Lindsay Clancy Breaks Down in Court, Says She Only Hurt Herself — Then Her Husband Testifies

What did you see when you opened the door and went in? >> I just saw blood everywhere. And the window was open. >> She cries in court thinking her innocent and sorry looking demeanor will keep her out of jail. Fresh tears pour almost every time her children are mentioned. Nothing about her says she’s capable of the unthinkable crimes she’s on trial for.

 Those closest to her said they’d been seeing the signs since her third child Callan was born. Her doctors, husband, mother-in-law, they all witnessed her mental health decline leading up to that Tuesday evening. What no one saw coming was that it would end in a tragedy that would shock the nation. >> The blood that you you saw, where was that located in the room? >> It was everywhere.

 It was um it looked like it was sprayed almost with like a hose. And there was a huge puddle in the middle of the room and it was sprayed all over the pretty much every surface. >> The evidence in this case will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant coldly and efficiently executed first Dawson, then Cora, and finally Callan.

 One by one, she strangled the life out of each one of them. >> January 24th, 2023. Lindsay Clancy took Cora to the pediatrician that morning, then spent the afternoon in the snow with all three kids. Dawson, her middle child, the one who loved trucks and firefighters, dressed himself for the first time that day and Patrick caught it on camera, arms in the air, running at him with a grin across his whole face.

 That day was just a happy picture of a three-year-old. It would end up being one of the last images of him alive. Later that afternoon, Lindsay asked Patrick to run out for takeout and pick up Cora’s medication at the pharmacy. The kind of thing any tired parent asks for on any ordinary evening. Patrick left the house. By the time he came back, something was wrong before he ever reached the door.

The house was too quiet. He checked the bedroom and the door was locked. When he got it open, he could see something was badly wrong inside, and the second story window was standing wide open. He ran outside and found Lindsay on the ground beneath it, and he still did not know where his children were. He went back in and searched the house until he found them in the basement.

Cora, Dawson, Callan, none of them responsive. First responders fought for all three. Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead that night. Doctors managed to get Callan’s heart beating again at the hospital, but he never woke up, and he died 3 days later. Lindsay survived the fall. The injuries left her paralyzed for the rest of her life.

 Cora was 5, Dawson was 3, Callan was 8 months old. Before any of this, Lindsay Clancy’s life looked like something out of a parenting magazine. She met Patrick Clancy and married him in December 2016, came up through an accelerated nursing program, and spent close to a decade at Massachusetts General working the labor and delivery, helping strangers bring their own children into the world.

 Cora arrived in December 2017, Dawson in September 2019, Callan in May 2022, filling out a family of five in a colonial house on Summer Street in Duxbury. What nobody outside that house could see was what had been building since Cora was born. Lindsay had postpartum anxiety after both Cora and Dawson. It came, it went, and she managed it, or at least looked like she was managing it.

 Then Callan was born in May 2022, and something changed. By that fall, it was getting worse instead of better. She was seeing two different psychiatrists. In the 4 months before January 24th, she was written 30 separate psychiatric prescriptions, 12 of them [music] by a single doctor. That is not one medication being adjusted. That is a series of attempts to find something that would hold, stacked one on top of the other in a matter of months.

 Less than 3 weeks before her children died, Lindsay checked herself into McLean Hospital, one of the most respected psychiatric facilities in the country. She was treated. She was released. This was not a woman hiding what was happening to her. This was a woman who kept asking for help. What that help actually did to her is the question a jury is being asked to answer right now.

She had come through milder versions of this twice before, after Cora and after Dawson. Her family had no reason to think the third time would be different. What none of them could see was how far she had already slipped. By January 2023, she was charged within days. Two counts of homicide, three counts of strangulation, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon filed against a 32-year-old labor and delivery nurse who was still in a hospital bed rather than a cell.

 What Patrick walked into that night was something even trained investigators struggled to work through. The officers who responded would later take the stand and describe what was waiting for them inside that house. >> You wouldn’t mind just pointing out where you saw his body. >> Just in this area. >> Correcting the record, he’s pointed to the area of the yellow exercise >> exercise band.

>> And may we reflect that? >> And sir, that yellow exercise band, did you see that in that position >> [snorts] >> when you saw the the body of the child on the floor? >> Yes. >> Sir, did you later learn that child’s name was Dawson Clancy? >> I did. >> And can you describe um um his physical appearance when you saw him? >> Uh I think he was discolored, like a bluish purple.

