[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
The details coming out of Lindsay Clancy‘s murder trial so far are just heartbreaking…
As we previously reported, the 36-year-old labor and delivery nurse is facing first-degree murder charges in Massachusetts for the January 2023 strangulation deaths of her three children: 5-year-old daughter Cora, 3-year-old son Dawson, and 8-month-old son Callan. She pleaded not guilty to all three counts, with her legal team arguing she lacks criminal responsibility. Her attorneys are going for the insanity defense because they claim she was suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis at the time of the killings, even hearing voices ordering her to take the lives of her children and her own.
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However, prosecutors say otherwise. They claim Lindsay carefully planned the murders, sending her husband, Patrick Clancy, to leave their home and get takeout before strangling the kids with exercise bands. Following the killings, she then crushed and took some of her drugs, cut her own wrists and neck, and jumped out of the second-story window, which left her paralyzed.
Three years after the murders, Lindsay’s trial is underway. If convicted, Lindsay faces life in prison without parole. But if not found guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility. What will happen? We won’t know until the trial is over in a few weeks, but what has happened in court so far is a lot. Here is a breakdown (below) of everything if you haven’t been keeping up.
Patrick’s Testimony
Early on in the trial, Patrick detailed what allegedly went down on the day of the killings. After suffering from severe anxiety and depression for months, he insisted Lindsay had one of her “best days” on January 24, 2023, as she enjoyed a day playing with the kids outside in the snow and made no mention of having thoughts of harming them or feeling suicidal.
While working in the basement, Patrick said he received a text from Lindsay before 5:00 p.m. suggesting they get takeout from a local restaurant called ThreeV for dinner because she hadn’t cooked anything and also asked him to get medication for Cora at CVS. He said they exchanged a few more texts about what they wanted to eat and Callan’s nap before she placed the order. When Patrick went upstairs to leave, he shared that he “took Callan for a minute, and I rocked him by my knees, kissed Cora on the head and said, ‘Be right back.’” He also spotted Dawson eating chicken nuggets and green beans on the couch. Lindsay seemed “normal” before he left, per Patrick. And that was the last time he says he saw his children alive.
Jurors saw surveillance footage in court from the pharmacy of Patrick, who had been on the phone to ask his wife about the medicine. He testified:
“She was pretty quiet. It sounded like she was busy. I remember hanging up thinking she was probably in the middle of giving baths or something like that.”
Upon returning home, Patrick recalls it had been oddly silent and called out for his family. No one answered, though. He said he searched the kids’ rooms and the rooms before he eventually found his and Lindsay’s bedroom door locked. Once the dad unlocked the door, he entered and “saw blood everywhere.” He says he then ran downstairs to head outside, where he found Lindsay injured but conscious on the ground. Patrick claimed Lindsay told him she had tried to commit suicide and the kids were in the basement — but she never said they were dead.
Patrick, who had been on the phone with 911 at the time, went to the basement and discovered the horrifying scene with his children. The 7-minute recording of the 911 call had been played in court, in which he could be heard talking to Lindsay. He said:
“Look at me. Say my name.”
Patrick then told the dispatcher he was going to check on the kids. And when he found them strangled with exercise bands in the basement, his cries could be heard. The dispatcher asked what happened, to which he replied:
“She killed the kids!”
Awful…
Toxicology
Justin Brower, a forensic toxicologist with NMS Laboratories, revealed his lab examined the levels of four psychiatric medications — Mirtazapine, Lamotrigine, Trazodone, and Quetiapine — found in Lindsay’s blood following the murders. When asked if the concentrations of each drug were different from what was prescribed, he stated only one drug appeared slightly elevated: Quetiapine. However, Brower stressed it was not a “toxic concentration” or “suicidal concentration” before continuing:
“Usually people take handfuls of pills when they’re trying to harm themselves and take their own life, and this is not consistent with that.”
