Have you not wondered if many criminals, particularly violent ones, are oppressed or possessed by spirits?

This is asked in the shadow of headlines about Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother on trial for the January 2023 strangulation deaths of her three young children before slitting her own throat and jumping from a window. Pray for her.

Her defense argues she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis, while prosecutors claim her actions were calculated.

They’re probably both wrong. Psychiatrists put many labels on what are actually spiritual things.

Experts from both sides agree that Clancy was hearing a voice when she killed her children.

It was described as a loud, deep, persisting male voice. It reportedly told her: “You should kill the kids, this is your last chance so that you can kill yourself.”

Hospital chaplain Sheila Cavanaugh testified that Clancy told her the male voice issued a chilling ultimatum, goading her and telling her that “if she did not follow the command, neither she nor her children would be safe.”

As she strangled those poor youngsters (pray for them), she told each, “Go to God.” She thought she was saving them.

Psychiatrists label this “command hallucination,” “bipolar disorder,” or “delusion of influence.” They call it a “major depressive episode.”

We call it demonization.

She couldn’t get that voice out of her head.

All the drugs she had been prescribed by a psychiatrist didn’t help. Some may have opened doors wider.

The house she, her husband, and kids lived in, located in Duxbury, Massachusetts, was described by one passerby as giving off the same dark aura (“vibes”) as the one featured in The Amityville Horror.

It even resembles the Amityville home a bit.

Other famous killers who claimed demons had taken them over:

The BTK killer. Real name: Dennis Rader. He claimed that a “demon” or an external force he called “Factor X” drove him to murder.

David Berkowitz (The “Son of Sam”). Berkowitz, notoriously known as the “Son of Sam,” terrorized New York City in the 1970s and initially claimed his neighbor’s dog, Harvey, was possessed by an ancient demon named “Sam” that commanded him to kill.