Picture: Greg Derr/Pool The Patriot Ledger by way of AP, Pool
On the night of January 24, 2023, Patrick Clancy went to select up takeout for dinner for his spouse and their three younger youngsters. When he bought again to their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, lower than an hour later, it was unusually quiet, and the bed room door was locked. Finally, he discovered his spouse, Lindsay, mendacity within the yard, barely aware. She had slit her wrists and neck and jumped from the second-story window, and he or she informed him she had tried to kill herself. When the paramedics arrived, Patrick discovered the couple’s three youngsters — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — within the basement, the place they’d been strangled with train bands. They had been later pronounced useless.
Lindsay Clancy — a former labor and supply nurse at a Boston hospital — survived, although she was left paralyzed from the waist down. In February 2023, she was charged with three counts of first-degree homicide and pleaded not responsible, along with her attorneys arguing that she was affected by extreme postpartum psychological sickness. She’s been receiving court-ordered psychiatric care at Tewksbury Hospital in Massachusetts for the previous three years. Her trial started in July with the jury beginning a prolonged deliberation interval final week. As of Thursday night — their sixth day of deliberating — they had been nonetheless deadlocked. Right here’s what’s occurred thus far.
Lindsay’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, has stated that whereas Lindsay did kill her youngsters, she shouldn’t be held legally chargeable for homicide, arguing that she suffered from excessive postpartum despair and doable postpartum psychosis — a extreme psychological sickness that impacts one or two in a thousand girls who give delivery.
In keeping with reporting from The New Yorker, Lindsay skilled nervousness after the delivery of all three of her youngsters, although she was by no means identified with any postpartum temper problems. A number of months after her son Callan was born, in Might 2022, she began seeing a psychiatrist, who identified her with generalized nervousness dysfunction and prescribed Zoloft. Nonetheless, over the subsequent few months, she continued to expertise insomnia and informed her husband she had ideas of suicide and harming the youngsters. She was finally prescribed greater than 12 totally different drugs, together with Ambien, Klonopin, Valium, Prozac, Ativan, and Seroquel. Lindsay’s protection workforce has blamed her “horrific overmedication” for her deteriorating psychological state.
Lindsay repeatedly sought remedy for her signs, together with a number of journeys to the emergency room and an inpatient keep at McLean Hospital, however she was by no means formally identified with postpartum despair or postpartum psychosis. Patrick informed The New Yorker that, on the morning earlier than she killed their youngsters, he had thought she appeared like she was getting higher.
Lindsay and Patrick — who are actually divorced — have filed separate lawsuits towards the medical doctors who oversaw her mental-health remedy, arguing they did not correctly diagnose, deal with, and monitor her “extreme postpartum psychiatric situation” regardless of her efforts to hunt assist. In her go well with, Lindsay’s attorneys declare the drugs she acquired precipitated “a state of manic psychosis.” In keeping with the lawsuit, on January 23, 2023, Lindsay heard a “demanding, highly effective male voice” ordering her to kill her youngsters after which herself, and “felt an awesome, irresistible compulsion to conform.”
In opening statements, state prosecutors argued that Lindsay knew what she was doing and that the murders had been rigorously deliberate. “The proof will present she coldly and calculatingly executed her youngsters,” Shanan Buckingham, an assistant district lawyer for Plymouth County, informed the courtroom. Prosecutors declare she was lucid sufficient to take her daughter to the pediatrician that morning and that she plotted to get her husband out of the home, asking him to select up the youngsters’s drugs and dinner and searching up the restaurant on Apple Maps, presumably to verify how lengthy he could be gone.
Within the aftermath of the tragedy, Patrick has maintained that Lindsay was a loving and devoted mom within the throes of a mental-health disaster. In a press release a number of days after the dying of his youngsters, Patrick shared recollections of Cora, Dawson, and Callan, writing, “I’m utterly misplaced with out them.” He additionally stated that he had forgiven Lindsay and requested the general public to do the identical. “The actual Lindsay was generously loving and caring towards everybody — me, our youngsters, household, buddies, and her sufferers,” he wrote.
“I wasn’t married to a monster — I used to be married to somebody who bought sick,” he informed The New Yorker.