>> Do you remember what his face and neck looked like? >> No. >> What happened next? >> Um I called for paramedics to come to the basement. Um I also called for a supervisor and uh Officer Josephine picked up the child and we ran him outside through the front door to the ambulance. >> Did you do anything after that, after giving Dawson to EMTs? >> Uh we ran back down into the basement to check to see if we could find other children.

>> And what made you think there were other children to find? >> Um when Patrick Clancy said, “Well, I I can’t wake them up instead of just a singular.” >> And so, when you went back inside, did you go back down the basement stairs? >> Correct. >> And this time, did you go to the left? >> Yes. >> But solving what happened that night was only the first step.

 What followed kept the case in court for 3 and 1/2 years. Lindsay was held without bail at Tewksbury Hospital receiving psychiatric and medical treatment while both sides built their cases. The trial date moved, then moved again. Evaluations took time because of what Patrick had been saying since the beginning.

 Days after his children died, he started a GoFundMe and wrote that the real Lindsay was generously loving and caring and that all he wished for her now was that she could somehow find peace. Keep that in mind. The man who lost all three of his children was telling the world he did not see a monster. What the jury would eventually hear from him under oath is far more complicated than forgiveness.

 Patrick moved to Manhattan and kept speaking publicly about postpartum mental illness treating what happened to his family as a warning other parents needed. Whether that helped her or hurt her was out of everyone’s hands the moment the trial began. By late July 2026, Lindsay Clancy was in front of a jury in Plymouth Superior Court with Judge William Sullivan presiding.

 And before a single witness testified, the prosecution had already won two rulings that shaped everything that followed. >> At this point, uh we’re going to play uh the exhibit, uh which is I believe the 911 call. Is that correct? >> Yes, your honor. >> All right. I want to remind everyone that there is a order entered by the court regarding this matter.

 It’s not to be um recorded. It’s not to be broadcast. Uh and it’s not to be reproduced in any way subject to any sanctions that would go on with the violation of court order. So, I just kind of remind everybody that order applies to the media and applies to the public. So, I just kind of wanted to remind everybody in regards to that.

>> Jurors would hear the actual 911 call Patrick made the night he found his children. Hearing the audio from that tragic day for the first time made Lindsay break into tears. The jury toured the Summer Street house themselves. They walked the same rooms Redington had described as full of a loving family, past the toys, past the drawings taped to the walls, and down toward the basement stairs.

Then the defense turned them back toward Lindsay. Attorney Kevin Redington argued that Lindsay Clancy was in the grip of a severe postpartum illness, and that the medical system meant to help her had instead driven her to a breaking point nobody recognized until it was too late. >> This is a woman that did not get the medication, >> [clears throat] >> did not get the medical treatment that she so deserved.

 This is a woman that was suffering from psychosis at the time that she went down to that basement. She had no motive. She loved her children. She intended to kill herself. She didn’t fake that. Threw herself out the window. Go to the hospital. You’re going to see that when she’s in the hospital, they said to her, “You want to What do you call it? A DNR? Do not resuscitate or whatever?” Absolutely did not want any DNR.

 Didn’t want to be resuscitated. Wanted to die. To this day wants to die. That’s what we’re dealing with on this prosecution. >> Prosecutors rejected that framing entirely. Every witness who takes the stand is being filtered through that same divide, and neither side has room left to compromise. >> After only 4 months in treatment, she made a choice, a a and intentional decision that she not want to try anymore.

And because no one could take care of her kids the way she wanted them to, she had to take them with her. Despite all the precision that she exhibited that day, you’ll hear the timing of it all, the swiftness of the killings, overcoming the interruption of Patrick’s phone call. What she did not anticipate was that she would not be able to complete the act by killing herself.

Ladies and gentlemen, people with mental illness commit crimes every day and are responsible for them. The fact that someone may suffer or have a mental illness, a mental disease or defect is not the end of the inquiry when it comes to guilt or innocence. It is whether a person can appreciate the wrongfulness or criminality of the conduct and conform their conduct to the law.

Do they know what they were doing? And can they control their actions? The evidence in this case will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant coldly and efficiently executed first Dawson, then Cora, and finally Callan. One by one, she strangled the life out of each one of them. She did so with no hesitation, with deliberate premeditation, and extreme atrocity and cruelty.

She is criminally responsible for the murders because the evidence will prove to you that she knew exactly what she was doing. She drew her husband out of the house, their father, so that she had the opportunity and the time to carry [clears throat] out these murders. She maintained the ability to control her conduct, conform her conduct, when she attempted to kill herself to escape the consequences.

