On Saturday, forensic psychologist Dr. John Matthias appeared on the Hidden True Crime podcast to discuss the trial of Lindsay Clancy, who is being tried on three murder charges in Plymouth County Superior Court in Massachusetts.
Lack Of Sleep
Sleep loss appeared repeatedly in Clancy’s records. Speaking with his wife, journalist Lauren Matthias, Matthias focused on what can happen when a lack of sleep becomes extreme.
He said unwanted thoughts may become harder to control and, in some cases, develop into hallucinations.
A Shakespeare Analogy
He used Shakespeare’s Macbeth to make his point:
“Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep…'”
He went on to say:
If you look at this case, this idea of murdering sleep, it undergirds everything in this case… When you murder sleep, you’re going to create a whole host of problems.
Hallucinations Can Result
Matthias argued that extreme sleep loss can impair the prefrontal cortex, weakening control over intrusive thoughts and potentially contributing to hallucinations.
What initially presents as a distressing, unwanted fear (“What if something happens to my kids?”) can change into an alienated thought (“This idea doesn’t belong to me”).
Describing the progression, Dr. Matthias said:
The command hallucination is the logical conclusion of it not being her voice… It’s where you land when you follow this path deep enough into the darkness of ‘I cannot have these thoughts, so therefore it has to be someone else.’
Mental Illness vs. Intentional Crime
Prosecutors argue that Clancy acted deliberately and planned the killings.
They contend that Lindsay Clancy sent her husband on an errand to create an opportunity to kill the children. They have also pointed to her internet activity as evidence of planning and criminal intent.
Forensic Psychology Angle
Matthias offered a different interpretation:
The prosecution by the way is portraying this as how meticulous she is and how controlled she is and how she mapped this whole thing out… I see this as her world, her internal world is falling apart and her response to that is to become even more meticulous, to become even more controlled.
Studies On Sleep
A 2016 study by Sheaves et al., published in Psychiatry Research, found that people with sleep problems had two to three times greater odds of reporting hallucinations. Those with chronic insomnia had approximately four times greater odds, and insomnia predicted the later occurrence of hallucinations.
A 2021 study by Harrington et al., published in Clinical Psychological Science, found that sleep deprivation impaired people’s ability to suppress unwanted thoughts and memories.
As Dr. Matthias summarized it, “Sleep deprivation interfered with prefrontal control over memory and emotional systems.”
A Postpartum Study
A 2024 study by Collardeau et al., published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, examined the prevalence and course of unwanted, intrusive thoughts of infant-related harm.
Approximately 96% of postpartum women experienced unwanted thoughts involving accidental harm to their infant, while 54% experienced unwanted thoughts of intentional harm.
The researchers described these thoughts as a common and typically self-resolving postpartum phenomenon. Having them does not, by itself, indicate an intention to harm a child.
Clancy’s Journaling
Matthias also examined two entries from Clancy’s journal: “I’m drowning every day” and “A big thing is I feel disconnected from myself time reality.”
He interpreted the second entry as evidence of psychological deterioration:
Disconnected from myself time reality… She’s lumping myself, time, and reality together… That is someone slipping into madness. That is someone slipping into psychosis. She’s lost her sense of time, she’s lost her sense of reality, and she’s disconnecting from herself.
A Thin Line
Patrick Clancy said, “I wasn’t married to a monster; I was married to someone who got sick.”
Matthias called that statement significant: “I think that speaks volumes. This isn’t Mrs. Hyde in the way that Stevenson would want to portray Hyde as evil… Patrick recognizes this is a complex human being and not a monster.”
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