What Family & Friends Had To Say
Christopher Clancy — her father-in-law — took the stand on August 6. According to Patrick’s dad, Lindsay was “very mothering” to the kids and protective, “like any mother would be.” He even went as far as to call his son, former daughter-in-law, and their kids the “all-American family.”
Looking back, Christopher said Lindsay seemed “very good” during a visit in mid-November 2022, but her attitude changed later on. He claimed she “seemed quiet” during Thanksgiving and had a blank stare at times, “just not totally interacting, almost like nervous.” When asked by the prosecutor whether he saw Lindsay interact with her son Dawson that day, Christopher recalled she got “a little frustrated” with the toddler:
“Dawson was being a little silly, and she was trying to get him to sit down, and she was just a little bit getting frustrated with him.”
He then claimed Lindsay took the young boy by the arm to get him to sit down, but it “wasn’t anything crazy.” The grandfather added:
“He was a handful, but he was a good boy.”
Christopher then saw the family again during the week of Christmas, including for mass on the holiday, during which he shared that she was quiet but happy she went. By that point, the father-in-law knew she was having “struggles”:
“I knew she was having a hard time sleeping. I knew she just didn’t feel well. I knew she had gone to the emergency room where my wife was working.”
Meanwhile, Lindsay’s pal of nearly 30 years, Amy Bevins, testified that the nurse texted her about her mental health in January 2023 — just days before she killed her kids:
“She had shared that she had been taking a medication that caused her to have some dark thoughts but that she was going to, or had been, tapering off that medication and was trialing new ones that would remove those side effects and be more helpful and therapeutic to what she needed.”
But Amy insisted the conversation seemed “hopeful,” noting that Lindsay thought things were “moving in a positive direction.”
During the trial, Elaine Rossi – who worked for the Clancy family as a part-time nanny from September to December 2022 – also opened up about her relationship with Lindsay amid her mental health struggles. The prosecution argued that Lindsay’s controlling nature as a mother is a huge motive for the brutal killings, but when asked whether she found the texts and written notes the mom left for her overbearing, she replied:
“Not at all.”
Furthermore, Elaine wasn’t concerned about Lindsay’s interactions with the kids during her employment. Not even after she confided in her that she was “suffering from postpartum,” as well as having difficulty sleeping, and had been seeing doctors and trying medication. The nanny added:
“She was a wonderful mom.”
Diary Entries & Facebook Posts
In court, several Massachusetts State Police troopers testified about the evidence uncovered in the investigation — including Lindsay’s diary entries and social media posts. Trooper Cory Melo revealed Lindsay kept notes about the medications she took and the impact they had on her, along with how she was feeling in general. And those entries were read aloud by Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham. Several got real about how much Lindsay struggled with her newborn Callan’s sleep schedule, such as one that said:
“Hearing him cry for one plus hours and not intervening just about killed me. I even told Pat I wanted to die while he was crying.”
Another entry read:
“I’m completely overwhelmed trying to take care of the kids. I feel like I’m drowning every day.”
On November 18, 2022, Lindsay wrote she desperately needed a break:
“It’s like I’m so desperate to get a mental break from taking care of everybody that my mind is trying to make something physically wrong with me.”
Her lawyer, Kevin Reddington, also read from the diaries, specifically passages about her anxiety over having brain fog, the sleep schedule issue, and marital problems with Patrick. In one entry, Lindsay expressed that her “mind never shuts off.” Another entry added:
“I feel disconnected from myself, time, reality.”
Trooper Andrew Chiachio also testified that Lindsay made a post in a Facebook group called “Attachment Parenting for Littles,” asking for parenting advice about a then-18-month-old son, Dawson, in May 2021. Calling her child “the most difficult human I’ve ever encountered,” she continued:
“I mean that with all of the love in my heart but I honestly cannot make it through a day without getting frustrated with him.”
