Friday, 14 August 2026, 13:54
The trial of Lindsay Clancy moved into its second week Monday with fresh testimony about the deaths of her three children in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Police officers and doctors who responded to the scene were expected to take the stand, following the emotional testimony delivered last week.
Clancy, 35, has pleaded not guilty to three murder charges in connection with the deaths of her 5-year-old daughter Cora, 3-year-old son Dawson, and infant son Callan.
Monday's witnesses included police officers and doctors involved in the immediate response to the killings. Some were emergency room doctors who treated Clancy and two of her children. Their accounts build on testimony from colleagues who testified for the prosecution during the opening week. In the coming days, witnesses may also address the mental health issues that are central to the case.
On Monday, doctors and nurses also testified about Clancy's physical and mental condition in the days after the killings and her attempted suicide.
Jurors also heard excerpts from Clancy's diary, read aloud by both the prosecution and her defense attorney. The entries, written in the months before the killings, painted a portrait of a mother struggling to cope. She described feeling anxious and overwhelmed by motherhood, including struggles to get her newborn Callan to sleep, constant worries that he was sick, concerns about returning to work as a labor and delivery nurse, difficulty breastfeeding, and a sense of disconnection from her children and her then-husband. In a Nov. 18, 2022, entry, she wrote: "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." In another, she wrote: "I have crazy brain fog. I feel like I can't make a plan. I live moment to moment waiting for the next nap time. I'm terrified of Cal getting overtired now because I feel can't help him." She also described feeling "incredibly sad and guilty" about not breastfeeding and being "obsessed" with Callan's sleep and nap schedule. In another entry, she wrote, "I want help. I want to be well."
Their testimony included details about the children's arrival at hospitals. Dr. Michael Snyder recalled how Cora had no heartbeat and was declared dead soon after arriving at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center-Plymouth. Eight-month-old Callan was "cold on arrival," "quite limp" and showed signs of brain swelling. Dr. Andrew Capraro of Boston Children's Hospital, where Callan had been transferred, said Callan needed a ventilator to help him breathe but did have a heartbeat. He died three days later.
Dr. Capraro also testified that Callan was in cardiac arrest when he arrived at the Plymouth hospital. "It was believed he was strangled and, when he arrived at Plymouth, he was in cardiac arrest," he said.
Dr. Jhilam Biswas of Brigham and Women's Hospital also testified about Clancy's condition two days after the killings. Clancy was intubated and communicated through written messages on a whiteboard. When asked how she felt, she wrote "horrified." She also asked whether she had a lawyer, whether her body and legs were broken, whether she could have visitors, and where her family was.
Before the jury heard the now-familiar 911 call and the emotional testimony from first responders, the judge instructed them to separate their emotions from the facts. As the week progresses, they are also seeing physical evidence, including the exercise bands used in the killings and the pajamas the children wore that night. Jury consultant Susan Constantine, who worked on the Andrea Yates retrial and attended the Casey Anthony trial, says such instructions are difficult to follow in cases this heart-wrenching.
On Wednesday, the seventh day of the trial, the family's former nanny, Elaine Rossi, testified that she never worried Clancy might be a danger to her children or herself. 'I observed a wonderful mom who loved her kids,' Rossi said. She described Cora as a 'girly-girl' who loved arts and crafts, Dawson as 'full of energy, rambunctious, funny, silly,' and Callan as the 'sweetest, happiest baby.' Rossi, who was hired in September 2022 and let go in December after Clancy decided not to return to work, said she saw prescription medicine bottles in the house and that Clancy told her she had postpartum issues, couldn't sleep, and had taken to sleeping in the basement. Rossi also testified that in the months before the killings, Clancy lost significant weight and complained of postpregnancy mental health issues.
Also on Wednesday, forensic toxicologist Justin Brower of NMS Labs testified that the concentration of antidepressants and antipsychotics in Clancy's blood after the killings was well below levels considered toxic or suicidal. He said the amount of the antipsychotic Quetiapine in her system was about 10 times less than the level considered toxic, and that the drug levels were inconsistent with a suicide attempt. 'Usually, people take handfuls of pills when they are trying to harm themselves and take their own life, and this is not consistent with that,' Brower testified. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington sought to undermine the testimony, arguing that the numbers alone do not tell the tale of what happened to a particular individual. Brower conceded, 'Correct.' Physician associate Etan Negri also testified that some of Clancy's self-inflicted cuts were superficial, with only one laceration on her right wrist requiring sutures, about 3 centimeters deep.
Negri did not address Clancy's severe spinal injuries stemming from her fall from the second-floor window.
