Susan Smith prosecutor warns women jurors may be toughest on Lindsay Clancy's psychosis defense

The man who put Susan Smith behind bars says female jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial may be the least sympathetic to her postpartum psychosis defense, because many of them fought through the same darkness and never harmed their children.

Rep. Tommy Pope, the South Carolina lawmaker who prosecuted Smith for drowning her two young sons in 1994, told Fox News Digital that the jury seated in Plymouth Superior Court, 12 women and six men, with 12 ultimately deliberating, could produce a counterintuitive dynamic. Women who endured postpartum depression themselves, Pope argued, may hold Clancy to a higher standard precisely because they survived it without killing anyone.

Clancy, 36, faces three counts of first-degree murder for the January 2023 strangling deaths of her three children, five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan, at the family's home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Her defense team, led by attorney Kevin Reddington, does not dispute that she killed the children. They argue she was experiencing postpartum psychosis and is not criminally responsible.

Pope draws on the Susan Smith playbook

Pope won a conviction against Smith on July 22, 1995, after she drowned three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander by strapping them into her car and rolling it into a lake. Smith initially claimed a Black man had carjacked her with the boys inside before admitting to the killings. She received a life sentence.

Now serving as Speaker Pro Tempore of the South Carolina House, Pope told Fox News Digital that his experience with the Smith jury left him with a clear takeaway about how mothers process these cases.

"For the most part, the women were the ones that said, you know, when I had my kids, I went through hell, or I went through depression, or I battled this, or I was overwhelmed. But they're the most important thing in my life."

That personal experience, Pope said, could cut against Clancy rather than in her favor.

"And so, strange twist, while a woman may have even faced postpartum depression, she may have overcome it and then be less sympathetic to Clancy."

Pope also flagged Clancy's physical condition as a wildcard. She is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair in the courtroom, the result of injuries whose cause remains disputed. Pope noted two competing accounts: that she intentionally injured herself, or that, as the prosecution has argued, she "tried to slide down and just got injured."

Either way, Pope suggested male jurors might react differently than female ones.

"But some jurors, and I would think maybe even more so men, would think, well, she's already punished. She's in a wheelchair. So in a strange twist, it could almost be the opposite."

The implication is plain: women who lived through postpartum struggles may judge Clancy by their own standard of endurance, while men may feel she has already suffered enough. Both instincts could shape a verdict in ways neither side fully controls.

Prosecution's FBI psychiatrist challenged the "voice" defense

Pope's commentary arrived as the prosecution mounted its final rebuttal inside Plymouth Superior Court. Gregory Saathoff, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Virginia who consults for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, took the stand as the prosecution's closing expert witness and drove straight at the foundation of Clancy's defense: that she heard a commanding voice telling her to kill her children.

Saathoff told jurors he found it significant that Clancy had never mentioned hearing voices to any of the mental health professionals, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, physicians, or emergency department staff who treated her, or to staff at McLean, a mental health facility where she had prior contact.

"What was significant to me is that she had not spoken about hearing voices before to any of the mental health professionals, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, physicians and staff in the emergency department, or at McLean."

What Saathoff found even more unusual was the timing. Clancy reported that the commanding voice stopped once she finished strangling her youngest son, Callan. Saathoff said that pattern contradicts clinical experience with genuine auditory hallucinations.

"This was the first time she reported that, and that she experienced an auditory hallucination, according to what she told me. So that was unusual. And then what was very unusual was the fact that the voice stopped with the strangling of her youngest son."

AP News reported that Saathoff went further, telling the jury that Clancy's methodical execution of the killings, carried out quickly during a narrow window when her husband was out of the home, pointed to control and planning, not psychotic helplessness. "Committing the act is not curative of the voice. I've not ever seen that," Saathoff testified.

Psychologist Kirk Heilbrun, questioned by the prosecution, conceded a point that prosecutors clearly wanted on the record. Asked whether someone hearing a command hallucination could still conform their conduct to the law, Heilbrun answered: "In some cases they can."

Defense painted Clancy as a "puppet" controlled by psychosis

Earlier in the week, the defense called its own expert, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick, who offered a starkly different portrait. Resnick testified that Clancy did not merely hear a command, she felt her body had been commandeered entirely.

"Not only did she hear a command, but she felt that her body was taken over by an external force where she was in a dream state and did not have control of her own body. It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings."

Reddington's defense strategy rests on convincing the jury that Clancy's postpartum psychosis, compounded by a cocktail of psychiatric medications, rendered her incapable of criminal responsibility. Breitbart reported that the defense has argued Clancy suffered from bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis and called co-workers and family members to testify on her behalf after the prosecution rested its case on August 17.

Earlier trial testimony provided additional context for the medication angle. The New York Post reported that forensic toxicologist Dr. Justin Brower testified Clancy had a "slightly elevated" level of the antipsychotic drug Seroquel in her system at the time of the killings, though he said the concentration was "not in a concentration that I would consider to be toxic or lethal." The defense has pointed to 15 psychiatric medications Clancy was taking as a factor in her mental state.

The family's former nanny, Elaine Rossi, also testified earlier in the trial that she never worried the children were unsafe with Clancy. "I observed a wonderful mom who loved her kids. She was very concerned with their safety," Rossi told the court, according to the Post's reporting.

Closing arguments expected Thursday as jury nears deliberation

Testimony was expected to conclude Wednesday, with closing arguments set for Thursday. After closings, the court will determine which 12 of the 18 seated jurors, 12 women and six men, will deliberate the verdict. The remaining six will be dismissed as alternates.

Outside the courthouse, at least one supporter spoke to Fox News Digital about the broader implications of the case.

"This trial has really made a lot of us realize just how bad things are. Obviously, a really sad story and hard to listen to at times. But if this moves the needle just a teeny tiny bit, and women start to experience more support, then I'm here for that."

The supporter added that when she had her own children, "nobody really said anything about postpartum" and that mothers were left to "figure it out ourselves."

That sentiment captures the tension running through the entire trial. Postpartum depression is real. Postpartum psychosis is real. But three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, are dead, and the question before this jury is not whether their mother suffered but whether her suffering erases her responsibility for what she did to them.

Sympathy is not an acquittal. Twelve jurors will have to decide whether they agree.