Content Warning: This article includes content related to homicide, suicide, and violence, including details that some readers may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is going through an emotional crisis or experiencing suicidal thoughts, you can contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, which is available 24 hours a day.
The case examined in this blog is not about determining whether Lindsay Clancy killed her children, Cora, Dawson, and baby Callan. It is about how postpartum depression can push some mothers into a true mental health crisis. The question is whether, in this case, justice means a lifetime prison sentence or confinement in a psychiatric hospital.
Postpartum Depression
Everyone has heard of, or at least come across, postpartum depression. However, for those who will never have a baby, a useful way to understand the feeling is to imagine having a deep, painful cut, being stitched up (vaginal births also often require stitches because they cause tears), and bleeding profusely (including clots as large as a golf ball), while a small human cries and screams in your face and vigorously suckles your mammary glands every two hours (if you are a man, imagine the equivalent glands) leaving them, in many cases, crusted, bleeding and sore.
And all of this, without even counting the hormonal changes. Oh, and if you thought the painful contractions ended after birth, nope — those continue postpartum because the uterus keeps contracting. Still, you don’t have time to deal with any of it, because two hours have already passed and it’s time to feed the baby again. This is all within the bounds of a “normal” postpartum period.
Understandably, anyone deprived of sleep and overwhelmed by pain and stress is more prone to depression. The case of Lindsay Clancy, however, lies at the other extreme. She now faces trial for the horrific killing of her three children in their home, strangled with exercise bands in January 2023.
The Case
On the night of January 24, 2023, in Duxbury, Massachusetts, Lindsay Clancy — then a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital — strangled her three children: Cora, age 5; Dawson, age 3; and Callan, 7 months old. She used exercise bands while her husband, Patrick, had left the house for about 25 minutes to run errands. She then attempted to take her own life by cutting her wrists and jumping from a second–story window. She survived, but was left paraplegic.
In the months leading up to the killings, Clancy had been diagnosed and treated by several mental health providers. Between October 2022 and January 2023, she was prescribed 13 different psychiatric medications — antidepressants such as Zoloft, antipsychotics such as Seroquel, benzodiazepines such as Valium and Klonopin, and the mood stabilizer Lamictal, among others. According to her attorneys, none of her providers recognized in time that she was not just dealing with postpartum depression, but a possible bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis.
Today, more than three years later, Clancy is on trial in Plymouth Superior Court on three counts of first-degree murder and strangulation. She has pleaded not guilty.
The Defense: Evidence Fights and the Insanity Argument
The defense is not contesting the facts or Clancy’s role in the killings. The other key distinction is that the defense is not claiming Clancy had postpartum depression, but postpartum psychosis.
Postpartum psychosis is a different and much rarer clinical condition, which can include hallucinations, extreme paranoia, severe confusion, or a loss of contact with reality.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington maintains that Clancy entered a psychotic state after being prescribed more than a dozen medications that were supposed to improve her mental health. He has also said that Lindsay heard voices telling her, “This is your last chance. Kill the kids so you can kill yourself.”
His legal strategy is what is commonly known as the “insanity defense.” If the jury accepts this defense, Clancy would not be found guilty in the traditional criminal sense; instead, she would remain in state custody in a secure psychiatric facility and be subject to periodic reviews to determine whether she could ever reenter the community. During opening statements, the defense emphasized the way Lindsay had devoted her life to serving the community as a nurse.
The Prosecution’s Theory and Medication Disputes
Prosecutors are taking a different tack. In early testimony from Patrick Clancy, called as the first witness, the Commonwealth began trying to dismantle the defense narrative of overmedication, highlighting that Lindsay had only taken seven doses of Zoloft in total, a medication the defense portrays as inappropriate for her diagnoses. The same line of questioning was applied to other drugs cited by the defense.
Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham has argued that Clancy “acted intentionally, rationally and quickly” and that she bears full responsibility for her children’s deaths.
Key Evidentiary Disputes
One major point of conflict in the case is the admissibility of evidence. Prosecutors obtained notes and recordings of Patrick Clancy’s interview with The New Yorker over objections based on journalistic privilege. The judge has ordered that the 911 recording and autopsy photographs may be used at trial but may not be released publicly, at Patrick’s request. The children’s clothing and the exercise bands were admitted without significant dispute.
The defense is currently fighting to exclude Lindsay’s search history about how long Patrick would be gone and “ways to kill,” arguing that these were, in fact, searches about suicide; the court has not yet ruled on that issue. The defense is also seeking to limit the number of first responders who will testify. In addition, the judge has ordered that Lindsay Clancy be evaluated psychiatrically by experts chosen by the prosecution, not solely by her own defense team.
Patrick Clancy’s Role and Prior Statements
Patrick is naturally the key witness to what happened, though it remains to be seen whether his testimony ultimately favors the prosecution or the defense, given his previously expressed public compassion for his now–ex-wife. In an earlier statement, he said, “I want to ask all of you to find deep within yourselves the ability to forgive Lindsay, as I have. The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring to everyone — to me, to our kids, to family, friends and her patients. Every fiber of her soul is loving. All I want for her now is that somehow she can find peace.”
This week, Patrick testified in Plymouth Superior Court after being called by the prosecution. He described in detail the events of January 24, 2023, noting that, paradoxically, that day had seemed to be one of Lindsay’s better days before he left to run errands. On the stand, he reconstructed the moment he returned home, discovered the blood and injuries, found Lindsay in the yard after her fall, and ultimately located his three children in the basement, culminating in the jury hearing his wrenching 911 call.
Mental Health History and Cross-Examination
During direct examination, Patrick described Lindsay’s severe mental deterioration from late 2022 onward, marked by medication changes, insomnia, weight loss and intense anxiety tied to the stress of returning to her nursing job after maternity leave. He also revealed that in December 2022, she confessed to having intrusive thoughts about harming the children. He said the episode was deeply confusing to him because she would then immediately go back to doing normal tasks like making lunch or playing with the kids.
On cross-examination, Patrick acknowledged that, at least in theory, Lindsay would have had opportunities to harm the children in November when he traveled out of town, but emphasized that he never saw her act violently toward them.
In essence, the prosecution is trying to prove that the crime was premeditated — pointing, among other things, to the fact that Lindsay sent Patrick to the pharmacy at the time of the killings — while the defense argues that Lindsay suffered from severe postpartum psychosis, loved her children deeply and was failed by a medical system that kept changing her medications.
Prison Versus Psychiatric Commitment
If the jury finds Clancy guilty, she would face life imprisonment in a state prison under ordinary sentencing rules, with limited or no opportunity for parole depending on the specific conviction. If she is convicted of first-degree murder as the prosecution seeks, she would not be eligible for parole under Massachusetts law.
If, on the other hand, the jury accepts the insanity defense — meaning it finds that she was not “criminally responsible” because of mental illness at the time of the offense — she would not simply be released. The court could order her committed to a state psychiatric hospital. Unlike a prison term, there is no fixed sentence end date. Her commitment would be reviewed periodically, and the prosecution would have to prove that she still meets the legal criteria to remain hospitalized. If at some point the court determines that she no longer poses a serious risk, she could be moved to a stepped–down or supervised release plan.
Broader Stakes for Mothers and the Health System
The trial could last up to two months and has drawn nationwide attention, not only because of the nature of the crime, but because it also addresses maternal health care. Childbirth and the postpartum period are times of absolute vulnerability, during which mistreatment, neglect, and medical malpractice can have significant consequences. That is why it is crucial to consult an attorney if you have been the victim of medical malpractice and to seek immediate help if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts (the 988 lifeline is available 24 hours a day).
