Officers recount finding Lindsay Clancy’s children in basement
The two police officers initially focused on Lindsay Clancy, who was drifting in and out of consciousness in the snow after jumping from a second-floor window of her Massachusetts home. Minutes later, they rushed into the basement after her then-husband screamed that their three children were dead.
“I can’t wake them up — I can’t get them up!” he told officers in a frantic call. Along with firefighters and paramedics, the officers gave jurors a firsthand account Thursday of the aftermath.
The murder trial has centered on Clancy’s mental state at the time of the deaths. Her attorneys do not dispute that she strangled her children using exercise bands but argue she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness associated with childbirth, severe sleep deprivation and hormonal changes.
Prosecutors allege Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, acted deliberately and should be held criminally responsible for the January 2023 deaths.
The testimony came after jurors spent two days hearing from Patrick Clancy and listening to his emotional 911 call. He remained on the phone as he discovered the bodies of 3-year-old Dawson, 5-year-old Cora and 8-month-old Callan, after returning home from an errand his wife had asked him to run.
Patrick Clancy has said in interviews that he forgives his ex-wife, whom he viewed as ill rather than evil. The trial marks the first time he has seen Lindsay Clancy since the killings.
She remains paralyzed from the waist down after using multiple methods to try to end her life that night. She says a voice told her, “This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself,” according to her lawyer.
Officers Stephen Hall and Brian Josephine testified Thursday that they were each dispatched separately to the house in Duxbury, a coastal town south of Boston. Hall said they arrived to find Patrick Clancy yelling for help from behind the home.
Patrick Clancy testified earlier this week that his injured wife told him the kids were in the basement, but she didn’t say they were dead.
When the officers followed the sound of his screams downstairs, only 8-month-old Callan had a faint pulse, Josephine testified.
“Based on my training experience from previous incidents, I knew it wasn’t going to be good,” Josephine said. They began rendering aid with help from firefighters.
PJ Hussey, a fire department supervisor, arrived in time to glimpse through a basement window as Patrick Clancy unwrapped an exercise band from his child’s neck.
“It turned very chaotic very quickly” as more ambulances rushed to the house, Hussey testified. Duxbury firefighter and paramedic Jennifer Stratton said the infant never regained a pulse.
If convicted of murder, Lindsay Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.
