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Her defense claims she was experiencing postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children in January 2023
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- Lindsay Clancy’s defense argues she was experiencing postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children in January 2023
- Both Lindsay and her husband Patrick have since filed lawsuits against her medical providers for alleged mismanagement of her treatment
- Jury selection in her murder trial began on Monday, July 20
Lindsay Clancy is standing trial on charges of murdering her three children — and while her defense acknowledges she killed them, they argue she is not “criminally responsible” because of her mental state at the time.
According to CNN, Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, has argued in court proceedings leading up to the trial, which began with jury selection on Monday, July 20, that 36-year-old Clancy should not be held “criminally responsible” for the 2023 deaths of her children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan.
Instead, Reddington argues the former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital — who has pleaded not guilty — was experiencing postpartum psychosis when she asked her husband, Patrick, to pick up takeout food and a prescription on Jan. 24, 2023.
Less than 30 minutes later, he returned to their Duxbury, Mass., home to find his wife injured after jumping from a second-story window. While calling 911, he discovered the couple’s three children had been strangled with exercise bands. Lindsay, meanwhile, broke several bones and suffered injuries that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
During a June court hearing, Reddington argued that jurors should hear evidence about Clancy’s mental health treatment leading up to the killings. According to CNN, he said jurors should “hear why Patrick Clancy and his wife Lindsay would go to consult with doctors because of depression, because of the life that she was living, which was one of horrific misery because of medications.”
Reddington has also said in court that Lindsay voluntarily turned herself in to a Boston psychiatric hospital in early January 2023, where she spent five days before returning home, PEOPLE previously reported.
Lindsay and Patrick have each filed lawsuits against her medical providers, alleging they failed to properly diagnose, treat and monitor her apparent condition. Patrick’s lawsuit further alleges that Lindsay was prescribed nearly 10 medications in the months before the killings, including eight over a three-week period between Nov. 16 and Dec. 5, 2022. In addition, Lindsay’s suit claims she heard voices telling her to harm her children and herself.
Patrick has asked the public to forgive his wife and is expected to testify in her defense. In an October 2024 interview with The New Yorker, he said, “I wasn’t married to a monster — I was married to someone who got sick.”
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Prosecutors, however, believe Lindsay intentionally planned the killings and was not acting under the effects of a psychotic break, the Associated Press reported.
The trial is expected to last several weeks once the jury and six alternates are selected, per the AP.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.
Read the original article on People
