Mom accused of killing toddler called him 'anti-Christ,' followed Lindsay Clancy trial

A Frankfort, Illinois mother faces three counts of first-degree murder after her 2-year-old son was found dead in the basement of the family home, according to court documents.

Police were called to Brook Stone Court around 4 p.m. Tuesday, where a neighbor was performing CPR on Barrett Walsh. The neighbor told investigators she found the boy hanging from a rafter with a ligature around his neck, cut him down and called 911. He was pronounced dead that afternoon. A preliminary autopsy found he died of asphyxia from ligature compression of the neck.

Officers found his mother, Corie A. Walsh, 38, in a bathtub with cuts to her wrists and thighs, in water reddened with blood. A neighbor had taken a knife from her hand. She was hospitalized with injuries not considered life-threatening.

Prosecutors say Walsh told officers at the scene she killed the boy because he was the "devil" and the "anti-Christ," and later gave investigators an account of the killing that matched the physical evidence. The three charges reflect separate legal theories of first-degree murder for the same death.

An infant was in the home unharmed, and two school-age children returned around the time of the discovery. Walsh's husband was out of state and flew home Tuesday evening.

Witnesses told investigators Walsh had recently become intensely interested in the Lindsay Clancy trial in Massachusetts, discussing the case in a group text about three and a half hours before her son was found. The jury in that case was deliberating at the time.

Walsh remains hospitalized. Prosecutors are seeking to deny her pretrial release.