PLYMOUTH, Mass. — The two police officers focused first on Lindsay Clancy drifting in and out of consciousness in the snow after jumping from her Massachusetts home’s second-floor window. Within minutes, they were racing into the basement after her then-husband screamed that all three of their children were dead.
“I can’t wake them up – I can’t get them up!” he frantically told the officers who, along with firefighters and paramedics, gave jurors firsthand accounts on Thursday of the aftermath.
The murder trial has centered on Clancy’s mental state at the time. Her lawyers do not dispute that she strangled the children with exercise bands. But they say she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.
Prosecutors say Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, acted intentionally and is criminally responsible for the deaths in January 2023.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org
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The testimony came after jurors spent two days listening to testimony from Patrick Clancy and his anguished 911 call. He was still on the phone when he discovered the bodies of 3-year-old Dawson, 5-year-old Cora, and 8-month-old Callan, minutes after returning home from an errand his wife asked him to run.
Patrick Clancy has said in interviews that he forgives his ex-wife, whom he viewed as ill rather than evil. The trial marks the first time he has seen Lindsay Clancy since the killings.
She remains paralyzed from the waist down after using multiple methods to try to end her life that night. She says a voice told her, “This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself,” according to her lawyer.
Officers Stephen Hall and Brian Josephine testified Thursday that they were each dispatched separately to the house in Duxbury, a coastal town south of Boston. Hall said they arrived to find Patrick Clancy yelling for help from behind the home.
Patrick Clancy testified earlier this week that his injured wife told him the kids were in the basement, but she didn’t say they were dead.
When the officers followed the sound of his screams downstairs, only 8-month-old Callan had a faint pulse, Josephine testified.
“Based on my training experience from previous incidents, I knew it wasn’t going to be good,” Josephine said. They began rendering aid with help from firefighters.
PJ Hussey, a fire department supervisor, arrived in time to glimpse through a basement window as Patrick Clancy unwrapped an exercise band from his child’s neck.
“It turned very chaotic very quickly” as more ambulances rushed to the house, Hussey testified. Duxbury firefighter and paramedic Jennifer Stratton said the infant never regained a pulse.
If convicted of murder, Lindsay Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.
In opening arguments Monday, her attorney said she had bipolar disorder, and that antidepressants prescribed after the birth of her third child worsened her condition.
Patrick Clancy testified about his wife’s deteriorating mental health in the months leading up to the killings. He said she told him about intrusive thoughts of harming the children, as well as thoughts of suicide.
She sought care from experts in postpartum mood disorders and was put on multiple psychiatric medications. When nothing worked, she checked into a psychiatric hospital. She killed the children 19 days after she was discharged.
Clancy and her ex-husband accuse her medical providers of failing to properly diagnose, treat and monitor her, according to lawsuits filed earlier this year.
