Trial of Massachusetts Mother Who Killed Three Children Continues with Diary Testimony

The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy resumed Monday in Plymouth, Massachusetts, after a week of testimony and a juror visit to the home where she strangled her three children in 2023. The defense introduced diary entries written in the months before the killings, which detail the mother’s anxiety, insomnia, “brain fog,” and feelings of being overwhelmed by newborn care and work responsibilities.

Clancy, a 35-year-old labor and delivery nurse, wrote on Nov. 18, 2022, “I’m so desperate to get a mental break from taking care of everyone that my mind is trying to find something physically wrong with me.” Her attorney, Kevin Reddington, read a passage in which she said, “I want help. I want to be well.”

Prosecutors argue that the killings were intentional and that Clancy should be held criminally responsible for the deaths of her children, ages eight months to five years. The defense does not dispute that she killed the children but contends she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and undiagnosed bipolar disorder, conditions they say were exacerbated by a series of psychiatric prescriptions.

According to a civil lawsuit filed by Clancy and her ex-husband, clinicians prescribed antidepressants, sleep aids, an antipsychotic and other medications while she reported worsening insomnia, anxiety, despair and confusion. The lawsuit alleges that providers failed to recognize her risk to herself and her children; the providers have denied those claims.

Court testimony described Clancy’s brief stay in a psychiatric hospital on New Year’s Eve, a 17-minute psychiatric appointment on Jan. 23, 2023, and a subsequent belief that a “commanding voice” told her to kill the children. Prosecutors presented a 911 call in which the husband, Patrick Clancy, described finding a blood-stained bedroom, an open window, his wife on the ground, and the children in the basement restrained with exercise bands.

Clancy remains paralyzed from the waist down after falling from the window. She was intubated and communicated via a whiteboard in the hospital, expressing horror at the situation. Doctors testified that the infant, Callan, was in cardiac arrest upon arrival at a local hospital and died three days later despite intensive care.

Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham emphasized that the case is not a debate about women’s mental health, urging jurors to focus on Clancy’s actions. If convicted of murder, she faces life imprisonment without parole; a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity would result in commitment to a state mental-health facility.