Illinois woman charged with killing son had closely followed Lindsay Clancy trial, prosecutors say

A 40-year-old woman from Frankfort, Illinois, Corie Walsh, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder after her two-year-old son, Barrett, was found dead in the basement of the family's home last Tuesday. Frankfort is located about 35 miles south-west of Chicago.

According to prosecutors, Walsh had been texting friends about the closely watched trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children in 2023, until roughly 12:30pm that day. Prosecutors described Walsh as having become "very invested" in the case. Less than four hours after those texts, a neighbor discovered Barrett's body in the basement.

The neighbor began performing CPR on the boy while calling 911. Barrett was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy determined the cause of death was asphyxia from ligature compression of the neck.

When police searched the home, they found Walsh fully dressed in a bathtub of bloody water elsewhere in the house, with cuts to her wrists and thighs. Her injuries were described by authorities as not life-threatening. Prosecutors said Walsh later told investigators she killed her son because she believed he was the "devil" and the "anti-Christ". Her attorney, Andrea Lyon, said Walsh had been experiencing a psychotic episode and described the boy's death as a tragedy for the whole family.

The revelation about Walsh's interest in the Clancy case emerged just days after a Massachusetts judge declared a mistrial in that case, after jurors said they could not reach a unanimous verdict. Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, is accused of killing her three young children; her defense argues she was legally insane and suffering from postpartum psychosis, while prosecutors maintain she understood her actions were wrong. Authorities in Illinois have not suggested that the Clancy trial played any role in the killing of Walsh's son, and no publicly disclosed evidence establishes such a link beyond her discussion of the case with friends.