Corie Walsh’s attorney has spoken out after the Illinois mother was charged with murdering her two-year-old son.
Walsh, 40, of Frankfort, Ill., a suburb southwest of Chicago, was discovered in a bloody bathtub with self-inflicted knife wounds after her neighbor found little Bennet Walsh hanging from the basement rafters on Tuesday, according to court documents. The neighbor, who has not been publicly identified, removed the ligature from the toddler’s neck, lowered him to the ground and began CPR while calling 911 around 4 p.m. First responders rushed Bennet to the hospital where he died.
The same neighbor also found Walsh upstairs, “actively harming herself” with slashes to her wrists and thighs, court documents state. She disarmed Walsh, threw the knife into the sink, and pressed a towel against the thigh wound.
Walsh asked the neighbor why she had taken the knife away when she was trying to kill herself, according to the documents. She told the neighbor that “Bear” — her nickname for Bennet — was in the basement.
While being treated at the hospital, Walsh spoke with police officers and described how she killed Bennet, a confession prosecutors said was “consistent with the evidence in this case,” court documents show. She described the child to police as the “anti-Christ” and the “devil.”
Attorney Andrea Lyon told ABC 7 Chicago that Walsh “was experiencing a psychotic episode.”
“This is a tragedy, for the Walsh family all of whom are mourning the loss of this child,” Lyon said.
“It is our hope that through a thorough presentation and investigation of the facts, that all of us will come to see this heartbreak for what it is.”
The killing came just hours after Walsh had been discussing the trial of Lindsay Clancy, another Massachusetts mother whose case has drawn national attention. Clancy, whose murder trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial last Friday, claimed she was legally insane due to postpartum psychosis when she strangled her three children to death with exercise bands. Her defense team argued she was suffering from overprescribed powerful psychiatric medications.
Walsh’s lawyer is now making a similar claim of a psychotic episode in her defense.
Clancy’s trial captivated the nation for more than six weeks before jurors could not reach a verdict on whether to convict her of murder or find her not guilty by reason of insanity.
Walsh is a mother of four, according to her attorney.