Lindsay Clancy Trial: Jury Begins Deliberations in Triple Murder Case
Jurors began deliberating Friday in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury mother charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the January 2023 strangling deaths of her children.
Lindsay Clancy attends a pretrial conference with her attorney, Kevin Reddington, on June 18 in Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts.Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger/USAToday Network
The jury began deliberating Friday in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy after closing arguments, as the Duxbury mother faces three counts of first-degree murder in the January 2023 strangulation deaths of her children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. Clancy has pleaded not guilty. Her lawyers argue she was in the grip of acute postpartum psychosis, bipolar disorder and severe overmedication and therefore could not appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions.
Clancy now uses a wheelchair after suffering a spinal burst/Jefferson fracture, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down following jumping from a second-story window in a suicide attempt following the alleged murders. If found guilty she faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors say the acts were planned and deliberate, noting she intentionally sent her husband out on errands before the killings. Their expert witnesses testified that Clancy possessed "moral awareness" and is criminally liable.
The home of Lindsay Clancy in Duxbury, Massachusetts.Getty
Psychiatrist for the prosecution Dr. Avram Mack testified that Lindsay Clancy retained the ability to understand right from wrong and control her actions when she killed her children. He diagnosed her with major depressive disorder but found no evidence of psychosis or mania.
The last witness in the defense's case, forensic psychiatrist Phillip Resnick said Clancy suffered from severe depression and bipolar 2 disorder, with postpartum onset, and that a command hallucination drove her actions. Resnick stated that in his opinion, Clancy was unable to tell the difference between right and wrong and lacked control at that time.
The case has drawn worldwide attention after hundreds of demonstrators, mostly woman, gathered outside the Plymouth courthouse wearing pink to show there support and voice sympathy with Clancy's effort to get postpartum mental health treatment.
Demonstrators wear pink outside of Plymouth Superior Court on Thursday morning in support of Lindsay ClancyDeborah Becker/WBUR
The jury now faces a grueling decision, whether Lindsay Clancy was mentally sound and planned the murders of her three children, or whether, as the defense has argued, her postpartum psychosis was so severe that she was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions.