Watch their testimonies (below):
Medical Professionals Testimonies
Dr. Jennifer Tufts, the licensed psychiatrist Lindsay and Patrick sued for allegedly failing to diagnose and treat her postpartum psychiatric condition, took the stand to discuss her client’s mental health in the months before she killed her kids. According to the physician, she saw Lindsay 14 times over video sessions from September to January 2023, during which she adjusted her medication repeatedly to help with her anxiety and sleep issues. At their first session, Tufts claimed Lindsay told her that she didn’t have any suicidal intent, homicidal intent, or hallucinations. Instead, her appointment records showed that the mom indicated she was feeling overwhelmed, like her kids were challenging, and anxious about leaving her baby.
On October 3, 2022, the psychiatrist said she spoke with Lindsay after the mother asked her to help get her an extension for her maternity leave due to “postpartum anxiety/depression.” Lindsay wrote in a message to Tufts before the appointment:
“I don’t feel mentally well enough to return to taking care of patients with a baby at home that still won’t take the bottle. I know this will trigger my anxiety too much.”
Two months later, Lindsay allegedly started seeing another medical provider and tried “a few different medication combinations.” Prosecutors shared that Tufts notes at the time featured a quote from the mom that said:
“I think it’s my problem. I keep reaching out to different people and not sticking with the plan.”
During this time, Tufts claimed Lindsay also opened up about having intrusive thoughts about “feeling like I’m going to die” — though she denied having thoughts of self-harm. She allegedly was feeling very depressed and had gone to the emergency room due to suicidal ideation in mid-December 2022 before planning to enter a partial hospitalization program and start new medication.
Weeks before the killings in January 2023, Lindsay started a multi-day stay at a psychiatric facility, where Dr. Alia Goodheart treated her. Goodheart testified that Lindsay said she felt “numbness” and looked anxious, but at the same time, she had been linear thinking and goal-directed. Goodheart said she diagnosed her with insomnia and tried to adjust her medication. But Lindsay was discharged from the facility a day early “so she could be home with her family and her children,” per Goodheart:
“She was future-oriented, she was clearly invested in her children, she was a caring mother.”
However, things didn’t change once she left the facility. Tufts claimed Lindsay still felt “numb” and “flat,” adding:
“She wasn’t able to cry, but she said she was able to laugh a little bit and hadn’t been having recent thoughts of suicidal ideation.”
And once again, the psychiatrist adjusted Lindsay’s prescriptions. Lindsay emailed Tufts on January 11, 2023, to ask for her opinion on ketamine therapy, writing:
“This has been going on for months now and I’m getting desperate for something that would work quickly to get me out of this depressed state.”
Things still didn’t seem to improve days later. Tufts said Lindsay was still depressed on January 16, and they planned to taper her off one medication and start taking a new antidepressant:
“She was doing what she needed to do to take care of her baby, though she subjectively felt like the bonding was forced with the baby.”
The day before the murders, Lindsay also met with Tufts. The psychiatrist claimed the mom “said she was doing all right — a little more anxious, and the anxiety was described as the feeling of her heart racing.” However, she allegedly was not having any suicidal or homicidal ideation. Additionally, Tufts alleged she never displayed any signs of psychosis or indicated that she was a danger to anyone else during their sessions.
However, during the cross-examination, Reddington pointed out that Tufts only met with Lindsay for 25 minutes via video — which is very limited time to discuss her mental health problems. When asked what she’d do for “a woman who was telling you she felt hopeless,” she replied:
“I told her that this was something we could address, that there was hope, that there are treatments, that there are different types of programs, so she knew that she still had options and a reason to hope.”
Reddington then asked:
“Did you ever suggest to her that ‘maybe you should come in and see me, rather than on the computer?’”
To which Tufts responded:
“Talking to her over the video didn’t seem like an issue. It didn’t seem like there was something I was missing.”
