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Corie Walsh, the Lindsay Clancy-obsessed mom accused of hanging her 2-year-old son, has the full support of her family, according to her attorney, who pinned the “unimaginable tragedy” on her suffering Clancy-like “psychosis.”
Walsh’s attorney Andrea Lyon, who previously defended Casey Anthony, has maintained that Walsh was suffering from a psychotic episode when her 2-year-old son Barret was hanged from a rafter in the basement of their Illinois home last month.
“We are continuing to investigate and thoroughly represent our client by learning everything that we can about her and about her psychosis,” Lyon told WMAQ outside of a Frankfort courthouse where Walsh appeared Monday for a pre-trial hearing.
“Psychosis is not a choice, and the death of Little Bear — that was [Barrett’s] nickname — is an unimaginable tragedy,” she said.
“We are getting prepared to defend her, and that requires us to know everything. The only way to do that is to get all the discovery.”
Lyon added Walsh’s family was “fully supporting her.”
Corie Walsh, 40, was charged with first-degree murder after Barrett’s two older siblings returned home from school and found their mother fully clothed in the bathtub filled with bloody water after self-harming herself, prosecutors have said.
They ran to a neighbor’s house for help, and later found Barret with a rope around his neck and feet off the ground in the basement of the family’s home in Frankfort, a suburb about 30 miles southwest of Chicago.
The frantic neighbor called 911 and tried fruitlessly to perform CPR on the tot, who didn’t have a pulse and was cold to the touch. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Another 8-month-old child was found in the house unharmed.
Walsh had “recently become very invested” in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, who strangled her three young children to death in Massachusetts, which her attorneys pinned on postpartum psychosis.
Clancy had also tried to take her own life, jumping out of a second-story window, leaving her permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Clancy’s trial, which gripped the nation for weeks, ended in a mistrial after one holdout juror declined to find her not guilty by means of insanity.
Walsh, who was hospitalized after she was found, allegedly told investigators she killed her young son because he’s the “anti-Christ” and “devil,” according to prosecutors.
She also allegedly admitted to plotting to poison her husband.
Walsh, who has pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to appear in court again on Nov. 23.