A Massachusetts woman who allegedly used exercise bands to strangle her three children while her husband was picking up medicine had made a series of sick searches before the killings, prosecutors have claimed.
Lindsay Clancy, 33, from Boston pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder, three counts of strangulation and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
She is accused of killing her daughter, Cora, five, and her sons, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months.
‘She is a danger to herself and others. She planned these murders,’ prosecutor Jennifer Sprague said. ‘She did so with deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty.’
Clancy, who worked as a nurse, was arraigned last year in Plymouth District Court remotely from the hospital, where she was recovering from spinal injuries suffered when she jumped out the window of the home.
Lindsay Clancy, 33, from Boston has pleaded not guilty to charges including two counts of murder, three counts of strangulation and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in the deaths of all three of her children
Daughter, Cora, five, and her sons, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months, were all killed
The mother, a labor and delivery nurse, pictured, attempted to take her own life and remains in hospital as a result. Little Callan had died from complications from asphyxia
The tragedy occurred on January 24, 2023 at the family home at 47 Summer Street in Duxbury
She will likely never walk again after being paralyzed from the waist down.
During Friday’s hearing, Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, together with a prosecutor updated the Judge William F. Sullivan on the status of discovery as the case moves forward with trial set for the first half of 2025.
Reddington argued that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for her actions because of her mental illness.
Clancy has been held at Tewksbury State Hospital, where she has been undergoing psychiatric care since the killings.
Clancy had indeed checked herself into McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility, just a month ahead of the killings.
‘We’ve got superbly qualified expert doctors who are very invested in Lindsay and her case, and we’ve got a multitude of corroborating witnesses who were able to observe her decompensation through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and into January,’ Reddington said to the Boston Globe.
‘She went to a number of doctors and her husband complained about the amount of medication she was getting.’
Reddington alleges Clancy, who was a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, had been suffering from postpartum depression that was made worse by prescription medications she was also taking at the time.
Clancy was charged with the children’s murders after they were discovered in the basement of their home. She appeared in court on Zoom while sitting in a wheelchair
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington has argued that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for her actions because of her mental illness
Clancy has been held at Tewksbury State Hospital, where she has been undergoing psychiatric care since the killings
Clancy, 33, will finally face trial next spring. She is pictured during an earlier hearing
Prosecutors say Clancy had been researching ways to kill on her cellphone in the days leading up to the murders.
During a court hearing last year, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague revealed how Clancy’s blood samples found seven different medications.
Investigators found bottles of diazepam, amitriptyline and trazodone, all antidepressants, from the family home.
All three had been prescribed to Lindsay 16 days before the traumatic incident.
An expert then concluded the drugs could have placed Clancy into a coma or even cause a heart attack but not push her into a homicidal rage.
The prosecution and the defense have painted widely divergent pictures of Clancy in the weeks and days before she allegedly killed her children in the family home in Duxbury.
The children were found by their father with exercise bands still around their necks.
The prosecution said Clancy behaved and appeared normal to everyone she interacted with, including her mother and husband.
‘They had short lives – but they had good lives,’ Patrick Clancy said after he completed the Boston Marathon while raising more than $84,000 for the hospital which treated them
Patrick said that he forgave his wife for the alleged atrocities last year, citing her struggle with postpartum psychosis
Photos on social media appear to show a loving family with happy children
On the day of the killings, she asked her husband if he wanted takeout and went online to measure how much time it would take him to get to the restaurant and pick up some medicine for the children at the pharmacy, Sprague said.
‘She planned these murders, gave herself the time and privacy needed to commit the murders, and then she strangled each child in the place where they should have felt the safest – at home with their Mom,’ Sprague said. ‘She did so with deliberate premeditation, extreme atrocity and cruelty.’
An unsealed affidavit revealed that husband Patrick Clancy was in the basement when police had arrived to check on Lindsay and knew ‘something was wrong because his children would not wake up.’
He approached the police and started screaming: ‘She killed the kids!’ as he made the discoveries, finding two of his children with band around their necks, turning their faces ‘blue and purple.’
Clancy was suffering severe postpartum depression and had been prescribed an ‘over the top’ cocktail of pills that her forgiving husband, Patrick, believes are to blame for the tragedy
Prosecutors say Clancy had been researching ways to kill on her cellphone in the days leading up to the murders
Clancy, who is still is hospital, will likely never walk again after suffering spinal injuries after she jumped from a second floor window
A well-wisher visits the makeshift memorial that grew in front of the family’s Duxbury home
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington, who has indicated that he plans an insanity defense, painted a picture of a woman struggling with mental illness, who had been prescribed about a dozen medications to try and control it.
‘This is not a situation that was planned by any means,’ he said. ‘This was a situation that was clearly the product of mental illness.’
The prosecution countered that Clancy had been evaluated by mental health professionals before and was told she did not have post-partum depression and no symptoms of post-partum depression.
Clancy’s husband, Patrick, forgave his wife in a post on a fundraising site to assist with medical bills, funeral services and legal help.
‘She’s been portrayed largely by people who have never met her and never knew who the real Lindsay was,’ he wrote.
‘Our marriage was wonderful and diametrically grew stronger as her condition rapidly worsened. I took as much pride in being her husband as I did in being a father and felt persistently lucky to have her in my life.’
In April of this year, Patrick Clancy ran the Boston Marathon which he ran in honor of his kids
The marathon was a form of therapy for the devastated father (pictured hugging a friend at the finish line)
Patrick Clancy, the father of three children who were allegedly strangled by their mother has given an emotional tribute to them after crossing the Boston Marathon finish line
In April of this year, Patrick ran the Boston Marathon which he ran in honor of his children.
The marathon was a form of therapy for the devastated father.
‘They had short lives – but they had good lives,’ he said as he completed the famous 26.2-mile course through the Massachusetts capital while raising more than $75,000 for the hospital which treated them.
‘I love my kids, they’re wonderful people. They had a lot of friends, everybody loved them,’ Clancy, 33, said.
‘In the short time there were here, my kids brought me so much joy and couldn’t have made their dad prouder,’ Patrick said on his donation page for Boston Children’s Hospital which raised $84,000.
‘In many ways, I’m just trying to be more like them. Their passion in life was infectious.’