PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Lindsay Clancy sobbed in court Wednesday as jurors listened to the anguished 911 call her then-husband made after returning from an errand to find she’d strangled their three children in their Massachusetts home.
On the roughly 7-minute recording, Patrick Clancy can be heard speaking with his wife upon finding her badly injured and bleeding in their yard, after she jumped from the home’s second-story window.
“Look at me,” he says. “Say my name.”
He then tells the dispatcher he’s going to check on the children. Moments later, he howls and cries after finding them in the basement. The confused dispatcher repeatedly asks what happened.
“She killed the kids!” he yells.
Three years after their deaths, the murder trial has centered on Lindsay Clancy’s mental state at the time. Her lawyers will seek to prove she had postpregnancy 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 of 3-year-old Dawson, 5-year-old Cora, and 8-month-old Callan in January 2023.
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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
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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.
A husband’s emotional testimony and a chilling 911 call
Patrick Clancy testified Wednesday that his last image of Dawson was of the boy sitting on the couch, eating chicken nuggets and green beans. Lindsay Clancy had asked her husband to make a quick trip for takeout food and medication at a pharmacy for Cora. Prosecutors say this was an excuse to get him out of the house.
Jurors were shown surveillance video from the pharmacy of Patrick Clancy on the phone with his wife, asking a question about the medicine.
“She was pretty quiet. It sounded like she was busy,” he testified Wednesday. “I remember hanging up thinking she was probably in the middle of giving baths or something like that.”
Returning home, it was unusually silent. He called out to his family.
When no one answered, he searched the children’s rooms and the bathroom, again thinking they might be in the tub, before finding blood throughout the main bedroom and a window open.
Injured but conscious, Lindsay Clancy told him she’d tried to kill herself and that the kids were in the basement, without saying they were dead. He didn’t realize he was still on the phone with 911 as he ran downstairs to find each had been strangled with exercise bands.
Lindsay Clancy’s parents, seated in the front of the court, also cried as the call was played. Patrick had already left the room after finishing his testimony.
Jurors were shown the clothes each child had been wearing, with a prosecutor pulling the items from clear plastic evidence bags: pajamas and a pink robe for Cora; a nightshirt and dinosaur underwear for Dawson; a red onesie decorated with snowflakes for Callan.
The trial will hinge on Lindsay Clancy’s mental state
Patrick Clancy testified Monday 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. She killed the children 19 days after she was discharged.
No one ever told Patrick Clancy his wife shouldn’t be alone with the children, he testified Wednesday. “I didn’t know what psychosis was until after this happened.”
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.
On cross-examination, Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, aimed to demonstrate she took her medications and closely tracked her declining mental health. He introduced daily, handwritten notes she took of her medicines and her mood, including repeatedly writing “horrible thoughts.” She also had a book and fact sheet on postpartum anxiety and a chart where she tracked her mood.
Reddington also got Patrick Clancy to acknowledge that many of her medical appointments starting in the summer of 2022 were with nurse practitioners and on Zoom calls lasting only 20 minutes. They also went through multiple medications she was prescribed, including Seroquel — an antipsychotic medication for which doctors increased her dosage in December.
“The idea was that it would help with sleep, but she didn’t get better. She got worse,” Patrick Clancy said.