Five weeks, 80 witnesses and one agonizing question as Lindsay Clancy trial nears verdict
Closing arguments are set for Thursday in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, bringing jurors closer to deciding a case centered on the deaths of her three young children and difficult questions surrounding her mental health at the time.
Proceedings are expected to resume around 9 a.m. at Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts. Prosecutors and defense attorneys will each have an hour to make their final arguments before the judge instructs the jury and deliberations begin.
Clancy, 36, did not testify during the five-week trial. Prosecutors called more than 70 witnesses, including her then-husband, while the defense presented 10 witnesses, including friends and relatives.
Much of the testimony came from psychologists and psychiatrists offering differing conclusions about Clancy’s mental state when her children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — died at the family’s home in Duxbury in January 2023.
Clancy has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. Her attorneys acknowledge that she killed the children but argue that she was experiencing postpartum psychosis and was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions.
Postpartum psychosis is a rare but serious psychiatric condition that can occur after childbirth.
Prosecutors contend that Clancy planned the killings and understood that what she was doing was wrong.
If convicted of murder, Clancy faces a mandatory life sentence. If jurors find her not guilty because she lacked criminal responsibility, she would not receive a prison sentence but could be committed to a psychiatric facility.
The prosecution’s final rebuttal witness testified Wednesday, ending the evidentiary phase of the closely watched trial.
Dr. Gregory Saathoff, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Virginia and senior psychiatrist with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, testified that he did not believe Clancy’s account that she heard a voice directing her to kill the children.
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague questioned Saathoff about whether the voice Clancy described had provided specific instructions about where or how to kill the children, what to use or in what order. Saathoff said it had not.
He testified that Clancy’s ability to carry out a sequence of actions without such instructions indicated, in his assessment, that she retained control over what she was doing.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington focused his questioning on the steps Clancy had taken to seek help in the months before the children’s deaths.
He pointed to her internet searches for information about postpartum depression, appointments with maternal and mental health professionals, disclosures to her mother and then-husband about her mental state, and calls seeking crisis support.
