Lindsay Clancy was “begging for help” in the months leading up to killing her three children and attempting to end her own life, Clancy's former mother-in-law testified for the defense Tuesday in the fourth week of her murder trial. EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. 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.
Lindsay Clancy also attempted to take her own life that night, and was left paralyzed. Lindsay and Patrick Clancy are now divorced. Susan Clancy, who, like Lindsay, worked as a labor and delivery nurse, said in Plymouth Superior Court that she and her former daughter-in-law were close and described Lindsay as a “wonderful mother” who was “very nurturing, very loving.” Her testimony echoed emotional accounts the day before from Lindsay Clancy’s mother and sister, who recounted for jurors how they saw her become increasingly anxious, paranoid and suicidal starting in the fall of 2022.
Susan Clancy said that Lindsay was open with her about struggling and asked for her mother-in-law's support. The jury was shown texts between Lindsay and Susan Clancy in which Lindsay spoke about fears that she had developed a dependence on benzodiazepines, but couldn't sleep without taking them. The trial centers not on whether Lindsay Clancy killed her children, which her lawyers do not dispute, but on her state of mind at the time.
The defense argues she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, while prosecutors say she planned the killings and understood what she was doing. Lindsay Clancy's mother, Paula Musgrove, who lived in Connecticut, testified Monday that she often stayed with her daughter in Massachusetts from October into December 2022. She said Lindsay Clancy was scared of sleeping alone, became increasingly paranoid and believed the medications she was taking “were destroying her mind.” Lindsay Clancy’s sister described a similar decline.
Allison Ozga testified that at the end of December, Lindsay told her she had experienced suicidal thoughts every day for a month. Musgrove also recalled a more alarming disclosure in December, when she was standing in the kitchen with Lindsay Clancy and her then-husband, Patrick Clancy. Musgrove said her daughter appeared nervous and told them she needed to tell them something.
Prosecutors argue that Lindsay Clancy planned the Jan. 24, 2023, killings and contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him to get takeout and to the pharmacy. Lindsay Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington does not dispute that she killed the children. But he says she shouldn't be held criminally responsible because she had postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.
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