In July, the prosecution known as Patrick to the stand. He stated that Lindsay struggled along with her psychological well being after Callan was born. Round September 2022, 4 months after she gave delivery, he stated she sought remedy for nervousness and was given treatment for despair, however she stopped taking it after she started having bother sleeping. “Over that time frame, she simply saved getting worse and worse,” Patrick stated, explaining that she sought out extra suppliers who prescribed a number of totally different anti-anxiety and antidepressant drugs. When prosecutors identified that she took few, if any, doses of a few of the drugs, Patrick stated she had destructive unintended effects from a few of them, however that he was not conscious how a lot she had or had not taken.
Patrick stated her “large spiral” began in early December 2022, when she began taking a brand new treatment. At that time, he stated, she informed him she was suicidal and having “intrusive ideas” about hurting their youngsters. Nonetheless, he stated he wasn’t involved for his or her security as a result of “she wasn’t displaying any intention of harming the youngsters.” He added: “It was very complicated. The subsequent minute, she was making them lunch or taking part in with them.”
On New Yr’s Eve 2022, he and Lindsay determined she must be admitted to McLean. “I used to be exhausted,” he stated. “We didn’t have a analysis. We simply didn’t know what was improper. I hoped McLean may consider her and check out to determine the very best path ahead.” Nonetheless, he stated she didn’t see a physician till the third day of her five-day keep. In keeping with prosecutors, she requested medical doctors to discharge her on January 5 as a result of she wished to prepare for her daughter’s party. Patrick stated he “wasn’t conscious of Lindsay asking the medical doctors to be discharged.” After she got here residence, Patrick stated he thought she appeared “significantly better,” and he or she informed him she was not suicidal.
The day she killed the youngsters, Lindsay took Cora to the physician and constructed a snowman with the youngsters. Patrick stated she appeared completely happy. “She was having certainly one of her finest days,” he stated. That night, whereas he was out choosing up Pedia-Lax for one of many youngsters, he briefly known as Lindsay to ask a query in regards to the treatment. “She was fairly quiet. It appeared like she was busy. I keep in mind hanging up pondering she was in the course of giving baths or one thing like that.”
When he returned residence from choosing up dinner, Patrick discovered the home quiet and the bed room door locked. When he unlocked the door, “I simply noticed blood all over the place and the window was open,” he recalled. Lindsay was face up within the yard, the place she was “out and in of consciousness,” he stated. He stayed along with her till first responders arrived, then ran to verify on the youngsters. Patrick described discovering his three youngsters within the basement, the place they had been unresponsive and had train bands round their neck. He stated he tried to present Cora CPR earlier than the primary responders arrived and despatched him upstairs.
Patrick stated {that a} week later, Lindsay known as him from the hospital. “She didn’t speak in regards to the youngsters. She talked about what she went by,” he stated. “She stated she heard a person’s voice telling her if she didn’t do it now, she would lose her likelihood — or one thing like that.”
After Patrick completed his testimony, his 911 name was performed for the jurors. The New York Instances reviews that Patrick was on the cellphone with the 911 operator when he discovered his youngsters. Within the recording, he will be heard screaming, “No, no, no, my God” and sobbing earlier than yelling, “She killed the youngsters.” As the decision performed in courtroom, Lindsay put her head in her arms and sobbed.
Following the killings, investigators discovered a kitchen cupboard in Clancy’s residence that contained books about postpartum despair, together with the e-book Good Mothers Have Scary Ideas and a “postpartum nervousness pocket book” that was clean. In addition they discovered Clancy’s diaries from the months main as much as the killings, through which she described her worsening psychological state. Attorneys for the protection and prosecution learn excerpts from them out loud in the course of the trial. “I really feel like I’m so determined to get a psychological break from caring for everybody that my thoughts is attempting to make one thing bodily improper with me,” she wrote, based on CNN. She additionally described feeling responsible whereas sleep-training her youngest, Callan, and anxious about going again to work. “I now have horrible insomnia and nervousness, which is inflicting despair. I’ve no urge for food. I don’t know what’s improper with me. I would like assist. I wish to be properly,” she wrote.
Elaine Rossi, a part-time nanny for the household, stated that within the months earlier than the tragedy, Clancy misplaced weight, had bother sleeping, and informed her about having postpartum mental-health points, NBC reported. However Rossi stated she by no means apprehensive Clancy would harm her youngsters. “I noticed a beautiful mother who beloved her youngsters,” Rossi stated.
The courtroom additionally heard from Jennifer Tufts, a psychiatrist who noticed Clancy as a telehealth affected person beginning in September 2022. At their first session, Tufts stated, Clancy informed her she was feeling overwhelmed caring for her youngsters and anxious leaving the infant. Clancy informed Tufts she struggled with racing ideas and had bother sleeping however stated she didn’t have hallucinations and any intent of suicide or murder.
