An Illinois mother who witnesses said had become deeply invested in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial is charged with killing her 2-year-old son by hanging him from a basement rafter.
Her attorneys say she was in a psychotic episode.
Corie Walsh, 40, appeared in court Tuesday and was ordered held without bond on three counts of first-degree murder in the Sept. 1 death of Barrett Walsh.
A medical examiner determined the boy died from asphyxia.
Two school-age children living in the home returned from school, found the scene and ran to a neighbor for help. The neighbor found Barrett hanging from a rafter with a ligature around his neck, pulled him down and performed CPR but could not revive him.
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An infant in the home was unharmed. Walsh’s husband was out of town.
Walsh was found upstairs in a bathtub in a pool of blood with cuts to her wrists and thighs.
A teenage neighbor who called 911 took a knife from her before police arrived.
Prosecutors said Walsh told police she planned to “poison him with a drink,” referring to her husband.
At the hospital she told police he “was the ‘devil’ and the ‘anti-Christ.’”
Court documents state witnesses reported Walsh had “recently become very invested in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial,” talking about it regularly in a group chat with friends almost until the moment her son was found unresponsive.
Clancy admitted killing her three children in Massachusetts in 2023 but claimed postpartum psychosis. That trial ended in a mistrial last week.
Defense attorney Robert Kerr said Walsh was “severely mentally ill at the time of the incident” and had been suffering a psychotic episode when her son was killed.
Attorney Andrea Lyon said: “This is a tragedy, for the Walsh family all of whom are mourning the loss of this child. It is also a tragedy in that (Corie) herself was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time this happened.”
Prosecutors, asking the judge to deny bond, said: “The defendant poses a specific, real, and present threat to her husband and her living three children.”
A preliminary hearing is set for Sept. 24.
