Doctor at Gallatin Tenn., trial: Woman accused of killing twins in shock

photo Lindsey Lowe talks with her defense attorney John Pellegrin during a break in the trial. Lowe is facing two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of her newborn twins.

GALLATIN, Tenn. - A psychiatrist testified today that a woman charged in the deaths of her newborn twins did not know she was pregnant and suffered from shock from blood loss when she gave birth on a toilet.

Dr. William Kenner told jurors that Lindsey Lowe felt sick and thought she was going to die, but didn't realize she had given birth until she reached down and felt an ear.

Kenner said Lowe, who is now 26, fell to the floor afterward, hit her head on the floor and lapsed in and out of consciousness. He said she had all the symptoms of shock caused by massive blood loss - feeling dizzy, blacking out and hyperventilating. Kenner has maintained that Lowe lacked the capacity to commit premeditated murder.

Lowe is facing two counts of premeditated murder in the trial, which began Monday.

Under cross-examination, Kenner acknowledged that Lowe had told her mother she was OK, when the mother knocked on the bathroom door before she gave birth. Kenner also said that he had no idea how much blood Lowe lost.

Sumner County District Attorney General Ray Whitley also questioned the doctor about Lowe's insistence that she did not know she was pregnant. Whitley asked the doctor if he was aware that investigators found that Lowe's iPhone was used to search pregnancy. The prosecutor also inquired about Internet searches regarding how to make yourself go into labor.

"Did you know that?" Whitley asked. Kenner said he did know, but he still maintained that Lowe would have suffered from shock and delirium after she gave birth.

The two dead babies were discovered in a laundry basket in the Lowe family's two-story home in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Hendersonville, about 20 miles northeast of Nashville. Lowe told police that she gave birth to the twin boys in the bathroom of her parents' home on the night of Sept. 12, 2011, and smothered them so her parents would not hear their cries. The parents found one of the babies two days later and called police.

Prosecutors have maintained that Lowe never wanted the babies because they would have interfered with her plans for her life. They pointed out that Lowe was engaged to her college sweetheart, yet was pregnant by another man.

Upcoming Events