Lindsay Clancy’s legal team do not argue that she killed her three young children. Her murder trial hinges on exactly why she did it.
A jury, who will be picked this week for her trial at Plymouth County Superior Court in Massachusetts, must decide whether their deaths were planned or whether severe mental illness left Clancy legally insane.
The 36-year-old has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first degree murder over the deaths of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and eight month-old Callan.
Her defence is expected to argue she wasn’t criminally responsible because she was experiencing extreme postpartum psychosis.
Prosecutors, however, allege that Clancy deliberately sent her husband Patrick out of their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home on January 24, 2023. They say this gave her enough time to strangle the children to death with exercise resistance bands.
Patrick had been asked to collect children’s medicine and a takeaway after his wife said she’d had an exhausting day.
When he returned less than an hour later at around 6pm, he thought Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, was upstairs bathing the children.
The bedroom door was locked and so Patrick had to force his way inside. Once inside the room he discovered an horrific scene. He found blood on the floor, a bloody knife on a bedside table and an open window, Daily Mail reports.
Clancy was lying barely conscious outside after reportedly cutting her wrists and neck and falling around 20ft onto frozen ground. The spinal injuries she suffered left her paralysed. She now uses a wheelchair.
She told Patrick that she’d tried to kill herself and said that the children were in the basement.
Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead that night, while Callan was airlifted to hospital and died several days later.
Prosecutors claim that Clancy had searched online for the takeaway restaurant to calculate how long Patrick would be away. They allege she wanted ‘the time and privacy needed to commit these murders.’ This is something the defence denies.
They’ve also alleged that she previously searched for ‘ways to kill’ and looked up ‘can you treat a sociopath?’ four days before the children died. At an earlier hearing, prosecutors suggested her suicide attempt may have even been staged.
The cuts to her wrists and neck were described as ‘minor scratches’, while prosecutors argued she ‘slid down’ the house instead of jumping. They accuse her of acting with ‘deliberate, premeditated and extreme atrocity and cruelty.’
Clancy’s defence says her behaviour had been affected by more than a dozen medications prescribed as she struggled with depression, sleeplessness and severe anxiety. These included Ambien, Prozac, Klonopin and Valium.
A lawsuit filed against her medical providers claims that she wasn’t properly diagnosed, treated or monitored for a ‘severe postpartum psychiatric condition.’
In the month before the killings, she reportedly experienced panic attacks, racing thoughts, suicidal urges and fears that ‘something awful might happen’.
Clancy had reportedly previously entered a programme for women with postpartum depression and admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital for five days.
Her lawyers said: ‘She recognised that something was wrong with her. She sought medical treatment. She went to emergency rooms.’
They added that she called crisis hotlines, entered hospitals and took the medication she was prescribed. The lawsuit alleges she repeatedly warned medical professionals that her symptoms were worsening and that the drugs that she was taking were making her feel worse.
Clancy claimed that the day before the killings, she heard a ‘compelling and unrecognisable singular male voice’. She said it told her ‘she should die, that this is her last chance and that her children would suffer if she was gone’.
Patrick, who says he has forgiven his wife, has insisted she didn’t send him out as part of a plan. He told The New Yorker that she described the killings as happening ‘like a snap of the fingers’.
Clancy reportedly told him she checked the takeaway journey because she feared he would become stuck in rush-hour traffic. She said her search for ‘ways to kill’ related to her own suicidal thoughts.
Patrick said: ‘I think it’s a lot more hurtful if she did plan it and tricked me into believing she was having a great day.’
Under Massachusetts law, the defence must persuade jurors that a severe mental disease or defect meant that Clancy lacked criminal responsibility at the precise time of the killings.
Attorney Shari Karney said: ‘Mental illness and legal insanity are not the same thing. That distinction may ultimately decide this case.’
Postpartum psychosis is estimated to affect two women in every 1,000 births and can cause hallucinations, delusions, extreme confusion and paranoia.
Forensic and reproductive psychiatrist Dr Susan Hatters Friedman described it as ‘one of the most serious mental disorders there is’.
Clancy’s youngest child was eight months old, although Dr. Hatters Friedman said that the condition can be triggered later by hormonal changes caused by events such as reducing breastfeeding.
She said that sufferers may remain capable of planning to kill themselves or their children, adding: ‘That doesn’t negate the idea of insanity.’
Supporters, including fellow nurses, formed an online group called Lindsay’s Army of Love after she was charged. Almost 100 local women wrote to the judge pledging to support her ‘in her darkest hour as we wish any other mother would do for us’.
Clancy faces life imprisonment without parole if convicted. Her lawyer Kevin Reddington has described the case as ‘probably the most emotionally disturbing and challenging’ of his career.