SerpApi.Org
Jury selection commenced Monday in the trial of a Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three children while receiving medical care for psychiatric conditions that emerged following childbirth.
The trial of Lindsay Clancy, anticipated to span several weeks, is set to examine the complex and uncommon condition known as postpartum psychosis, which affects a tiny fraction of women who experience delusions and occasionally hallucinations after giving birth.
On the day of the crime, January 24, 2023, Lindsay Clancy had told her husband her day looking after their three young children had been exhausting, so she asked her husband to pick up some children's medicine and a takeout dinner order as she was too tired to cook.
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However, when 36-year-old Patrick returned later, his wife was lying barely conscious outside. She had cut her wrists and neck and then jumped out of the window, falling 20ft.
She allegedly told him she had tried to kill herself, and told her husband that their children were in the basement. Once the ambulance turned up, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and Callan, just eight months old, were found and had all been strangled with exercise resistance bands.
Both Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead on the same night, and Callan died in the hospital a few days later.
Five jurors were chosen on Monday. A panel of 18 jurors, including six alternates, will be assembled for the trial.
Clancy's attorneys - along with her husband - maintain she was not in control of her actions. Defense lawyer Kevin Reddington doesn't contest that she killed the children, but intends to pursue an insanity defense.
"This whole case is an extreme tragedy," he said.
Prosecutors argue the killings were deliberate and carefully orchestrated, not the actions of someone who had lost mental control. They also alleged she had Googled the phrase "ways to kill." Additionally, four days before the children were killed, Clancy allegedly searched the phrase "can you treat a sociopath".
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague claims the accused is "selfish", reading a note she allegedly wrote.
Sprague has read out a note in court at an earlier hearing that Clancy wrote herself five months before Callan's birth, in which Lindsay said: 'I think I sort of resent my other children because they prevent me from treating Cal like my first baby... I want to feel love and connection with all of my kids.'
Clancy became paralyzed following her fall from the residence's second-floor window and remains in custody at a state hospital. Her husband appears on the witness list for both the prosecution and the defense. He has stated publicly in interviews that he forgives his wife.
Eighteen jurors, including six alternates, are expected to be selected over multiple days for the trial in Plymouth, located near the family's residence in Duxbury, an affluent coastal community approximately 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Boston.
Earlier this year, Clancy and her husband initiated lawsuits against her medical providers, alleging they failed to adequately diagnose, treat, and monitor her for a "severe postpartum psychiatric condition."
She was hospitalized at a psychiatric facility for several days in the weeks preceding the killings.
Lindsay Clancy's lawsuit outlined how she experienced depression, struggled with insomnia, and persistently heard voices commanding her to harm her children and herself.
"Lindsay Clancy did everything a mother in her situation could do," the lawsuit said. "She recognized something was wrong with her. She sought medical treatment. She went to emergency rooms. She called crisis hotlines. She admitted herself to a hospital. She took the medication prescribed to her. She communicated her worsening symptoms to her providers. She told them the medications were making her worse."
On the day of the killings, Clancy said she heard voices saying, "This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself."
A voice told her "that her children would suffer if she was gone," according to the lawsuit filed by Patrick Clancy, citing medical records.
Once prosecutors said they were charging Clancy with murder, some nurses set up an online group called LAOL, for 'Lindsay's Army of Love,' to rally support for the accused.
Additionally, 100 local women wrote to the judge, pledging to stand by Clancy "in her darkest hour as we wish any other mother would do for us."
In a GoFundMe post published several days following the killings, Patrick Clancy wrote that the "shock and pain is excruciating and relentless," but he appealed to the public to remember Lindsay Clancy as she was prior to the tragedy.
"The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring toward everyone - me, our kids, family, friends, and her patients. The very fibers of her soul are loving. All I wish for her now is that she can somehow find peace," it said.