>> The prosecution called Patrick Clancy first and his testimony became the emotional center of the trial’s opening days. He started out with the sight he saw the moment he got home. >> When you came into the house and you were taking off your boots and putting things down, um was there anything you noticed? >> Yeah, the house was really quiet.

>> Is that unusual? >> Yeah. >> And when you you realized it was really quiet, what did you do? >> Um I called out. >> And who did you call out to? >> Everyone. >> Did anyone answer? >> No. >> After you called out and no one answered, what did you do next? >> I don’t know the order, but I called down in the basement and no one answered.

And then um I called Lindsay to see if she was home cuz I looked out and I I couldn’t see her car, but it’s because it was dark and her car’s black. >> Okay, so when you you say you you called down to the basement, when you approach the basement door, do you remember if it was open or shut? >> It was shut. >> So, did you open it and yell down? >> Yeah.

>> And there was no response? >> Correct. The house was too quiet. He moved toward the bedroom door already knowing that something was very wrong. He pushed it open. What he saw next would shake him and the courtroom to its core. >> When you unlocked the door to your bedroom, um did you go in? >> Yeah. >> And what did you see when you um opened the door and went in? >> I just saw blood everywhere.

And the window is open. >> Showing you here a photo, is is this um the bed in your bedroom? >> Yeah. >> Did you walk into the room and over to the window? >> No. >> How far into the room did you get? >> Probably one or two steps and then I immediately turned around and went outside. >> And the the blood that you you saw, where was that located in the room? >> It was everywhere.

 It was um it looked like it was sprayed almost with like a hose, and there was a huge puddle in the middle of the room, and it was sprayed all over the pretty much every surface. >> He fell into a panic and started to look for his wife. He found her at the last place you’d ever want to see a loved one. >> After making those observations in the bedroom, what did you do next? >> I ran downstairs and went outside.

 I went out the back door. >> So, that would be the sliders, is that right? >> Yeah. >> And where did you go from there? >> I just looked around in the backyard um below that window, and I saw Lindsay. >> And where did you see her? >> Uh she was face up in the backyard. >> Did you um observe any injuries? >> Yes.

>> And what did you see? >> Uh she had deep cuts on her wrists. Um and she had a red line across her neck. I I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but she >> Did you say anything to Lindsay when when you found her in that state? >> Yeah, I said, “What happened?” >> And what was her response? >> She said, “I tried to kill myself.

” >> Did you um ask her anything else? >> I said, “Where are the kids?” >> And what was her response? >> She said, [clears throat] “They’re in the basement.” >> And at that time, she didn’t tell you um that they needed help or they were in danger or any or they were injured, correct? >> Correct. >> He went down to the basement.

 The scene he met there was every parent’s worst nightmare. >> Once um emergency personnel arrive, what do you do? >> I immediately got up and ran to the basement. >> Do you still have the phone on you? You’re still on the 911 call? >> Yeah, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I did. >> Is this a fair and accurate depiction of um the setup of your basement? >> Yeah.

>> Okay. If you can just describe the rooms for us, what the purpose of each room was. >> So, the room in the back left was my office. The room with the black rubber mat is the gym. And then there’s a living room to the right of that. And then the back right is just a an area of the living room, and then there’s a bathroom next to that.

>> So, when you um come down those stairs um that night, which direction did you go? >> I immediately went left. >> And when you went left, what did you see? >> I saw Cora. >> And how did she look? >> She had a band around her neck. >> And was that an exercise band? >> Yeah. >> Do you recall whether she was um what position she was in, whether face up or face down? >> She’s face down.

>> When you saw her in that condition, what did you do? >> I immediately ran over and tried to take the band off. >> Were you able to get the band off? >> Yeah. >> What did you see or do next? >> I saw Callan. >> And where was he? >> He was next to her. >> And um how did he appear? >> He had a band around his neck.

>> Sorry. >> He had a band around his neck. >> And did you remove that as well? >> Yeah. >> And do you recall um what position he was in? >> Same as Cora. >> But Patrick’s testimony did not end with what he found that afternoon. About a week after the killings, Lindsay called him from her hospital bed. What was said during that call has not been fully detailed, but the fact that the call happened became another piece of the story the jury had to consider.

>> A few days after this this happened, did you receive a phone call um from the defendant while she was at Brigham and Women’s Hospital? >> I I it was um like a week or so after, yeah. >> And um what did the defendant say at that time about what had happened with the children? >> Uh she didn’t talk about our kids.

