Duxbury mother Lindsay Clancy told husband she killed children after she ‘heard a man’s voice,’ attorney says
Lindsay Clancy had an unusual request for her husband, Patrick Clancy, late last month — pick up a few things at CVS and grab takeout for their family from a nearby restaurant, according to state lawyers.
It was in the time he was gone, prosecutors allege, that Lindsay Clancy strangled to death with exercise bands her three young children, 5-year-old Cora Clancy, 3-year-old Dawson Clancy, and infant Callan Clancy, before jumping out of their house through a second-story window in an attempted suicide.
Lindsay Clancy, prosecutors said, took the time to map out on Apple Maps the route Patrick Clancy would take from their Duxbury home to the ThreeV Restaurant in Plymouth.
“She planned these murders, gave herself the time and privacy needed to commit the murders, and then she strangled each child in the place where they should have felt the safest, at home with their mom,” said Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague at a court proceeding Tuesday. “She did so with deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty.”
Lindsay Clancy, a New England-raised 32-year-old, faces charges of strangulation, homicide, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in connection to the deaths of the three children. She was arraigned in a Plymouth County District Courtroom Tuesday, where not guilty pleas were entered on her behalf.
The few words Clancy could be heard saying at the arraignment were in response to the judge asking her if she could hear OK: “Yes, your honor.”
Judge John Canavan ruled she can remain at her Boston-area hospital, from where she appeared in court virtually as she lay in a bed with a brace around her neck and wearing a facemask. Canavan rejected a request from Sprague that Lindsay Clancy transfer to state-run Shattuck Hospital and be ordered held without bail.
Lawyers for Lindsay Clancy said she is paralyzed from the waist down, requires constant medical care, and is under supervision out of fear of suicide. Her attorney, Kevin Reddington, said she was in “dire medical condition.”
During court proceedings, Reddington pushed back on claims from prosecutors that the alleged murders of the three children were planned, arguing in court that Lindsay Clancy was heavily medicated and suffering from postpartum depression following the birth of her youngest child last year.
“The woman before you, who was a beautiful person, … was thoroughly destroyed by these medications,” Reddington said after listing off a number of medications he said Lindsay Clancy was taking, including a common form of antidepressant, benzodiazepine, and Seroquel, among others.
- Read more: Lindsay Clancy ordered to remain at hospital as new details emerge of alleged Duxbury killings
Sprague said Clancy spoke on the phone with her husband Monday, Feb. 6, a day before her arraignment. He said she told Patrick Clancy she killed the children “because she heard a voice and had, quote, a moment of psychosis, end quote.”
During that call, Sprague said, Patrick Clancy asked Lindsay Clancy “what voices she heard.”
“She said she heard a man’s voice telling her to kill the kids and kill herself because it was her last chance,” Sprague said. “Patrick Clancy told the police the defendant had never heard voices before. He also told the police the defendant had never used the word psychosis to him before. The first time she used that word psychosis was when she was with the doctor hired by defense counsel and using his cell phone.”
Reddington said after the birth of Callan Clancy, Lindsay Clancy “ended up becoming depressed and suffered from significant anxiety.”
“She was having bad thoughts, she was having worsening depression,” he said. “Her husband suffered through that phase. Her parents were well aware of the fact that she was suffering from this depression, and depressive phase. She wasn’t sleeping.”
He said Lindsay Clancy would eventually voluntarily check herself into McLean Hospital, a mental health treatment center, for about five days.
Her mood after staying at the hospital was “terrible,” according to Reddington, who said Lindsay Clancy was having suicidal thoughts at the time.
“You think this is something that she’s planning, to kill these three kids by going and getting a menu, going onto Google Maps or whatever it is, and finding out the distance, when she tells her husband she’s having suicidal thoughts probably a month prior, thoughts of her hurting children?” Reddington said.
Prosecutors said as Patrick Clancy returned from the CVS run and picking up takeout on Jan. 24, he spoke to Lindsay Clancy just after 5:30 p.m. for 14 seconds, a call during which she allegedly had no issues communicating. Sprague said it was a “completely normal call.”
But when Patrick Clancy arrived home, he did not see nor hear Lindsay Clancy or the children, Sprague said, adding Patrick Clancy tried to call his wife just after 6 p.m. in an attempt to locate them.
She did not answer, prosecutors said.
“He went to their bedroom on the second floor, and the door was locked. He was able to open it, and when he looked inside, he saw blood on the floor in front of a full-length mirror and the window open,” Sprague said. “He immediately runs downstairs and into the backyard, where he finds the defendant laying on the ground. She appeared to have cuts on her wrist and neck.”
As she was lying on the ground, prosecutors said, a conscious Lindsay Clancy allegedly told Patrick Clancy that she “tried to kill myself and jumped out the window.” When Patrick Clancy asked where the children were, Sprague said Lindsay Clancy responded with, “in the basement.”
Patrick Clancy called 911, according to Sprague, who said he could be heard on the call entering the basement.
“He can then be heard screaming in agony, in shock as he found his children. His scream seemed to get louder and more agonized as the time passes,” Sprague said, adding the three kids were on the floor of the basement with the exercise bands still tied around their necks. “... He removed the bands and begged them to breathe. He continued to scream uncontrollably and scream for officers to come to the basement.”
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