Key facts
- Jury selection has begun for Lindsay Clancy's trial in Massachusetts.
- Clancy is accused of strangling her three children, Cora (5), Dawson (3), and Callan (8 months), on January 24, 2023.
- She has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
- Clancy's defense intends to argue insanity, citing postpartum psychosis.
- Prosecutors maintain the killings were intentional and premeditated.
- Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, reportedly heard voices urging her to harm her children and herself on the day of the killings.
Jury selection commenced Monday in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three young children. Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of her children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was 8 months old, on January 24, 2023. Following the killings, Clancy reportedly threw herself out of a window and sustained paralysis.
The defense plans to argue that Clancy was not responsible for her actions due to postpartum psychosis, a rare condition that can cause delusions and hallucinations after childbirth. Her lawyers and husband, Patrick Clancy, assert she was not in control of her actions. The defense also plans to raise an insanity defense.
Prosecutors, however, contend that the killings were intentional and premeditated, not the result of a loss of control. On the day of the incident, Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, reportedly asked her husband to leave the house before using exercise bands to strangle their children.
Clancy's lawsuit, filed earlier this year along with her husband, accused her medical providers of failing to properly diagnose and treat a severe postpartum psychiatric condition. The suit detailed her struggles with depression, sleep disturbances, and auditory hallucinations urging her to harm her children and herself. She had sought medical treatment and was hospitalized for psychiatric care weeks before the killings.
Patrick Clancy has stated in interviews that he forgives his wife and has expressed a desire for her to find peace, describing her as a loving and caring individual before the events.