 She talked about what she went through. >> And what did she say about what she went through? >> She said she heard a man’s voice telling her that if she didn’t do it now, she would lose her chance or something like that. >> And did she also tell you that she had had a moment of psychosis? >> I don’t recall. >> Did she mention the children at all during that call? >> I don’t think so.

I mean, not directly. >> Had she ever mentioned psychosis to you before? >> No, I didn’t know what psychosis was until after this happened. >> Patrick also testified that Lindsay had once disclosed intrusive thoughts about harming their kids. Not a confession to acting on them, a disclosure made before that January night that thoughts like that existed in her mind at all.

>> There was an occasion where she told you in the presence of her mother that she was having horrible thoughts, right? >> Right. >> And you told us about that yesterday. Um and that took It was quite an emotional thing for her to do that, right? >> Right. >> There was something in the way Patrick delivered it that people in the gallery noticed. He did not perform anger.

 He did not look away from her. He answered in a flat, exhausted voice, the voice of a man who had already told this story to police, to a grand jury, to a magazine reporter, and was now telling it one last time to the people who would decide what happens to the mother of his children.

 As testimony continued, jurors heard from nearly a dozen first responders and medics who described their attempts to revive the three children and the injuries they found on Lindsay when they treated her at the scene. >> When the emergency um personnel, the EMTs or paramedics arrived at Beth Israel, there were three patients, correct? >> Correct.

>> And you were assigned to treat one patient? >> Correct. >> Do you recall which patient that was? >> Cora. >> Prior to EMS arriving, did you learn more about Cora’s presentation and and what was occurring? >> Yeah, so we we had heard that you know all three were in cardiac arrest and Cora in particular they were still working on doing CPR and and doing what we call pediatric advanced advanced life support so medications to try and restart the heart.

>> And at some point in time did you learn that a patient named Callan Clancy was going to be transported to your hospital? >> I did. >> And do you recall where he was being brought from? >> From Beth Israel Plymouth, I believe. >> And was he being med flighted to your facility? >> Correct. >> And were you provided with some information about the patient in order to prepare for his arrival? >> I was.

>> And what did you learn? >> We have a communication center where facilities that are transferring patients to us call to let us know that the patient is coming and so that com center had been notified about this patient who then got in touch with me as the attending who would be caring for the patient to let me know what had happened there and the condition of the patient when he was arriving.

>> And what did you learn about the condition of the patient Callan Clancy as he was being flown to your hospital? >> What I was told was that it was believed that the patient had been strangled and when he arrived at Plymouth he was in cardiac arrest, that they had intubated him and initiated CPR and they had gotten return of spontaneous circulation and that they were then going to transfer him to us for further evaluation and care.

>> And at some point in time did Callan arrive at your hospital? >> That is correct. >> Now when this [clears throat] individual came in, when Lindsay Clancy came into the emergency department? Were you aware from EMS that she had already come in with some sort of neurological deficits? >> I think that from my best recollection, we knew that she was unresponsive, found down outside of her home.

>> Were you advised that it appeared she might have a spinal injury? >> Yes. >> And that she was not may have been moving her arms and her head, but not her legs. >> Correct. >> Then the physical evidence was rolled out. >> If we could talk specifically about the work that you did in this case, or I’d like you to talk about your work done on the yellow exercise band and the black exercise band.

 Now um you didn’t actually handle those items, correct? >> I did a portion of the laboratory work for those samples, but I did not handle the actual bands themselves. I handled swabs of those bands. >> So at some point in time in the lab, someone took swabs from those bands and then that was forwarded to the DNA unit, the swabs? >> Yes.

>> When doing your comparison work, did you also use some DNA profiles that had been generated in the lab for Dawson Clancy, Cora Clancy, Callan Clancy, Patrick Clancy and Lindsay Clancy? >> Yes, I utilized known standards that were developed from those individuals. >> And known standards are those basically the the the DNA profiles for each of those individuals? >> Yes, known standards are samples collected directly from a known individual for comparison purposes.

>> Jurors were also shown a page from a notebook Lindsay kept, one where she tracked her medications and her state of mind in the months leading up to the killings. In it, she had written about horrible insomnia, anxiety and depression she could not explain. >> In January, as time went by, do you recall that she would actually continue to take notes of her medications that she was taking, right? >> That sounds like something Lindsay would do.

>> Kept the diary or a little log, right? >> Yep. >> I’m approaching you, sir, with this and asking if you can identify this. >> Yes. >> And when you say yes and I put it on the little screen, what is it? >> It’s um the dosage of medication that she took and how she’s feeling. >> So, this is kind of like a little medical diary that she was keeping? >> Yeah.