Toxicologists are frequently called to testify in court, but their conclusions involve a degree of interpretation. A landmark 2009 National Academy of Sciences report found that qualified experts can reach differing conclusions from the same underlying data. Brower also said the amounts of some of the drugs in Clancy's system were below therapeutic levels and inconsistent with being a contributing factor to a suicide attempt. Asked whether the concentration levels could have caused her to stop breathing, Brower said, 'Not necessarily,' adding that he would need more information about Clancy's overall condition. Medical groups say that any thoughts about ending one's own life and attempt to act upon those thoughts can be defined as a suicide attempt, regardless of the outcome.
The prosecution is expected to call expert witnesses to the stand this week.
Duxbury firefighter Richard Dwyer also testified during the trial.
The second week of testimony wrapped up Friday, with fiery remarks exchanged between the defense attorney and the judge.
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, does not dispute that she killed her children. The defense says she was "overmastered by postpartum psychosis," a severe psychiatric condition that can distort a new mother's sense of reality. The condition afflicts a small proportion of women after childbirth. Her lawyers also point to bipolar disorder that they say was not fully diagnosed until after the killings.
Postpartum psychosis is a rare but serious medical emergency characterized by severe, rapid onset psychiatric episodes such as mania, depression or hallucinations in the days or weeks after birth.
Prosecutors, however, contend that Clancy acted intentionally and should be held criminally responsible for the deaths of Callan, Dawson, and Cora Clancy. The children were 8 months, 3 years, and 5 years old at the time of their deaths.
Prosecutors have attempted to cast doubt on Clancy's claim that she was overmedicated and driven to kill her children due to postpartum psychosis, instead alleging she acted 'intentionally, rationally and swiftly' to murder her children.
Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham sought in an opening statement last week to keep jurors' focus on the defendant, not her doctors. "This is not a public debate about women's mental health and how the medical system treats women," Buckingham said.
According to her lawyers, on the day of the killings Clancy believed a commanding voice told her to "kill the children so you can kill yourself." That evening, she asked her husband, Patrick Clancy, to run errands. Prosecutors have described that request as a tactic to get him out of the house.
When Patrick Clancy returned, he found a bloodied bedroom, an open window, and his wife on the ground below. The children were in the basement, strangled with exercise bands. Clancy had jumped from a second-floor window and remains paralyzed from the waist down.
Prosecutors say that after killing her children, Clancy crushed and took some of her medications, cut herself, and then jumped from the second-floor window.
In anguished testimony last week, Patrick Clancy described the scene. "She killed the kids!" he told a 911 dispatcher in a call played in court. He wept as he testified, and Lindsay Clancy also wept at the defense table.
In the months before the killings, Clancy sought help for postpartum depression. In late December 2022, a postpartum depression program noted her symptoms might be medication-related and discharged her after a day. She then checked herself into a psychiatric hospital on New Year's Eve and stayed several days.
The lawsuit says the program's clinicians told her to taper off the antipsychotic drug she had been taking. It also says that in the three months before the killings, Clancy reported increasingly profound insomnia, anxiety, despair and confusion about what was real.
After returning home, she continued seeing her psychiatrist. The last visit lasted just 17 minutes on Jan. 23, 2023. The next day, the killings occurred. Her medical malpractice lawsuit alleges that doctors prescribed an ever-changing list of antidepressants, sleep aids, and an antipsychotic while her condition worsened. The providers deny the allegations and dispute that Clancy clearly told them she planned to harm her children. Not all providers have responded to date.
According to the lawsuit, some of the psychiatric prescriptions Clancy received were problematic for bipolar patients. Both Lindsay and Patrick Clancy have also filed separate malpractice lawsuits against the providers, alleging the providers failed to recognize she was a risk to herself and her children.
Although the trial is unfolding in Massachusetts, the case has resonance in California, where maternal mental health care is a growing concern. In Tulare County, including the Lindsay area, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline offers free and confidential support for people experiencing mental health crises. The case is a reminder of the importance of recognizing serious postpartum psychiatric symptoms and ensuring that patients receive follow-up care.
People in crisis can call or text 988 to reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This includes people experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises. They can also go to 988lifeline.org or dial the toll-free number 800-273-8255 (TALK).
Lindsay Clancy was arrested after the January 2023 deaths and has been held since then. She remains paralyzed and uses a wheelchair in court. The trial is being held in Plymouth Superior Court, and the jury took the rare step of visiting the family home last Friday.
During the site visit, jurors passed the businesses Patrick Clancy went to on the night of the killings and were escorted through the Cape Cod-style home where the family lived.
Lindsay and Patrick Clancy have since divorced.
Jurors will eventually decide whether mental illness negates criminal responsibility or whether Clancy acted with intent. Until then, the court will hear from medical experts, first responders, and others who can explain the hours around the tragedy. The case has already sparked a national conversation about postpartum psychosis and the limits of the legal system.