And there were other medical professionals who testified…
Julie Paul, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, said Lindsay suffered from anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, and dealing with racing thoughts — all of which are “very typical” for postpartum women. She prescribed her Prozac, noting that the medication takes some time to see benefits. However, days later, Lindsay contacted her to say that she wanted to switch to a new medication. Paul saw Lindsay only briefly in November 2022 before transferring her care to someone else, Rebecca Jollota.
Jollota, a psychiatric nurse practitioner at South Shore Health Perinatal Behavior Health Program who is also among those being sued by Lindsay and Patrick, had been in contact with the mother via a patient portal throughout late November and December 2022, where they talked about her trouble sleeping, depressive symptoms, and medications to treat her issues.
On November 30 — a day after beginning treatment with Jollota — Lindsay reached out saying that “what I’m really feeling is I cannot go on this way.” She then asked if they could talk over the phone, but the nurse practitioner said she was too busy with other patients and had a junior staff member call her instead. For the next two days, Lindsay allegedly talked about having intrusive thoughts and concerns about her medications and treatment plans:
“It’s just a very scary stressful time for me, and starting new meds with side effects is very scary to me.”
Days later, on December 2, Lindsay messaged her that she “took the Remeron,” an antidepressant for insomnia, but she “woke up at 12:15 and had intrusive thoughts – of wanting it all to be over.” She then questioned Jollotta if she could be addicted to the anxiety drug Ativan because she didn’t feel like she was “being heard that that is a possibility,” adding:
“I really need to explore the option that I am addicted to Ativan. I feel addicted to it, and I feel like I’m not being heard that that is a possibility. I feel like we are throwing all these different meds at my insomnia when the root cause is Ativan dependence. I don’t feel any of the anxious thoughts I had before. I feel completely numb. I feel like I’m going to die, and I don’t care. What do I do about this?”
But Jollotta testified that she didn’t think Lindsay was addicted to the medications. Instead, she thought the comments showed that the mom was experiencing suicidal ideation. The practitioner said she replied to Lindsay that intrusive thoughts are “quite common” in women suffering from postpartum depression, and “they mean nothing about you as a mother.”
Later on, she had a different idea about what could’ve been going on. During a December 6 session, Jollotta met with both Lindsay and Patrick and shared that she believed the mother could have bipolar disorder. She testified that Lindsay’s husband said in response:
“‘My wife is not bipolar.’”
However, Jollotta felt that really could be the case due to Lindsay’s intense reactions to selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors like Zoloft and Prozac, which are common side effects for people with bipolar disorder. She also stated that a lack of sleep with no fatigue could be a possible symptom of a manic episode and that Lindsay’s contradictory symptoms suggested she might be in a “mixed manic, hypomanic state.” Still, she claimed she was never worried the mom was in psychosis.
By December 15, Lindsay called Jollotta with Patrick to report she was having the “worst day” with “persistent, intrusive thoughts of suicide” and that they were likely going to the emergency department of Mass General Hospital, even though she had “no active plan” to harm herself. Lindsay went to the ER that day and did not check into the mental institution McLean Hospital but rather joined an outpatient program at Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island, which Jollotta “strongly, strongly” recommended in a December 12 MyChart message for postpartum care.
But when Lindsay went to the facility five days later, they turned her away! Why? Reddington revealed they thought she was possibly taking too many medications at the time. Lindsay informed Jollotta over MyChart on December 21 that the place recommended she go to a general mental health facility like McLean instead, which she did on on New Year’s Day. Before rejecting her, the hospital reportedly advised Lindsay to stop taking one of her antipsychotic medications, Seroquel. And despite being told that the drugs could lead to “worsening of mood, worsening of sleep” if she stopped, she insisted on going off it. Jollatta said she agreed to reduce the dosage slowly.
Therapist Latiesha Dukes, who also treated Lindsay in the weeks before the killings, reportedly backed some of the claims made by the other medical professionals. According to Dukes, Lindsay voiced concerns about becoming addicted to benzodiazepines but didn’t show any obvious signs of mania or psychosis. She also had been unaware that the mom was having a hard time finding treatment for postpartum depression.