>> Did she have workbooks that you were aware of? Or work diagrams and things like that? >> Uh she had books of different sorts. >> Um So, you you can’t identify this as being in the kitchen, right? >> I don’t recall seeing that book, no. Sure. >> By the way, um I’m going to approach you, sir, with this document and ask if you can identify it.

>> Um it says postpartum depression and anxiety patient information sheet. >> As testimony reached its sixth day, more medical professionals took the stand. Expert witnesses brought in to explain to 12 ordinary people what a severe postpartum illness actually looks like from the inside and whether it can take away a person’s ability to know right from wrong. Forensic psychiatrist Dr.

Jillian Biswas testified about Lindsay’s mental state as she was being prepped for spinal surgery. >> Your conversation with Ms. Clancy, did you notice any internal or external signs of psychosis? >> At the time, I documented that I did not note those. >> And um did you also um note that, you know, she was uh her thinking was linear, goal-oriented, thoughtful, and she didn’t appear to be responding to internal stimuli? >> Yes, that is typical language in psychiatric mental statuses and I did document that.

>> What is internal stimuli? >> Often times it’s very difficult for our patients to be able to articulate what they’re hearing. They may have perceptual disturbances like hallucinations or auditory hallucinations and um uh maybe hearing voices. When it’s really active, we often see those individuals interacting with those voices.

 I didn’t see that in that particular moment. >> So for example, you could see someone engaging in a a converse looks like they’re engaging in a conversation with someone or looks like they’re looking over at something thinking something or someone is there when they’re not. Is that >> That’s what uh responding to internal stimuli is. >> And you didn’t see any of that present with Ms.

 Clancy? >> Correct. >> Okay. Would it be fair that um some of the obvious signs of psychosis would be someone whose thoughts are disorganized, that their thinking isn’t linear, um that they’re they’re not making sense, things like word salad where where they’re just throwing in words making sentences that don’t make sense? >> So you described symptoms that we can see in people with serious mental illness who have a psychotic disorder with active symptoms.

>> And you didn’t see any of that with Ms. Clancy, is that correct? >> Um not in that snapshot moment of time. >> Psychiatrist Dr. Sejal Shah, who also examined Lindsay during her hospitalization, described a noticeably different mental state after the surgery. >> She had gone through some um oxygen desaturations overnight, so was not breathing as well.

 Her heart rate was up. All of which then led to her being what we call delirious. Um she was quite she was confused overnight um to the point where she asked her nurse, “Am I delirious?” Um and she was also experiencing some visual hallucinations. Um so that was one of the reasons why I was called in to make sure that she was she was able to make that decision to change her health care proxy.

 Um and then in addition um the team had also voiced, you know, concerns that she had come in after a reported suicide attempt and so making sure that she was able to make that decision of sound mind. And so we actually waited until the next day when she could be reassessed. At that point her delirium had cleared and she was continuing to make that consistent choice to change her health care proxy to her parents.

>> And and in fact it’s you noted in the the the medical records that the hallucinations were part of an issue with oxygen. >> It could be. That could be one of the reasons. Delirium is usually due to a variety of different medical reasons and oxygen desaturation could be one of them.

 She had also just recently had anesthesia related to surgery that she had on her spine. So that could be another reason and then her heart rate was also actually quite elevated. So that could be another reason. >> Is it common for patients who are just coming off of anesthesia from surgery who have an issue with oxygen and other medical issues that you described to have visual visual hallucinations? >> They can.

>> That decision now rests with the jurors in Plymouth County. Find her criminally responsible and she faces life in prison for the deaths of Cora, Dawson and Callan. Find that she was not and she still does not walk out. She goes into psychiatric commitment likely for the rest of her life reviewed periodically to see whether she could ever safely live in the community again.

 Every day of testimony builds toward the same moment when three and a half years of evaluations, evidence and [music] delay finally gets handed to strangers who never met Cora, Dawson or Callan and who now decide what their deaths mean under the law. As of this recording, there is no verdict.

 Testimony is still going in Plymouth Superior Court. Lindsay Clancy sits in that courtroom paralyzed from the sternum down under guard taking notes in a spiral notebook while the case that decides the rest of her life plays out [music] in front of her. The exercise bands are still logged as evidence. The notebook page is still in front of the jury, and the question this entire trial was built to answer, whether a mind can fail so completely that the law stops holding the person responsible for what their hands did, is still unanswered.