A former Massachusetts prosecutor has purchased and moved into the Duxbury home once shared by Lindsay Clancy and her family, roughly a year after her three young children were found strangled in the basement with exercise bands.
Property records show Michael Phippen, a former Plymouth County assistant district attorney who held the role from 2016 to 2018, is now the owner of the house at 47 Summer Street.
Phippen bought the property for $675,000 in January 2024, one year after Patrick Clancy came home to discover his wife badly injured and the couple’s three children dead.
Lindsay Clancy, 36, is accused of deliberately killing Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan in January 2023.
Prosecutors say she then cut her wrists and neck before jumping from a second-floor window in an apparent suicide attempt, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.
Patrick Clancy confirmed in an October 2024 interview with The New Yorker that the home he had lived in with Lindsay had been sold earlier in the year, though he did not identify the buyer.
“There’s no house anymore,” he said. “There are no kids. All that’s left is me and Lindsay.”
Photos of the blue, two-story home and the disturbing scene inside have played a central role in Lindsay Clancy’s emotionally intense five-week trial, which is approaching its conclusion as 12 jurors deliberate her fate.
A former Massachusetts prosecutor moved into Lindsay Clancy’s family home after her three children were strangled to death with exercise bands in the basement
Michael Phippen, who served as a Plymouth County assistant district attorney from 2016 to 2018, now owns the former Clancy home at 47 Summer Street in Duxbury
Phippen bought the home for $675,000 in January 2024, one year after Patrick Clancy returned to find his wife injured and their three children dead
In an October 2024 interview with The New Yorker, Patrick Clancy said the home he had shared with Lindsay was sold earlier that year but did not name the buyer
The nationally watched case has sparked social media attention around Phippen, with followers and true-crime fanatics pointing to his former position as a DA in the same county where Clancy’s children were killed.
Speculation immediately swirled that he purchased the home while the district attorney’s office was involved in the case, though he had left the office years earlier, in 2018.
He now heads the criminal defense department at Stark and Lattuca, a New York and Massachusetts law firm, while also running his own criminal defense practice.
The three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, built in 1972 with a basement and garage, quietly changed hands without ever being publicly listed, according to real estate records.
Phippen snapped up the property off-market for less than its estimated $778,400 value, according to Zillow.
It was a bargain for the former prosecutor, who bought the home at an unusually low price in Duxbury’s tight housing market, where the average home value is $1,131,969 and the median list price $1,278,333, Newsweek reports.
The Clancys purchased the home for $500,000 in 2018, nearly two years into their marriage, before they had any children.
Jurors were shown troves of heartbreaking images, including the children’s drawings and family photos that once filled the home.
Lindsay Clancy, 36, is accused of intentionally killing her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, in January 2023
After selling the home, Patrick Clancy said: ‘There’s no house anymore. There are no kids. All that’s left is me and Lindsay’
Phippen pushed back against plans for jurors to view the property in person. Judge William Sullivan (pictured) overruled the objection
Jurors were allowed to inspect the home’s exterior, upper floors and basement where the killings took place
Crime scene photos show the inside of the basement where the children were found strangled
At a June pretrial hearing, Phippen pushed back against plans for jurors to view the property in person, with his attorney, Peter Maguire, arguing it would be ‘massively disruptive’ for his client’s partner, pets and neighbors.
Judge William Sullivan ultimately overruled the objection, allowing only jurors, attorneys, the judge and necessary court staff to take part.
Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington warned jurors during his opening statement on July 27 that the home ‘doesn’t look at all’ like it did when the Clancys lived there with their three children.
On the morning of July 31, the 18 jurors, 12 women and six men, filed onto a large coach outside the courthouse before setting off for the home.
During the walkthrough, jurors retraced Patrick’s steps from three years earlier, when he returned home to the horrific scene, inspecting the home’s exterior, upper floors and basement where the killings took place.
On the night of the killings, Clancy placed a takeout order at ThreeV Restaurant in Plymouth for a Mediterranean power bowl for herself and scallop and pork belly risotto for Patrick.
Sometime after 5pm, Patrick left to pick up the food order and stop at a local CVS for medication for Cora, errands Clancy had asked him to run.
Just after 6pm, Patrick returned to a house that was ‘really quiet’ before racing upstairs to search for his family.
The stairs leading down to the basement of the Clancy home where the children were found
The snow on the ground in the backyard of the Clancy home. The mom-of-three was paralyzed after landing on the ground
The bedroom window from which Clancy jumped. Jurors were able to view the height for themselves during the tour
Twelve jurors are now deliberating the mother’s fate after the court heard closing arguments from the prosecution and defense yesterday
He found Clancy injured in the backyard and called 911. When emergency responders arrived, he went inside and discovered his three children dead in the basement, strangled with colored exercise bands.
The jurors toured the property in groups of six, spending about 10 minutes each inspecting the home and backyard where Clancy was found that night.
From the backyard, jurors had a clear view of the second-floor bedroom window she jumped from, giving them a better sense of the height and distance she fell.
Inside, they inspected rooms on both the first and second floors, including the bedroom and the window she jumped from. They also entered the basement where the three children were killed.
Although jurors were allowed to view the space, they were prohibited from opening closet doors or touching any items inside the home.
Twelve jurors are now deliberating the mother’s fate after the court heard closing arguments from the prosecution and defense Thursday.
A total of nine women and three men, selected from the 18-member jury, will ultimately decide whether Clancy is guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter or not guilty by reason of insanity.
