Illinois Mom Accused of Killing 2-Year-Old Son After Becoming ‘Invested’ in Lindsay Clancy Case

“This is a tragedy for the Walsh family, all of whom are mourning the loss of this child,” an attorney for Corie A. Walsh said in a statement
By

 
Angel Saunders
Published on September 5, 2026 05:17AM EDT

Corie Walsh.Credit :
Will County Sheriff's Office

NEED TO KNOW

• Corie A. Walsh, 40, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old son, Barrett Walsh
• Walsh allegedly believed her son was the “anti-Christ” and had been following the Lindsay Clancy murder trial
• Her attorney claims she experienced a psychotic episode, and she remains in custody receiving medical treatment

An Illinois mother is accused of killing her toddler shortly after texting friends about Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial.

Corie A. Walsh, 40, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder on Tuesday, Sept. 1, according to online court records viewed by PEOPLE.

The charges are in connection with the death of her 2-year-old son, Barrett Walsh, NBC Chicago, ABC 7 Chicago, and Fox News reported, citing court documents.

PEOPLE reached out to attorneys for Walsh, but did not immediately receive a response.

Mom Seeks Supreme Court OK to Take Daughter to Church Against Dad’s Wishes

PUBLISHED  SEP 02, 2026
By Jenni Fink  Senior Editor


A Maine mother's court battle over whether she can take her daughter to church might be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, setting up a potential clash between parental rights, religious liberty and the authority of family courts to restrict a child's religious activities during custody disputes.

Emily Bickford said a court order preventing her from bringing her daughter to church violates her constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. But Maine's highest court recently rejected those arguments, ruling that the restrictions were based on concerns about the child's well-being rather than hostility toward religion.

Following the ruling, Bickford's attorneys at Liberty Counsel announced plans to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, arguing that the decision represents a serious threat to religious freedom and parental rights.

Who Is Emily Bickford?

Bickford is engaged in a years-long custody dispute with her former partner, Matthew Bradeen, over decisions involving their teenage daughter. The conflict eventually expanded beyond ordinary parenting disagreements and into questions about religion, medical decisions and parental authority.

At the center of the case is Calvary Chapel in Westbrook, Maine, where Bickford worships. A Maine district court issued a custody order in December 2024 that prohibits Bickford from bringing her daughter to that church and grants Bradeen sole authority over the child's involvement with Calvary Chapel. The parents retain shared decision-making authority regarding other religious organizations.

Bickford maintains that the order unlawfully interferes with her ability to raise her daughter according to her Christian beliefs. Through Liberty Counsel, she has argued that she is a fit parent who has never been found abusive or neglectful and that government officials should not be permitted to decide whether a child can participate in a parent's religious practices.

The Holy Bible, King James version. | Francis Dean/Corbis via Getty Images


Her legal team, led by Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver, has framed the case as one involving fundamental constitutional protections. Following the Maine Supreme Judicial Court's ruling, Staver said the decision "rejects the First Amendment right of a fit parent to raise her child consistent with her Christian faith" and conflicts with existing Supreme Court precedent.

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Cheering Words for Mothers

Jesus knows the burden of every mother's heart. He is her best friend in every emergency. His everlasting arms support the God-fearing, faithful mother. That Saviour, who, when upon earth, had a mother that struggled with poverty and privation, having many anxious cares and perplexities in rearing her children, sympathizes with every Christian mother in her labours, and hears her earnest prayers. That Saviour who went a long journey for the purpose of relieving the anxious heart of a Canaanite woman whose daughter was possessed by a devil, will do as much for the afflicted mother of today, in blessing her children, as he did for the supplicant in that case.

He who gave back to the widow her only son as he was carried to the burial, is touched today by the woe of the bereaved mother. He who gave back to Mary and Martha their buried brother, who wept tears of sympathy at the grave of Lazarus, who pardoned Mary Magdalene, who remembered his mother when He was hanging in agony upon the cross, who appeared to the weeping women after his resurrection, and made them his messengers to preach a risen Saviour, saying, “Go, tell my disciples that I go to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God,” is a woman's best friend today, and ready to aid her in her need if she will trust Him.

