Nurse who worked in hospital with Lindsay Clancy tells Oprah she would cry when women gave birth on her shift
A labor and delivery nurse who worked alongside Lindsay Clancy told Oprah how the admitted child killer would cry when women gave birth on her shift.
Meg Hamp worked with Clancy at Massachusetts General Hospital for seven years and testified on behalf of the defense during Clancy’s trial.
Hamp, describing Clancy as ‘light on our unit,’ said she ‘loved being a nurse’ and would become ’emotional’ in the delivery room.
‘I often remember looking up after a baby was born, and Lindsay was my second nurse in the delivery, and I remember looking over at the mother and Lindsay with tears in her eyes because birth was so emotional for her,’ she told Oprah during an open-forum style podcast discussion about postpartum psychosis.
‘She felt that for so many other women, not just her friends or her family.’
Clancy, 36, admitted to strangling her three children in January 2023, but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis and overmedication.
Jurors deliberated murder charges against Clancy for seven days, but the case ultimately ended in a mistrial on Friday after a lone juror refused to side with the others.
Meg Hamp, who worked alongside Lindsay Clancy for seven years, told The Oprah Podcast that she is ‘devastated’ that Clancy’s triple murder case ended in a mistrial
Lindsay Clancy, 36, faces a potential retrial after a jury of nine women and three men were unable to agree on whether she was guilty of the murders or manslaughter
‘She brought warmth and compassion to the room. She brought emotion to the rooms that we were in. I loved working with her,’ Hamp added.
‘I think our team loved working with her.’
Hamp said Clancy never demonstrated signs of bipolar disorder and that the idea that she would harm her own children had been unfathomable.
‘Oh, first I didn’t believe it,’ Hamp said of the moment she heard from fellow colleagues that Clancy killed her children Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan.
‘She loved her children. She lived for her children. She did everything for them. She wanted all the parenting tips. It wasn’t possible in my mind that this was a person that could murder her three children.’
The labor and delivery nurse added that she is ‘devastated’ that the case ended in a mistrial.
‘I was devastated for her that she potentially has to go through this again,’ she said.
Oprah asked Hamp about her opinion on the narrative that Clancy was ‘just evil,’ which is believed by many people who have followed the case.
After letting out a brief sigh, Hamp said: ‘I think mental health can affect anyone.
Oprah travelled to Massachusetts to host a forum-style discussion about the Clancy trial and the impacts of postpartum psychosis
Oprah asked Hamp about her opinion on the narrative that Clancy was ‘just evil,’ which is believed by many people who have followed the case. After letting out a brief sigh, Hamp said: ‘I think mental health can affect anyone’
‘It can affect the person that goes to their dream college, meets the man of their dreams, decides to have a family, buy the house, buy the other house as their family grows.
‘And it doesn’t matter where you are in life or how many boxes on your life’s bucket list you’re checking off as you go.
‘It can impact anyone regardless of where you are in your life and this has been very eye opening that someone like Lindsay, who was checking off those boxes of her life’s bucket list, that this could happen to her.’
Clancy has never disputed that she killed the children.
Her attorney said she had lost control of her mind due to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.
Prosecutors said Clancy knew what she was doing and acted deliberately when she strangled her children to death with exercise bands.
They said she contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him to pick up medicine for one of their children and dinner for the family.
Over 21 days of testimony, jurors heard how Clancy’s mental health collapsed after the birth of her youngest child.
Clancy was charged with murder after strangling her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan in 2023. She has never disputed that she killed them
Patrick and Lindsay Clancy with their three children. Clancy’s trial heard how she was a dedicated mother and nurse
They heard from Clancy’s family members, who described her decline, and medical providers who treated her in the months ahead of the killings.
They even heard from Hamp, who testified about Clancy’s compassion and dedication as both a nurse and mother.
‘Lindsay loved being a nurse,’ Hamp told the court. ‘She was compassionate. She was kind. She was a patient advocate. She was the kind of nurse you wanted taking care of you, or a loved one.’
She told jurors how one night, when Cora was six months old, Clancy had checked the baby monitor while on night shift and quickly grew concerned for her infant daughter’s wellbeing.
‘Lindsay often checked in on her kids when they were sleeping at night. She shared that with a lot of us. There was one particular night that Cora was crying,’ Hamp said.
Clancy tried calling her husband, Patrick, but he did not answer, so she ‘got really worried’ and ‘called the police to do a wellness check on her family,’ the court heard.
A judge declared a mistrial in Clancy’s case after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict on the question of whether Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three young children.
Prosecutors now face a number of options, including retrying Clancy on reduced charges or seeking a verdict decided by a judge, rather than by jurors.