By December, Tufts stated, Clancy was feeling very depressed. In mid-December, Tufts stated, Clancy went to the emergency room after having suicidal ideas, however on the time, she declined inpatient remedy. In early January 2023, Clancy admitted herself to McLean Hospital, the place she was handled by Dr. Alia Goodheart, a psychiatrist. Goodheart informed the courtroom that whereas Clancy stated she felt “numbness” and appeared anxious, she displayed linear pondering. The psychiatrist stated her preliminary analysis was “main depressive dysfunction, extreme with out psychotic options.” After a number of nights of sleeping properly, Clancy seemed to be enhancing and requested to be discharged a day early to be along with her household, Goodheart stated. “She was future-oriented. She was clearly invested in her youngsters. She was a caring mom,” Goodheart stated. “I didn’t have any issues about her security or a danger for anyone else.”
After she got here residence from McLean, Clancy informed Tufts she nonetheless felt “numb” and “flat.” Tufts confirmed that Clancy requested her opinion on ketamine remedy in an e mail, writing: “This has been occurring for months now and I’m getting determined for one thing that will work shortly to get me out of this depressed state.”
Clancy met with Tufts the day earlier than she killed her youngsters. In keeping with Tufts, whereas Clancy informed her she was feeling anxious, she stated she was not having suicidal or homicidal ideation. Tufts stated Clancy didn’t present any indicators of psychosis throughout their periods.
Rebecca Jollotta, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who handled Clancy in late 2022, testified that Clancy regularly messaged her to report her worsening signs, writing that she was having “intrusive ideas I by no means had earlier than” and feeling “utterly hopeless.” Jollotta stated that in December, after Clancy reported that taking Zoloft left her unable to sleep for 48 hours, Jollotta introduced up the chance that she may have bipolar dysfunction. Nonetheless, she stated Patrick denied that was the case: “He stated, ‘My spouse is just not bipolar.’”
Susan Clancy, Lindsay’s mother-in-law, described Clancy as a “fantastic mom” who was “very nurturing and loving.” Within the months main as much as the killings, Susan stated Clancy was “begging for assist,” including, “Lindsay was struggling — we had been all very involved.”
Clancy’s mom, Paula Musgrove, informed the courtroom Clancy was turning into more and more paranoid and afraid of sleeping alone, and that she believed the drugs she was taking “had been destroying her thoughts.” The jury was proven a textual content message Clancy despatched her mom in October 2022 the place she wrote, “Mother, will you please come up and stick with me for a bit? I’m actually sick. One thing is improper. I had horrible insomnia all evening, and I simply don’t know the way I’m going to get by the day … It’s simply actually scary, and I don’t wish to be alone.”
Musgrove stated that in December, she was standing within the kitchen with Patrick when Lindsay stated she needed to inform them one thing, showing nervous. “She informed us she had ideas of harming the youngsters,” Musgrove stated. Lindsay’s sister, Allison Ozga, informed the courtroom that on the finish of December, Lindsay informed her she had skilled suicidal ideas day-after-day for a month.
The courtroom additionally heard from medical doctors who handled Clancy within the aftermath of the killings. Initially, Clancy couldn’t communicate as a result of she was on a ventilator, so she requested for a pen and paper to put in writing her responses to questions. In keeping with Dr. Jhilam Biswas, one of many medical doctors who evaluated Clancy, she wrote that she was “horrified” and requested for a lawyer. She additionally wrote, “is my physique damaged,” “Are my legs straight,” and requested if she may have guests and the place her household was. In keeping with Biswas, she appeared clear-headed and rational and didn’t present indicators of psychosis. One other psychiatrist, Sejal Shah, stated that in a psych examination every week after the killings, Clancy was “calm and cooperative.” She described Clancy as an “sincere” affected person.
Paul Zeizel, a forensic psychologist who started treating Clancy after the killings, informed the courtroom that he identified Clancy with “bipolar dysfunction with postpartum psychosis.”
Zeizel stated Clancy was apprehensive that folks may hear her ideas and that “her youngsters could be faraway from her and that she would by no means see them once more.” He stated psychotic signs can come and go and that an individual experiencing psychosis is commonly nonetheless useful and might carry out actions like driving a automobile or making a cellphone name. “She was unable to adapt her conduct to the rule of regulation,” Zeizel testified. “She had no appreciation for the wrongfulness of her act.”
Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham learn reviews from the hospital about Clancy’s conduct on the anniversary of her youngsters’s birthdays, noting that they didn’t point out something she did to recollect her youngsters. However Zeizel stated Clancy talks about her youngsters typically. “She actually loves them and misses them and thinks of them each single day, virtually each second of the day,” he stated, including that she “has unhealthy days and worse days.”
Sheila Cavanaugh, a hospital chaplain, stated that when she first noticed Clancy after the killings, Clancy informed her, “I’m so glad my youngsters are protected.” Cavanaugh added that Clancy had “alluded to having heard a voice, and the voice, based on Lindsay, informed her that if she didn’t comply with the command, neither she nor her youngsters could be protected.” She stated that Lindsay talks regularly about her youngsters and “carries immense grief.”
Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist, informed the courtroom he believed Clancy was “clearly psychotic” when she killed her youngsters. “Not solely did she hear a command, however she felt that her physique was taken over by an exterior pressure the place she was in a dream state and didn’t have management of her personal physique,” he stated. “It was virtually like she was a puppet and another person was pulling the strings.”
But specialists known as by the prosecution disputed this, claiming that although Clancy was mentally sick, they believed she was in charge of her actions. The forensic psychologist Kirk Heilbrun stated he was skeptical Clancy actually had auditory hallucinations, noting that she didn’t report listening to a voice earlier than or after the killings. He stated he believed Clancy killed her youngsters out of affection in order that they wouldn’t undergo after she killed herself.
Throughout closing arguments, Clancy’s protection, Kevin Reddington, argued that she repeatedly sought medical remedy however was misdiagnosed and overmedicated. Exhibiting the jury two pictures, certainly one of Clancy smiling along with her youngsters earlier than the killings and one other of her mendacity paralyzed in a hospital mattress following her suicide try, he requested how that household bought from right here to there. “Due to the rattling drugs and the awful medical care that she bought,” he stated. He stated Clancy had no motive to kill her youngsters. “This younger girl did nothing improper in her life. She was a nurse, a daughter, a spouse, and a darn good mom.”
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague reiterated that the case isn’t “in regards to the mental-health system or the way it treats girls,” arguing that Clancy had “an abundance of care” however wasn’t totally sincere along with her suppliers about her signs and didn’t all the time take her treatment as prescribed. She argued that Clancy’s youngsters “had been retaining her from ending her distress,” and he or she made a option to kill them. “She left them discarded on the basement flooring, like damaged toys, as a result of she was carried out taking part in the sport.”
The 12 jurors — 9 girls and three males — started deliberating final Thursday. On Tuesday morning, after jurors informed Decide William Sullivan that they had been deadlocked, he informed them to maintain deliberating. On Wednesday, after the jury stated a second time that they had been unable to return to consensus, Sullivan learn them what’s often called a “dynamite cost” (formally known as a Tuey-Rodriguez instruction), urging them to contemplate opposing views and reassess their positions to attempt to attain a verdict.
As of Thursday night, following six days of deliberations, the New York Instances reviews that there seems to be an 11-1 break up amongst jurors. Earlier that afternoon, the jury sumitted one other observe to the choose, which Clancy’s protection Kevin Reddington claims stated “there’s one juror who refuses to hearken to the regulation” on affordable doubt. Whereas Reddington requested the choose to dismiss the juror, Sullivan refused, saying he didn’t wish to take sides.
If convicted, Clancy faces life in jail with out parole. In keeping with CNN, if jurors discover that she can’t be held criminally chargeable for the deaths of her youngsters, the courtroom will doubtless transfer to have her dedicated to a state psychiatric hospital. If the jury says they’re deadlocked a 3rd time, the choose is predicted to declare a mistrial. At that time, it could be as much as the prosecution to resolve whether or not to maneuver ahead with one other try to convict Clancy. Reddington has stated he’s able to symbolize her once more, although he additionally stated this week that he didn’t suppose Clancy would have the ability to emotionally deal with a second trial.
Because the trial reaches its ultimate stretch, crowds of spectators have been gathering exterior the courthouse. Earlier this week, Daybreak Mild, 56, was arrested after police stated they discovered a video of jurors exiting the constructing on her cellphone; her lawyer denied that she supposed to movie the jurors, saying she was attempting to get an image of Clancy. In the meantime, girls have additionally been displaying up carrying pink shirts with slogans like “She Wanted Assist” and “Peace for Lindsay.” The AP reviews that many ladies in attendance stated they had been there to boost consciousness of how the mental-health system treats girls.
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