The prayers of Christian mothers are not disregarded by the Father of all, who sent his Son to the earth to ransom a people for Himself. He will not turn away your petitions, and leave you and yours to the buffetings of Satan in the great day of final conflict. It is for you to work with simplicity and faithfulness, and God will establish the work of your hands.

Mothers may come to Jesus with their worries and perplexities. They may find grace sufficient to support them, and to aid them in the management of their children.

The gates are open for every mother who would lay her burden at the Saviour's feet.

The history of Mother’s Day is actually quite dark

Written by Elisabeth Ponsot
May 11, 2017


Unearthing the most complete picture of the origins of Mother’s Day began with a misplaced cardboard box in the kitchen of a West Virginia church.

It was 2003, and Katharine Antolini, then a graduate student researching the history of motherhood, had been asked to speak at the site in Grafton, where the first known celebration of Mother’s Day took place in 1908.

During the church tour, she stumbled upon the box on the floor of the kitchen. “Some of the documents were almost 100 years old,” she told Quartz. “I was like, ‘You can’t leave these here!'”

The church where Mother’s Day began as it looks today. (Courtesy: Katharine Antolini)

Antolini offered to archive the papers, and in doing so, became fascinated with what she found: the unlikely story of Anna Jarvis, who first spent years crusading to make Mother’s Day a widely observed holiday—and then spent the rest of her life trying to undo it.

The project inspired Antolini to keep digging, and Jarvis’ story became her PhD dissertation and later a book, Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for Control of Mother’s Day.

“I realized how very complicated the history was,” Antolini said. “She ultimately failed, of course. But she never gave up until her death of trying to fight for her day.”
How did Mother’s Day come to be?

When her mother, Ann Reeves, died in 1905, Jarvis organized the first observances of Mother’s Day at the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, and later in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The mother of Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis. (Courtesy: Katharine Antolini)

She chose the second Sunday in May because it was the Sunday closest to her mother’s death. The white carnation, Reeves’ favorite flower, became the holiday’s symbol.

Jarvis, who had no kids of her own, had a singular understanding of what Mother’s Day should mean. She saw it as a day for children to visit their mothers at home and to remember the sacrifices that they had made.

“This is not a celebration of maudlin sentiment. It is one of practical benefit and patriotism, emphasizing the home as the highest inspiration of our individual and national lives,” Jarvis wrote.


She began a letter-writing campaign, reaching out to anyone who she thought could help promulgate the idea. “Any mayor, merchant or minister,” Antolini said. She wrote to Teddy Roosevelt. To Mark Twain. To every state governor, every year.

By 1914, when most states had already recognized the day locally, the US congress passed a law designating Mother’s Day a national holiday. A day later, president Woodrow Wilson issued an official proclamation.
Why did the holiday’s champion crusade against it?

As Mother’s Day grew more popular, Jarvis became distressed by what she saw as other groups co-opting the day she felt a sense of ownership over.

“She battled over the meaning of Mother’s Day,” Antolini said. Jarvis took issue with businesses, like greeting-card companies and florists, that she felt began exploiting “her day” to maximize their own profits.

A letter Jarvis wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt. (Courtesy: Katharine Antolini)

Jarvis also was angered by the actions of charities like the American War Mothers, that began selling white carnations on Mother’s Day as a fundraising tool. She once was arrested in Philadelphia for showing up unannounced at the group’s convention.

She crashed the event, yelling at members of the nonprofit organization for exploiting Mother’s Day, Antolini said. A newspaper account said Jarvis was initially charged with disturbing the peace, but was later let off by a local magistrate.

“It was very much tied to her ego…that was her life, her fortune—everything was invested in it,” Antolini said. “When people started to take the day and lay claim to it and use it for different purposes, that bothered her.”

Ultimately, the fight—against the greeting-card companies, the candy shops, the nonprofits—would consume her. “She lost everything. It was a movement that economically, emotionally and physically drained her,” until her death in 1948, Antolini said. “She spent the last four years of her life in a sanitarium, blind and penniless.”

