Lindsay Clancy’s defense gained significant support Wednesday when her psychologist told jurors she was too mentally ill to be held criminally responsible for the deaths of her three young children.
Clancy, a 36-year-old former nurse, is standing trial in connection with the 2023 killings of her children — five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan — inside the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
Authorities say she strangled the children with exercise bands before allegedly trying to take her own life, an attempt that failed and left her permanently paralyzed and reliant on a wheelchair.
Clancy has acknowledged killing her children but has pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity, with her lawyers arguing she was suffering from postpartum psychosis. She is seeking commitment to a state mental health facility instead of a prison sentence.
During Wednesday’s proceedings, jurors heard from her psychologist, who said Clancy was in the midst of psychosis at the time of the killings.
Dr. Paul Zeizel, a veteran forensic psychologist working with defense attorney Kevin Reddington, testified that a person experiencing psychosis may still appear capable of carrying out routine tasks.
That meant Clancy could have taken Cora to a doctor’s appointment and conducted online searches that day while still being in the grip of a severe psychotic episode, he told the court.
“My opinion is that she did have indeed a mental disease or defect, that’s a legal construct, not a DSM-5 one, but she had bipolar disorder with postpartum psychosis,” Dr. Zeizel said.
Lindsay Clancy, 36, has admitted to killing her children but pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis
Her psychologist, Dr Paul Zeizel, testified that she was too sick to understand her actions when she strangled her three children to death
‘In addition, she was unable to conform her behavior to the law, and she had no appreciation for the wrongfulness of her act.’
Dr Zeizel also discussed Clancy’s behavior while she has been held at Tewksbury Hospital, noting that there is nothing unusual about it.
‘She is extremely well-regarded and well-liked on that unit by everyone,’ he said.
She has good and bad days, but she is not in there laughing and partying at the hospital, according to Dr Zeizel.
‘She does speak about her children,’ he added.
‘She really loves them and misses them and thinks of them every single day, almost every moment of the day.’
Under cross-examination, prosecutor Shanan Buckingham pressed Dr Zeizel about Clancy’s claim that a man’s voice told her to kill herself and the children.
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He said that Clancy also told a chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital after the killings about the voice, as well as her husband Patrick.
Clancy is on trial for the murders of her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, at her home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in 2023
Dr Zeizel previously testified that Clancy first mentioned hearing a ‘male voice’ telling her to kill the children and herself while on a phone call with her husband, Patrick
Judge William Sullivan ruled that that TikTok user and therapist Emily Thorndike, who previously worked at McLean psychiatric hospital where Clancy was staying in December 2022, cannot testify at the trial
Dr Zeizel said that Clancy has not heard voices since the killings in 2023.
But she had heard voices before then, he testified.
Prosecutors have repeatedly raised questions about when Clancy first mentioned hearing voices.
Earlier in the trial, Dr Zeizel testified that Clancy first mentioned the voice on a phone call with her husband, Patrick.
‘She had said that she heard a male voice ordering her, telling her that she didn’t have any choice, but she had to kill her children and then kill herself,’ Dr Zeizel testified.
Later on Wednesday, Judge William Sullivan ruled that TikTok user and therapist Emily Thorndike, who previously worked at McLean psychiatric hospital where Clancy was staying in December 2022, cannot testify at the trial.
Thorndike told the judge she watched Patrick’s testimony about her stay at McLean psychiatric hospital and felt the prosecution’s characterization of the facility was ‘misleading.’ But Thorndike had left her position at the hospital about a year before Clancy was admitted.
Shortly after the trial resumed from the lunch break, Sullivan abruptly announced the court was adjourned for the day.
‘Due to an unforeseen circumstance, we are going to excuse you until tomorrow,’ he told the jury.
‘This is not something we saw coming. But you’re not to speculate about what it is, you’re not to hold it against either side. It’s just something that we have to deal with,‘ he added.
The trial is set to continue on Thursday at 9am ET.