While treating her on four occasions in December 2022, Dukes claimed Lindsay had lost 10 pounds, only got two to four hours of sleep a night, and was having thoughts of suicide. She even called a suicide hotline twice that month. Per Duke, Lindsay said on a December 5 appointment that “she had a difficult weekend, having intrusive thoughts that she wanted to die.” The therapist went on to claim that after calling the ASPIRE hotline, “she met with the clinician virtually and was told she did not meet the criteria for in-patient treatment due to not having a suicidal ideation plan.” This happened, per Dukes, not once but both times she called. WTF.
Dukes told jurors she repeatedly recommended Lindsay enter an out-patient postpartum program at Women and Infants Hospital because she needed “a higher level of care.” But as we mentioned, she had been turned away by them due to allegedly being overmedicated.
A big problem with all of this, though? In the four months leading up to the murders, per the Boston Globe, Lindsay had been prescribed 13 psychiatric and other medications by all these providers, including Zoloft, Ativan, Benadryl, Trazodone, Prozac, Ambien, Remeron, Klonopin, Seroquel, Valium, Lamictal, and Amitriptyline. And each practitioner, including Tufts and Jollotta, was unfamiliar with the care Lindsay received elsewhere. Both testified they didn’t request a release form from her to access the medical records because they trusted her to be honest with them.
Watch all the medical professionals’ testimonies (below):
Autopsy Details Leaves Lindsay In Tears
By August 12, the trial took a very emotional turn. The judge recessed twice after Lindsay broke down in tears due to two medical examiners’ testimonies of the autopsies performed on her three kids. Medical examiner Renee Stonebridge took the stand to say the children died by asphyxiation, sharing that they had only been in pain for about 10 to 30 seconds before they lost consciousness. Meanwhile, medical examiner Barbara Olson talked about Cora’s autopsy, going into detail on the injuries to her neck, along with the signs of ligature strangulation and the pain of the attack. As Olson went on and on, Lindsay could not stop crying and hyperventilating before saying out loud:
“I can’t do this.”
Afterward, Judge William Sullivan told the jury not to let her emotions influence their verdict.
This wasn’t the first time Lindsay sobbed in the middle of the courtroom. During an August 6 hearing, medical examiner Dr. Kimberley Springer testified that Callan’s autopsy showed “abrasions” and “some needle marks” from “therapeutic procedures.” And while looking at the autopsy photos, she started crying. Even the jurors became visibly emotional.
Notes, Internet Searches, & More
On August 13, Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Kyle Pavao confirmed his examination of a Microsoft Surface Pro taken from Lindsay’s home in early 2023 showed “a visit to a website entitled ‘suicide methods’ on August 23, 2022.” According to Pavao, the site was accessed through a series of clicks on a Wikipedia page for singer-songwriter Tom Hall, who died by suicide, before bouncing to a page for the Grafton Bridge in New Zealand. He also said someone searched for the artist on Google and listened to him on Spotify. Reddington, however, pointed out in a cross-examination that Lindsay’s husband “loved Tom Hall” and he doesn’t “know if it was Lindsay Clancy who used the computer to search Tom Hall.”
Pavao told Reddington other Google searches in December 2022 on a tablet law enforcement collected included psychiatric medications and the inquiries, “what to do when a psychiatrist overprescribes,” “can bipolar disorder be temporary,” “can benzos reveal bipolar disorder,” “how long are detox programs,” “what is DBT [dialectical behavior therapy],” “what is mania,” “ketamine for benzo withdrawal,” and “ketamine therapy.” However, Pavao confirmed there were no searches for “ways to kill” — despite what authorities previously alleged Lindsay made.
When Timothy Chiappini, a former State Police detective for Plymouth County, took the stand, he read off several raw journal entries from her phone. He shared that she wrote down several affirmations on her cell, including “I am strong,” “I will overcome postpartum anxiety and depression,” “I am a great mom,” and “I love my kids.”
