Lowe Searched For Pregnancy Info Days Before Giving Birth - NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & Sports

Testimony: Lowe Searched For Pregnancy Info Days Before Giving Birth

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GALLATIN, Tenn. – More twists in the Lindsey Lowe murder trial Friday as the defense put two doctors on the stand to show the Hendersonville woman didn't know what she was doing when her newborns died.

The judge ended proceedings for the day around 3 p.m. because one attorney had a death in the family.

First, forensic Dr. William Kenner was on the stand for the second day for cross-examination by prosecutors. He said Lowe almost always didn't know she was pregnant until she had Baby Boy #1.

"She felt something coming out of her and she thought it was her whole insides were coming out, some kind of massive tumor. It was only when she eventually felt an ear that it was like 'oh, this makes sense' and at that point she knew she was having a baby," Kenner testified.

Kenner also referenced Lowe even mistook lactating colostrum, the precursor to breast milk, as breast cancer.

State attorneys then seemed to steal the show, revealing some of the Google searches found on Lindsey Lowe's iPhone in the days leading up to her pregnancy.

Testimony revealed Friday that a woman accused of smothering her newborn twins search for information about pregnancy only days before giving birth.

Judge Dee Gay ruled Friday that searches done by Lindsey Lowe on Google about pregnancy are relevant. The defense objected when District Attorney Ray Whitley brought up the searches during cross examination of forensic psychiatrist William Kenner, M.D.; the searches had earlier not been not allowed as evidence.

The defense argued they were prejudicial and would call for a mistrial if they were allowed, but the judge allowed Whitley to ask Kenner about the searches. 

It was revealed during Kenner's testimony that Lowe searched for "pregnancy calendar" on September 3, 2011, and for "free videos of pregnant sex" and "things that make you go into labor" on September 6, 2011. She later searched for "how to make yourself go into labor" on September 9, 2011.

The doctor suggested Lowe was under a lot of stress, and a separate identity took over when she made those Google searches on her iPhone.

The prosecution believed the searches were relevant because Kenner testified Friday that Lowe did not know she was pregnant and suffered from shock from blood loss when she gave birth on a toilet.

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.

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.

Lowe told police that she gave birth to the twins in the toilet of the bathroom she shared with her sister at their parents' Hendersonville home on September 12, 2011. 

During an interview with police two days after the birth that was earlier shown to jurors, she said she suffocated the babies after their birth and put them in a laundry basket next to her bed. Her mother found one of the babies two days later, and her father called police. 

Before court got underway again Friday, the judge ruled that Dr. Kenner would not be allowed to testify on Lowe's police interview, saying "his testimony appears to be personal, not professional. His bias is clear." Dr. Kenner wrote a report on the interview, which the jury will not be allowed to see.

Kenner also suggested during his testimony Friday that Lowe's pregnancy denial kept her from carrying the twins normally. He said the twins sat vertically inside her uterus, allowing her to carry them to full term without her noticing. 

He added Lowe has battled disassociative disorder since she was three years old.

Dr. Kenner was first hired by Lowe's family to treat her after her arrest, and her attorney John Pellegrin hired him to testify at the trial about her mental state. 

Another psychiatrist was called to the stand on Friday afternoon to gifve a second opinion of Lowe's mental state. Dr. Pamela Auble, a clinical neuropsychologist, testified that Lowe changed after her mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2005. She went on to say that Lowe's fiance's mother passed away in the spring of 2011 around the same time her mother's tumor came back, and that Lowe reacted by ignoring her problems.

Dr. Auble added that Lowe put the entire experience out of her head, thought it was stress and couldn't deal with it. She corroborated Lowe's mental status, saying that blood loss from the births made her delirious and unable to form intent to commit murder.

On cross examination, the state pointed out that Lowe cleaned up the bathroom while she was suffering from so many issues. The DA also reminded jurors that Lowe called in sick the day after the births, and slept on her parents' sofa to get away from the bodies. 

Judge Dee Gay also told the courtroom that testimony would conclude early on Friday afternoon due to a death in Lowe's attorney John Pellegrin's family, and court would resume Monday.

Attorneys for Lowe called their first witnesses Thursday, after the prosecution rested. It appeared their defense was trying to paint Lowe as a victim, having Dr. Kenner testify that she suffered from multiple disorders, and could not have known what she was doing after she gave birth to the twins.

"Which impaired her level of consciousness impaired her ability to think, to remember. So that she would have been incapable of premeditated murder," said William Kenner, M.D.

Kenner also asserted Lowe was the victim of a "date rape," which continued their so-called attack on the twins' father, Jeremy Smith, who took the stand earlier in the day.

In testimony on Thursday, Smith told jurors in Gallatin that he had no contact with Lindsey Lowe after they had sex in January 2011 and didn't know she was pregnant.

Jeremy Smith told the court he would have taken care of the twins.

The defense pressed him on that, stating that Smith has been held in contempt for failing to pay child support on another child.

Judge Gay also scolded Lowe on Thursday because of Lowe's emotional outburst late Wednesday while jurors were shown text messages between her and the babies' father, Jeremy Smith.

The judge said Lowe was showing too much emotion in front of the jury especially when the father of her twins was on the stand.

"I will not have you sitting there, acting like a child or displaying emotion uncontrolled. The next time this happens, you will be excluded from this courtroom," said Judge Dee David Gay.

Lowe has kept quiet and emotionless since then.

On Monday, a jury of seven men and five women was seated. Three male alternates are also listened to arguments.

Jurors are not sequestered, meaning they are able to go home every night, as long as they abide by the rules. The trial will not continue on the weekend.

Be sure to watch our gavel-to-gavel coverage from inside the courtroom  on NewsChannel 5+, NewsChannel5.com, and on our mobile app.

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(The Associated Press Contributed To This Report.)

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