A prayer for the departed on Mother’s Day in Kathmandu, Nepal in 2016. (REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar)


How is Mother’s Day celebrated today around the world?

Mother’s Day is celebrated in dozens of countries around the world, often on the second Sunday of May, following the American tradition.

In France, a 1950 law established the fête des mères on the fourth Sunday in May. Britain celebrates Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent. In Mexico, the day is a true national holiday, where “the entire nation stops what it is doing in the afternoon and eats some serious lunch with mom,” per the Washington Post (paywall).

In 2012, even North Korea began its own version of the celebration, reportedly marked by a military parade (paywall).

Mother’s Day in North Korea, 2012. (AP Photo/Jean H. Lee)Today, Mother’s Day is marked by unique traditions specific to different countries and families—a fact that buoys Antolini, though she says Jarvis would have hated it.

“She would be mad at me about this, but I think it’s a holiday that still is hugely popular precisely because it can mean different things to different people,” Antolini said. “I think that’s why it’s lasted so long—because it can mean so many things.”

Read more: All I want for Mother’s Day is for my wonderful family to leave me alone

Source

Heaven's Estimate of Children

Chap. Forty-Eight

Children Are the Purchase of Christ's Blood.-- Christ placed such a high estimate upon your children that He gave His life for them. Treat them as the purchase of His blood. Patiently and firmly train them for Him. Discipline with love and forbearance. As you do this, they will become a crown of rejoicing to you and will shine as lights in the world.

The youngest child that loves and fears God is greater in His sight than the most talented and learned man who neglects the great salvation. The youth who consecrate their hearts and lives to God have, in so doing, placed themselves in connection with the Fountain of all wisdom and excellence.

"Of Such Is the Kingdom of Heaven."--The soul of the little child that believes in Christ is as precious in His sight as are the angels about His throne. They are to be brought to Christ and trained for Christ. They are to be guided in the path of obedience, not indulged in appetite or vanity.

If we would but learn the wonderful lessons which Jesus sought to teach His disciples from a little child, how many things that now seem insurmountable difficulties would wholly disappear! When the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? . . . Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

God's Property Entrusted to Parents.--Children derive life and being from their parents, and yet it is through the creative power of God that your children have life, for God is the Life-giver. Let it be remembered that children are not to be treated as though they were our own personal property. Children are the heritage of the Lord, and the plan of redemption includes their salvation as well as ours. They have been entrusted to parents in order that they might be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that they might be qualified to do their work in time and eternity.

Mothers, deal gently with your little ones. Christ was once a little child. For His sake honor the children. Look upon them as a sacred charge, not to be indulged, petted, and idolized, but to be taught to live pure, noble lives. They are God's property; He loves them, and calls upon you to co-operate with Him in helping them to form perfect characters.

If you would meet God in peace, feed His flock now with spiritual food; for every child has the possibility of attaining unto eternal life. Children and youth are God's peculiar treasure.

The youth need to be impressed with the truth that their endowments are not their own. Strength, time, intellect, are but lent treasures. They belong to God, and it should be the resolve of every youth to put them to the highest use. He is a branch, from which God expects fruit; a steward, whose capital must yield increase; a light, to illuminate the world's darkness. Every youth, every child, has a work to do for the honor of God and the uplifting of humanity.

The Path to Heaven Is Suited to Children's Capacity.--I saw that Jesus knows our infirmities and has Himself shared our experience in all things but in sin; therefore He has prepared for us a path suited to our strength and capacity and, like Jacob, has marched softly and in evenness with the children as they were able to endure, that He might entertain us by the comfort of His company and be to us a perpetual guide. He does not despise, neglect, or leave behind the children of the flock. He has not bidden us move forward and leave them. He has not traveled so hastily as to leave us with our children behind. Oh, no; but He has evened the path to life, even for children. And parents are required in His name to lead them along the narrow way. God has appointed us a path suited to the strength and capacity of children.

The Adventist Home (1952), E. G. White, pp. 279-282.

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