senses, but like, certainly lose, you know, being able to have a life with her, if that's what he wants. This is such a hard case, because, you know, I've heard some people say there should be like a compassionate acquittal, whatever that means, you know, like, she did it because she admits it. I do appreciate that we're not fighting about the actual facts. She's not saying she didn't do it. She did it. And that's where I think it goes to what you said, Caitlin, that criminal lies. The children's lives ended at her hands, but whether that arises to the level of criminal murder is something potentially different. Yeah. I think one of the big problems in this case is there may just be no good solution because if she's acquitted or if she's found not guilty by reason of insanity, it's like a true get out of jail free card because it's not one of the situations where you killed somebody, but you're insane and you're dangerous and we're going to keep you in and insane asylum for the rest of your life. You're never going to get out because you're dangerous. That's not going to happen. Like, the thing that made her dangerous has passed. Yeah. So if she's not criminally responsible, she goes free. Now she'll have to live with what she did. Obviously, if she's paralyzed, that'll be punishment as well. I think a lot of people are going to have a real problem with there are three children that are dead and just nothing happens. And then the like other thing in the United States, we kept the conditions where it's like, well, if you get pregnant again, we're going to retry you or you're going to have to be involuntarily committed for the first 12 months of your postpartum journey. We can't do that. But you're saying there might not be a risk, but like she is an outlier. This has happened once and she is 35. If she gets off this summer, she has many more child care years ahead of her. No, I don't know what's going on mentally with her anything, but she is the kind of person who has done this before. Are we as a society putting her future children at risk? But you can't judge that on this case because in this country, we are trying the case of these three children. I mean, these are, but these are huge existential questions to think of. Think about as a society. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's tough. That is. And that's a piece where I kind of go back to like Andrea Yates and I looked at that when recently and although she was found not guilty by reason of insanity, she is in a state hospital. And she shows in the stay there. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. She could leave if she wanted to, but I don't anticipate. No, honestly, I'm not even sure why she's in the state hospital. I don't know how that happened because I don't know that you could say Lindsey Clancy is a danger to anyone at this point. At this point? Yeah. So I don't know, guys. I guess we'll see what happens. I mean, they're saying it's going to be like a four to six week long trial. So I assume there's gonna be a lot of medical evidence, a lot of experts are gonna testify. I don't think most of the facts are really disputed. Now the doctors, you know, who are now being sued, let's see what their testimony looks like, 'cause presumably they're gonna present themselves as being, it's just, it's not credible to say, well, there was nothing really the wrong with her, she just had some anxiety. She killed her three kids for apparently no reason. Something was going on with her. - Yeah, yeah, and was she diagnosed? And I know after the murders happened, she was diagnosed with bipolar psychotic features. Of course, that was after. - Right. - Prior to, was that presenting, right? Did she present it to her providers? Or did they do an in-depth enough assessment, right? At these visits, right? I think they were 17 minutes with her psychiatrist, right? Is that enough time to go through all of these questions and know, okay, what's actually going on? - Well, we really appreciate your expertise on this. I mean, this is something we're gonna be reaching out to about a lot. We may even have you back on after it's all over and we'll see what happened. Because. - You had the facts of that, yeah. - Yeah, maybe things will develop that change all our minds, right? Maybe you'll see things that make you think this is what it appears to be right now. - Right, maybe the medical evidence will signal something different that we don't know about yet. - Is there anything in particular that people should be looking for? Like, how do you, almost seems like a stupid question. How do you prove somebody had postpartum psychosis? I mean, I guess you just go through medical records, everything we've talked about, the drugs, the doctor visits, and you sort of build the diagnosis from that. Is that the way you would do it? - I imagine that's what they would have done. It is not funny, but it is odd that it's like retroactive. Like it's hard. - She was never diagnosed with it. - Yeah. - No, that's right. Yeah, it's going back and it's like looking at things like. I had this, she had this during this time, but then was it reported? And if there were these clear signs where it was