Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial began Monday with her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, taking the witness stand.
Prosecutors accused the Massachusetts mother of strangling her three children — Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan — to death at their
home in a Boston suburb in 2023. While Clancy has not denied killing the children, she claims that after the birth of her youngest child, she developed postpartum psychosis — a relatively rare diagnosis that can cause women to develop delusions and even hallucinations, according to the National Institutes of Health. Both Clancy’s lawyer and her husband, Patrick Clancy, support her claim that she was not responsible for her actions and plan to raise an insanity defense.
Patrick and Clancy, who were at the time their three children were killed, have since divorced and Patrick has remarried.
According to NBC Boston, from the witness stand on Monday, Patrick described the status of Clancy’s mental and physical well being after the birth of each child. He said that she had anxiety when it was time for her to return to work at the end of her maternity leave. After their youngest child was born, Patrick said Lindsay did not go back to work. “There were days when she had all three kids, different nap schedules, different needs. It was just really stressful,” he testified.
Earlier this year, both Clancy and Patrick filed separate lawsuits against her medical providers, alleging they failed to properly diagnose, treat, and monitor what they described as a severe postpartum psychiatric condition.
CBS News reported that when testifying, Patrick said that by fall 2022, “she kept getting worse and worse.” He said that Clancy changed psychiatrists because whatever she was doing with her current provider “wasn’t working.” After switching to her new provider, she brought different medications home.
At one point, Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague attempted to show that Clancy was not taking all of her prescribed medication. “There were a lot of pills prescribed, but not a lot of pills taken, correct?” Sprague asked. By Thanksgiving 2022, Patrick said Clancy was “in rough shape, not talking much, low energy, really depressed.”
After his wife switched to a new medication in December 2022, Patrick said that “was really where her big spiral started.” He said Clancy “started to lose a lot of weight, she became really depressed and was having a hard time. She started to say she was suicidal.”
That month, Patrick testified that Clancy also told him that she was having intrusive thoughts about harming their children. He said when he asked her if she felt she needed to be kept away from the children, she said she did not.
“It was very confusing because the next minute she was making them lunch or putting them to bed,” Patrick testified. “I never saw Lindsay harm the kids.”
He said that Clancy was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, then after recommendation from two doctors, was sent to a day program in Providence. She was back in the emergency room with concerns about suicide on Dec. 31, 2022. After receiving additional treatment at McLean Hospital, Clancy asked to be discharged so she could attend her daughter’s birthday party and was discharged on Jan. 5, 2023.
Per NBC Boston, Patrick said he took Cora skiing on Jan. 16, 2023, and that while they were sending each other photos of the kids, Clancy’s “mood seemed better, she was more active and was able to partake in more things.”
He said that Clancy’s parents came over the weekend before their children’s deaths. Although Clancy was quieter that day, Patrick said he read a text from her mother that Clancy appeared to be doing better.
On Jan. 24, 2023, the day their children died, Patrick said there was no mention of suicidal thoughts and that it was “one of her best days.” That afternoon, Clancy suggested getting takeout and Patrick left to pick up the order.
Before leaving, Patrick said, “I took Callan for a minute, I walked him by my knees, I kissed Cora on the head and I said, ‘Be right back.'” He recalled Dawson “eating chicken nuggets on the couch” and Clancy holding Callan in the door to the basement as he left the house.
While he was gone, Clancy has been accused of taking her three children down to the basement and using exercise bands to strangle them. Clancy jumped out a window after the killings and was paralyzed in the fall. She now uses a wheelchair.
Patrick’s testimony will continue on Wednesday.
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