Lindsay Clancy told a psychologist that
she heard a man's voice telling her to kill her children before she strangled them with exercise ropes, Massachusetts prosecutors alleged at her arraignment Tuesday — while her own attorney described her new reality as a paraplegic at risk of suicide.
Clancy, 32, appeared in Plymouth District Court via Zoom while wearing a neck brace and face mask in her hospital bed. The judge ultimately ruled that she would remain in her current hospital until her transfer to a rehabilitation facility.
Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, alleged that Clancy, who faces first-degree murder charges after strangling her three children on Jan. 24, was a victim of a health care system that fails women with “postpartum depression — and even postpartum psychosis.” He claimed she was prescribed drugs — including Prozac and Seroquel — that included homicidal ideation among their side effects.
“[Clancy] was … a beautiful person who was destroyed by this medication,” the impassioned attorney told the court of the former labor and delivery nurse.
Reddington also announced that Clancy — who tried to take her own life by jumping from a second-floor window after killing her children — suffered
spinal cord injuries and is paralyzed from the waist down. He requested that she be housed in an appropriate rehab facility.
“She can’t walk … she can’t even go to the bathroom,” he said, noting that her emotional state was also “not well at all.”
Clancy, who did not speak during the proceedings, appeared to close her eyes for several moments as prosecutors alleged that she “created” the scenario in which her husband, Patrick, was gone from their Duxbury home for about 20 minutes, leaving her enough time to strangle Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 7 months.
After stopping by CVS and picking up takeout at Lindsay’s request, prosecutors said, Patrick Clancy returned home to “silence,” and subsequently discovered his wife in the yard.
His cries were later heard by 911 dispatchers when he discovered his children in the finished basement, where they reportedly still had exercise ropes around their “little necks.”
When first responders arrived, Patrick reportedly cried out, “She killed the kids!”
Prosecutors also detailed the “meticulous” notes in Lindsay’s journals, which documented her children’s lives as well as her mental health journey.
She briefly expressed suicidal thoughts and thoughts of hurting the children to her husband, the state’s attorney said, and “[Clancy] strangled the children in the place they should have felt safest: at home, with their mom.”