The 36-year-old former nurse has admitted strangling her three children, Cora, Dawson and Callan, at the family’s Duxbury home in January 2023. Lindsay Clancy’s future could look very different depending on the verdict now being considered by a Massachusetts jury. Prosecutors say she knew what she was doing and planned the killings. As jurors continue deliberating, hospital records show Clancy had also spoken about what she hoped to do with her life if she eventually left psychiatric care.
Her defense says she was in the grip of severe postpartum psychosis and should not be held criminally responsible.
The case has drawn comparisons with Andrea Yates, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity after drowning her five children in Texas in 2001. The Daily Mail reported that Clancy has spent the past three years at Tewksbury Hospital. Hospital records described a very different routine from prison life. She has had access to a cellphone, visits from her parents, meals brought by her family, spiritual support and activities including coffee groups, television and dominoes. Her lawyer has argued that Clancy’s mental state at the time of the killings was central to the case. Prosecutors have taken the opposite position, saying she deliberately sent her husband, Patrick Clancy, out of the house before killing the children. A finding of not criminally responsible would send Clancy into Massachusetts’ mental health system rather than directly back into the community. Her commitment could continue as long as officials believe she remains mentally ill and that releasing her could create a serious risk of harm. Yates has remained in psychiatric care for more than two decades.
