The psychologist who evaluated Lindsay Clancy described in court the moment she told her husband she had heard a “male voice” in her mind directing her to kill their children and then take her own life.
Dr. Paul Zeizel, a veteran forensic psychologist who has worked alongside defense attorney Kevin Reddington, took the witness stand on Tuesday.
Zeizel has already become a key figure in the high-profile Massachusetts murder trial, after earlier testimony revealed that a police officer acknowledged the state’s apparent theory that a doctor may have guided Clancy into saying she acted because she was hearing voices.
Clancy, 36, is accused in the 2023 deaths of her three young children — five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan — inside the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
Prosecutors say she strangled the children using exercise bands before allegedly trying to die by suicide. She survived, but the attempt left her paralyzed from the waist down and permanently reliant on a wheelchair.
Clancy has acknowledged killing her children, but she has pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity. Her defense argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and is seeking her commitment to a state mental health facility instead of a prison sentence.
On the stand, Dr. Zeizel said he visited Clancy in the hospital shortly after the killings. During that visit, he testified, she asked to use his phone so she could call her husband, Patrick.
It was during that call, Zeizel told the court, that Clancy said she had heard a man’s voice instructing her to kill the children and then herself.
Dr Paul Zeizel recalled the moment Lindsay Clancy told her husband about the ‘male voice’ in her head that ordered her to kill her children then herself
Clancy, 36, is on trial for killing her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, at her home in Duxbury, Massachusetts , in 2023
Dr Zeizel told the jury that he did not meet with Clancy until 11 days after the killings.
When they did meet for the first time, Clancy was in her room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where she was handcuffed to the bed.
Dr Zeizel gave her a brief mental status exam, and testified that she didn’t know where she was. She wasn’t sure what time it was, but she knew who she was.
She remembered what had happened but was very foggy, he said.
Since January 24, 2023, Clancy had had no contact with Patrick, and she wanted to call him and see how he was doing and see how things were, according to Dr Zeizel.
The psychologist said she asked him if he could use his cell phone, and he allowed her to but said it would have to be on speakerphone.
Patrick did not pick up the first time, and Clancy left a voicemail.
Two days later, on February 6, 2023, she called again and Patrick answered.
Zeizel testified that he visited Clancy in hospital in the days after the killings, she borrowed his phone to call her husband, Patrick
‘She told Patrick that she loved him very much. She was unable to express a lot of emotion,’ Dr Zeizel said.
‘She said that she heard a male voice ordering her, telling her, that she didn’t have any choice. That she had to kill her children and kill herself.’
When asked if he told her to say that, he said no. He let her call her husband ‘out of human compassion,’ he said.
He has met Clancy over 45 times, many of them inside Tewksbury Hospital where she remains held.
‘I would see Lindsey Clancy in lockup because the nature of presentation in this court has been gut-wrenching, for anyone who would be exposed to such horrific,’ Dr Zeizel said before being cut off by the prosecution.