Chiappini also read an entry from Lindsay’s notes app on October 25, 2022, in which she expressed struggling to connect with Callan:
“I am sad and depressed because I cannot parent my third child like my first. I want to treat every one of my babies like my first. But I know that’s not a feasible possibility. I am sad I stopped breastfeeding. I feel not as connected with Cal now. I think I sort of I resent my other children because they prevent me from treating Cal like my first baby. And I know that’s not fair to them. I know that. I was feeling so depressed last evening when Cora and Dawson came home from school. I know it runs off on them so we had a pretty rough evening. I want to feel love and connection with all my kids.”
She also felt conflicted because she wanted more children but needed to figure things out with her mental health:
“I’m also probably having a bit of an internal conflict because my whole life I’ve wanted to have a lot of kids. I still don’t want Cal to be our last, but I have a lot of figuring out to do before I have another. I’m on the fence about starting a new medication for anxiety/depression. I just want to feel happy. I want to be able to relax and take care of my kids. And when they go to bed at night, I want to deeply relax and hang out with Pat and then fall into a deep sleep for 8 hours, get up and pour hard into myself for an hour and a half. Cal was so very planned and desired. I want to be able to give him all the love he deserves. I guess that’s what it’s like to be the third child though. He’s not the first third child to ever exist. I think I know he’ll be OK, but it’s really hard for me. I hate that he has to put himself to sleep. I’m sad I’m not breastfeeding anymore, but I think deep down, these are the right choices.”
Lindsay continued:
“I need to be able to be present with my other kids. I still really, really want a fourth child, but I need a really good therapist before then. I want to feel happy, but it would be nice to feel authentically happy and not fake.”
And while she noted she had “some depression” after giving birth to Cora, she felt doing activities and “getting up and out” with her firstborn helped. Yet she couldn’t shake the fear of negatively impacting her kids as parents are “inundated” with information about what could go wrong:
“I’m terrified of something happening to my kids or doing something wrong to mess up their development. For the last five years, I’ve just filled my mind with all things parenting, and it’s just unhealthy.”
Chiappini went on to testify about the texts and calls on Lindsay’s phone, including a search for “can you treat a sociopath” the night of January 20, 2023 – four days before the death of her kids. During the cross-examination, Reddington questioned whether he saw a search for “where is the carotid artery” on her phone, but Chiappini didn’t remember. Her defense attorney then asked if he’d come across the search for ‘How to slit your throat to die?’” But again, Chiappini didn’t recall. Nor did he know if she looked up whether she could “turn airbags off on Kia Sorento” or a search for schizophrenia, which prompted Reddington to read out records from a January 19 search for “on Seroquel [a prescription antipsychotic] feel like I can’t have a conversation.” The searches Chiappini does remember, though? He knew of “page after page after page” of Google searches on her phone regarding bipolar symptoms, psychosis, and medications for anxiety and depression.
Then Reddington mentioned Lindsay Googled suicide, sleep, McLean Hospital, insomnia, and bipolar disorder, along with keywords like “intrusive” and “hallucinations,” days before killing her kids. He also shared texts of her mother checking on her regularly during January 2023, including on the 14th. Lindsay allegedly wrote back that she was “hanging in there and waiting for the day I wake up and feel [like] me.” But prosecutors fired back that Lindsay’s mom texted her on January 22 after a visit:
“Nice to see you doing better.”
Watch the testimonies (below):
Heavy stuff.
As we mentioned, the trial is set to continue for a few more weeks, so more will come out. Court is currently in session today, so stay tuned for more updates.
What are your reactions to the case so far? Let us know in the comments (below).
To learn more about postpartum depression, CLICK HERE or HERE.
For resources on mental health, visit https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help.
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, help is available. Consider contacting the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, by calling, texting, or chatting, or go to 988lifeline.org.
[Image via GoFundMe, ABC 7 Chicago/YouTube]
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