By MICHAEL CASEY and LEAH WILLINGHAM
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — First responders will offer jurors a firsthand account Thursday of what they found after Lindsay Clancy killed her three children and tried to end her life, during what her lawyers argue was an episode of postpregnancy psychosis.
The testimony comes a day after jurors listened to the anguished 911 call made by Clancy’s then-husband after he returned from an errand to their Massachusetts home in January 2023 and discovered the bodies of 3-year-old Dawson, 5-year-old Cora, and 8-month-old Callan.
The murder trial has centered on Lindsay Clancy’s mental state at the time. Her lawyers will seek to prove she had postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.
Prosecutors say Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, acted intentionally and is criminally responsible for the deaths.
Her lawyer said in opening arguments Monday that she had bipolar disorder, and that antidepressants prescribed after the birth of her third child worsened her condition. On the day of the killings, Lindsay Clancy said she heard a voice telling her, “This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself,” according to her lawyer.
If convicted of murder, she faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.
Patrick Clancy has said in interviews that he forgives his ex-wife, whom he viewed as ill rather than evil. The trial marks the first time he has seen Lindsay Casey since the killings.
During the first two days of the trial, he testified about his wife’s deteriorating mental health in the months before the killings, including her telling him about intrusive thoughts of harming the children and of suicide.
Lindsay Clancy had sought care from experts in postpartum mood disorders, was put on multiple psychiatric medications, and when nothing worked, checked in to a psychiatric hospital.
Nineteen days after being discharged, she strangled the children with exercise bands, then used multiple methods to try to end her life. She remains paralyzed from the waist down after jumping from the home’s second-story window.
Clancy and her ex-husband accuse her medical providers of failing to properly diagnose, treat and monitor her, according to lawsuits filed earlier this year.