Lindsay Clancy’s Family Nanny Shares Rare Look at What She Was Really Like

“She was an exceptional mother.”

With a quiet but firm voice from the witness stand, Lindsay Clancy’s former nanny offered a strikingly warm portrait of the woman now standing trial over the deaths of her three young children.

Elaine Rossi told jurors that Clancy was intensely attentive to the well-being of five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan, and that she often focused on whether her baby son was sleeping and feeding as he should.

Rossi testified that, during her time with the family, she never saw anything in Clancy’s parenting that made her fear for the children or question how they were being cared for.

Her testimony became a key moment on the seventh day of Clancy’s trial in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, where the mother of three faces the possibility of life in prison in connection with the killings inside the family’s home in the wealthy coastal community of Duxbury on January 24, 2023.

Authorities say the former labor and delivery nurse strangled the children with exercise bands in the basement before attempting to take her own life, cutting her wrists and neck and then jumping from a second-floor bedroom window.

Prosecutors contend Clancy was mentally competent and deliberately carried out the killings, while her defense team argues she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, saying she was in the grip of severe postpartum depression and psychosis at the time.

Earlier in the trial, jurors heard emotional testimony from her husband, Patrick Clancy, who came home that day to discover his wife badly injured and their children dead. Fighting back tears in what was the first time he had seen his now ex-wife since the tragedy, he also described Lindsay Clancy as a loving, dedicated mother whose mental health had been rapidly deteriorating.

Now, on Tuesday, jurors finally heard from someone else able to give a unique insight into what life was like inside the Clancy home at that time.

As the family nanny – who Cora and Dawson affectionately called ‘Laney’ – Rossi saw firsthand how Clancy interacted with her children in the months leading up to the killings.

She also had a distinctive perspective of the mom-of-three’s mental health struggles.

Rossi began working for the Clancy family in September 2022 after responding to a job advert posted by Clancy that July.

She worked for the family three days a week, in the mornings.

The plan had been that she would take care of Callan when Clancy went back to work around Thanksgiving so she started two months early so she could get to know the family.

While her main care was for Callan, she said she sometimes spent time with Cora and Dawson and also did food prep, laundry and light housekeeping in the home. Dawson and Cora were often at school during that time.

Clancy would leave her instructions about Callan’s care in a yellow notebook.

In the yellow book were notes around Callan’s sleep and schedule – something that Rossi said Clancy was concerned with.

‘Bottle when he wakes up,’ one note read.

‘Nap two,’ read another.

As an experienced nanny, Rossi testified that the instructions were ‘not at all’ unusual, overbearing or controlling.

Inside the courtroom, Clancy bowed her head and clasped her hands tightly on the defense table as ‘Laney’ flicked through the notebook.

The mom-of-three then crumpled into sobs when a brief heartbreaking video of the nanny feeding Callan a bottle of milk was shown in the courtroom.

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Leaning over the defense table, she put her head in her hands and cried. Two rows behind her in the public gallery, her parents Mike and Paula Musgrove also grew emotional and looked down.

Across the room, a brief ‘aw’ sound could be heard coming from someone watching the adorable baby seemingly so content and happy.

When asked if she ever had any concerns about leaving Clancy with the children, Rossi was adamant she did not.

‘Not at all. She was a wonderful mom,’ she said.

She recounted one moment when Dawson – who was ‘full of energy’ – had struck his baby brother. Rossi remembered Clancy handled the situation appropriately, removing Dawson from the room and then consoling Callan. She had then spoken to Dawson about his behavior.

‘I observed a wonderful mom who loved her kids,’ she testified.

‘I did love Lindsay, yes,’ she later said.

While she never had any concerns for Clancy’s care of her children, Rossi revealed she was aware of some of the mom-of-three’s struggles.

Clancy had told her about her plans to stop nursing Callan so that she could start taking medication. She had also spoken to her about struggling with ‘postpartum and insomnia,’ she said – so much so that Clancy began sleeping in the basement. Clancy had also lost weight.

It was early December when she stopped working for the Clancy family.

Clancy had decided that she wasn’t going to return to work so she and Patrick told Rossi they would have to let her go.

The nanny’s insight into what Clancy was like as a mother came after toxicology and DNA experts also took the stand.

It was testimony that repeatedly prompted objection and rebukes from Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington who at one point leaped to his feet, waved his arms and proclaimed it was ‘gobbledy-gook’ as a DNA expert spoke.

One day earlier, Clancy had broken her silence in the courtroom to agree to a stipulation of facts – agreeing to chain of custody matters in a move that meant the prosecution would no longer have to call dozens of witnesses to simply be able to admit certain pieces of evidence.

Despite this, the technical descriptions and explanations of some pieces of evidence, such as blood stains and DNA on the exercise bands, kept coming.

Forensic toxicologist Justin Brower, who works at a private lab in Pennsylvania, revealed how a mix of drugs were found in Clancy’s blood following the tragic night in January 2023.

These drugs included two antidepressants, one anti-seizure medication which is also used to treat bipolar and one anti-psychotic drug, which can also be used for insomnia.

He testified that three of the drugs found in her system were at therapeutic levels – meaning that he would not expect to see them in someone suicidal.

However, the antipsychotic drug Seroquel was around double the level he would have expected to see.

The extent to which Clancy had taken a cocktail of drugs – and how high the doses were – is a key element of the case.

Her defense is arguing that she was in a state of psychosis – possibly triggered by being severely overmedicated.

She had been prescribed at least 13 medications in the months leading up to the killings.

However, the prosecution has sought to argue that Clancy did not take all the medication she was prescribed.

If convicted, Clancy will be sentenced to life without parole. If acquitted by reason of insanity, she will be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

The trial continues