A Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three young children before attempting suicide amid alleged postpartum psychosis secured a significant boost in court from an unlikely source: a prosecution witness, according to a legal expert.
Lindsay Clancy, 35, is charged with murdering her children — five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan — inside the family’s Duxbury home in January 2023.
Clancy has not denied killing the children, but she has pleaded not guilty. Her defense argues she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis after being prescribed what they describe as a powerful combination of medications.
Her subsequent suicide attempt was unsuccessful, but it left her paralyzed and permanently dependent on a wheelchair.
On Monday, prosecutors called Dr. Sejal Shah to testify about Clancy’s mental condition while she was being treated at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, five days after the children were killed.
The prosecution has maintained that the killings were deliberate and carefully planned, rather than the actions of someone in the midst of a complete psychological break. Prosecutors have also suggested Clancy overstated the severity of her mental health symptoms.
But under cross-examination by defense attorney Kevin Reddington, the psychiatrist acknowledged that Clancy had been an “honest patient.”
Seth J. Zuckerman, a former New York City prosecutor and founder of Zuckerman Legal Group, said the doctor’s admission was “extremely helpful to the defense.”
Lindsay Clancy, 35, does not deny killing her children, but claims she is not responsible because she was suffering post-partum psychosis
Clancy strangled her children – Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan – in January 2023, then apparently attempted to kill herself
‘They want to portray her as someone who wasn’t manipulative, who didn’t have some grand plan,’ he told Fox News.
Reddington asked Shah: ‘Was she, in your opinion and your experience, an honest patient telling you what her symptoms were, if any?’
‘Yes,’ the doctor replied.
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‘She didn’t go off and try to exaggerate to you and say, “I’m seeing visions, and I’m hearing voices,” and suicidal ideation and homicidal ideas. She didn’t say any of those things to you, did she?’ Reddington said.
‘Correct,’ Shah replied.
The defense attorney doubled down asking, ‘So this is not, in your opinion, someone who was trying to exaggerate her conditions for some legal reason, correct?’
‘No,’ the psychiatrist answered.
Zuckerman also said that Shah’s testimony helped the defense by showing that Clancy could appear lucid while experiencing symptoms of psychosis.
Dr Sejal Shah testified about Clancy’s mental state while at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston five days after the killings
On cross-examination by Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, the psychiatrist conceded that Clancy was an ‘honest patient’
‘The burden is on the prosecutors to show that she was criminally responsible at the time of the deaths,’ Zuckerman said.
‘That is unique to Massachusetts, and I think it’s beneficial to the defense here.’
Clancy’s murder trial has been filled with emotional testimony, including from her ex-husband who has publicly forgiven her and come out in her defense.
Jurors heard his harrowing 911 call the night he discovered their dead children, which brought the courtroom to tears.
Clancy has broken down several times throughout the trial as doctors have described her children’s injuries.