this decreased need for sleep and then it was this crash out where she's not getting out of bed and that's reported by husband, parents, all these people that potentially knew her and knew who she was before this happened. That great distinction between, okay, this is who we knew. She was and after baby, it was this like mania and then it's this crash out. And if all of that's being reported, then it's, okay, why wasn't that diagnosis reached? - So this has been an uplifting episode that's complete sarcasm, complete sarcasm. What I do want to bring you back to is that this is something you guys have been passionate about helping women and to talk about this. And I so appreciate that. Can we end on somewhat of a hopeful note? What message do you have for women who either might be struggling with it themselves, postpartum or recognize it in someone else who is struggling, what can they do? What are some practical tangible steps people can take? - And I would say reach out to your health. - How are you good therapist? - No, but and really a therapist that is trained in perinatal mental health would be able to recognize these signs you don't. - You would hope. - Yes, no, I think when you, this is kind of a nerdy way to think about it, when we look at the bell curve, like this is so far on the outline, it isn't like this for everybody. And even though you hear these scary stories and they do get somewhat sensationalized right or like brought up in the media like don't let that deter you if you feel like something might be off for you. Like we even say we're therapists and we needed and sought help in our own struggles and we're quote unquote trained. We know what to look for. We know how we teach people how to cope and we couldn't cope in our own circumstances at times. And so you know there is no shame in asking whether that's is a healthcare provider or is it somebody in your life that is trusting and that you're able to like share that with. - Well, thank you guys for what you do. You guys should get their book obviously not your mother's postpartum. That says so much right there. Check them out on social media at Mama Psychologist and they also have a great website. Thank you guys for sharing your expertise, but more importantly for making sure this information reaches people far and wide. I think this is incredibly important as we're seeing because there can be absolutely devastating consequences from these whether it's misdiagnosed or mistreated. So thank you, thank you for what you do. For anything else you look. - I have another answer. No, I'm just kidding. - I was like not them, they'll never come back. - Do we get to ask you an unfair question? - Absolutely. - You get to tell us what you think should have or is that Mama? - Yeah. I think that she will benefit greatly from Massachusetts law. I think in most states she would be guilty. Because I think in most states, the planning, the fact that she did this intentionally, she waited till he was gone, she even set it up. Those would all be factors that say, whatever's going on in her mind, she's not legally insane. I don't think she'd be legally insane. Like if she was being charged in Texas, guilty. - Yeah. - I think because she's being charged in Massachusetts. - It's an incredibly broad standard. - Yeah, she has a rule. - She has a rule. - And the fact that she falls within the insanity definition really. - There's not even a hint of alternative motive, you know? - Yeah, I think it wasn't from money, it wasn't an insurance payout. She didn't have a boyfriend, she didn't not want kids. - She didn't make children. - I mean, there was no-- - Yeah, I'm the children. - Yeah, so I think if the jury follows the law, and if the facts are what we think they are, I think she'll probably be acquitted. But jury's gonna look at three dead children and may disregard the law. So we'll see what happens. - Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much. We're gonna be watching this case very closely. Unfortunately, this is not the first case we've seen like this. Please keep doing what you do. And I also hope that you guys will come back on and share more of your knowledge with us. We really appreciate it. - Oh, guys, this has been a very insightful. I know I've learned so much from this conversation with Caitlin and Chelsea. Go check them out at Mama Psychologist. Go get their book as well. But until next time, I'm Alice. - And I'm Brett. - Chelsea? - And Caitlin? (laughing) - It sounds so odd. - It sounds awesome. You heard it here, guys. We are the prosecutor's legal briefs. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - But until next time, I'm Alice. - And I'm Brett. - And we are the prosecutor. (laughing) - You get to say you're Caitlin and Chelsea. - You're gonna say your actual name, if you want to actually get to say your name. - I love that, but you have to say your name. - That'll be great out there. - No, no, I think that was her. - That was so good. It was so good. Go for it. It's your name. - Chelsea? - And Caitlin? - It sounds so. - It sounds awesome. - You heard it here, guys. - That was great. - That was awesome. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]