Is Corie Walsh Really A Lindsay Clancy Copycat?

After the death of her two-year-old son, Barrett Walsh, who was found hanging from a rafter in the family’s Frankfort, Illinois, home, Corie Walsh faces a charge of first-degree murder.

Since then, debate has emerged over whether the killing was a copycat crime, with media commentators, attorneys and experts offering sharply different views.

The Copycat Question

With Walsh’s connection to the Lindsay Clancy case, that debate was always going to happen. People reported that Walsh had been “actively discussing” the case just hours before Barrett’s killing, “according to witness accounts cited in a pretrial release denial petition.”

On her YouTube channel, Megyn Kelly said, “There is now a copycat case,” and described the connection as “an obvious copycat.”

Explaining her reasoning, she told viewers, “I for one am persuaded by her extreme interest in the case as expressed within hours of her doing this that it did play a role.”

Before The Killing

Prosecutors revealed that Corie Walsh had been participating in a group text discussing the Lindsay Clancy trial just hours before Barrett was found. However, prosecutors have not said that the Clancy case inspired the killing.

Following a high-profile murder trial closely is one thing. Deliberately copying it is another. Walsh was clearly interested in the Clancy case, but so far, investigators have not produced evidence showing that she killed Barrett because of it.

Evidence presented in court potentially complicates the copycat theory. According to defense attorneys, members of Walsh’s group chat described her messages as “confusing” and “out of character.”

NBC Chicago reported that they also said Walsh appeared to believe that Patrick Clancy, rather than Lindsay, had killed the children

The outlet also reported that prosecutors said a neighbor found Walsh “fully clothed in a bathtub” containing bloody water, with injuries to her wrists and thighs. Walsh allegedly told authorities that she killed her son because she believed he was “the devil and the Antichrist.”

The Defense

Walsh’s defense attorneys are Robert Kerr and Andrea Lyon. Outside the court, Lyon pushed back against suggestions that Walsh’s case was a copycat crime.

“That speculation that this has anything to do, that it’s a copycat or anything like that, is baseless and cruel,” she said.

In court, Robert Kerr told the judge that Walsh had been “severely mentally ill” at the time of the incident and had since been diagnosed with brief psychotic disorder.

The Prosecution

Prosecutors also alleged that Walsh said she had tried to kill her other three children. Notably, prosecutors have not publicly alleged that Barrett’s death was a copycat killing.

Instead, Newstimes reported that during pretrial proceedings, prosecutors argued that Walsh bore criminal responsibility and intended to kill the children before taking her own life.

Expert Opinions

Copycat crimes are nothing new. However, simply knowing about another crime doesn’t mean that someone deliberately copied it.

Speaking to WBUR, forensic and reproductive psychiatrist Dr. Susan Hatters-Friedman described postpartum psychosis as a severe illness that can cause a rapid and complete break from reality.

Newstimes also cited former FBI special agent Ken Gray, who said copycat crimes do occur, pointing to school shootings and bomb threats as examples.

While there is evidence connecting Corie Walsh’s final hours to the Lindsay Clancy case, whether there is sufficient evidence to call her a copycat is a completely different question.

For now, the available evidence indicates that Corie Walsh was reportedly experiencing a severe psychiatric crisis, leaving the copycat label an unproven inference rather than an established fact.

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