Former husband testifies about aftermath of Massachusetts mother’s children killings

A Massachusetts jury heard testimony on Wednesday from Patrick Clancy, the ex-husband of Lindsay Clancy, who admitted killing her three young children in January 2023. Clancy recounted that he had left the house to pick up takeout and medication for their son, and returned to find the home silent and a pool of blood in the bedroom. He said he heard his three-year-old son Dawson eating chicken nuggets on the couch before he left.

Surveillance video from a nearby pharmacy showed Clancy calling his wife while she was on the phone, and he later testified that she sounded "pretty quiet" and likely busy with a bath. When he entered the house, he discovered the children had been strangled with exercise bands and his wife, badly injured after jumping from a second-story window, told him the children were in the basement without confirming their condition.

The courtroom played the 911 call in which a distraught Clancy repeatedly shouted, "oh my God!" and eventually said, "She killed the kids." Lindsay Clancy, now paralyzed from the waist down, sobbed as the call was aired.

Clancy’s testimony highlighted that, in the months before the killings, his wife had expressed suicidal thoughts and urges to harm the children, and had been hospitalized and prescribed psychiatric medication. Her defense attorney argues that she was experiencing postpartum psychosis, a rare mental-health emergency that can distort reality, and that antidepressants prescribed after the birth of her third child may have worsened her condition. The lawyer also cited a claim that Clancy heard voices urging her to kill the children.

If convicted of murder, Lindsay Clancy faces life imprisonment without parole; a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental illness would result in commitment to a state mental-health facility.