PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP/Boston 25) — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial in Plymouth, Massachusetts, heard closing arguments Wednesday before deciding whether the former labor and delivery nurse is criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023.
While both sides agree she killed her children, Clancy’s defense team argued she suffered from postpartum psychosis, with defense attorney Kevin Reddington stating that “ lousy medical care ” exacerbated her condition. Prosecutors at the Plymouth County District Attorney’s office argued she intentionally planned the killings and that the nation’s healthcare system is “ not on trial here.”
Postpartum psychosis is estimated to afflict 1 to 2 per 1,000 women after delivery. Experts at the Cleveland Clinic describe it as a mental health emergency affecting someone’s sense of reality. It can happen to anyone after giving birth, but the chances are higher for people with certain mental health conditions. Though most people with postpartum psychosis don’t harm their children, mothers with severe cases may try to do so, and also may try to harm themselves.
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Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
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Here’s the latest:
State provides its theory for why Clancy killed her children
Sprague confronts one of the central questions in the case: Why would a mother who loved her children kill them?
“She was depressed. She was exhausted. She was done. She didn’t want to try anymore. She felt damaged,” Sprague says. “But those kids, those kids were her protective factor. Those kids were keeping her from ending her misery.”
And so, Sprague says, Clancy “had to remove the protective factor.”
Sprague adds Clancy had other options, including moving to her mother’s for more support or killing herself and leaving the kids alive.
“It was a choice to take them with her. It was a horrible choice,” the prosecutor says. “It is a choice that we don’t want to think about that a mother could make, because that doesn’t make us feel safe or comfortable in this world. But it’s a choice she made.”
Prosecutor says evidence shows Clancy planned the killings
Sprague alleges Clancy sent her then-husband to get some take-out food at a local restaurant to give her time to kill the children. She even checked a map to see how long it would take him to collect the food and return home.
“What she needed to know was how long specifically on that night it would take to get there,” Sprague says, “because she knew she would have a limited amount of time to do what she wanted to do. And what she had decided to do was to kill the children and then kill herself.”
When Clancy saw she would need more time than the restaurant trip would take, she asked her then-husband to also pick up medication at a local pharmacy, Sprague says.
“She’s adding to this errand and she has to make sure she’s not interrupted,” Sprague says.
State says Clancy lied to mental health providers about her dark thoughts
Sprague says Clancy’s decision not to tell her mental health providers about thoughts she had in December 2022 of harming her children shows she understood those thoughts were wrong.
Clancy disclosed the thoughts to her then-husband and to her mother, but not to her doctors, Sprague says.
Clancy feared her children could be taken away if she told a mandated reporter, Sprague says.
“That’s a rational thought,” Sprague says. “It also shows you that she knew it was a bad thought, a wrong thought.”
“Not only is she hiding it. She is lying about it.”
Prosecution questions Clancy’s adherence to treatment
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague acknowledges that Clancy sought help for her mental health struggles, but argued that she did not always take medications as prescribed or give her providers complete and accurate information.
“She wanted to get better, but she wanted to get better on her own terms,” Sprague says. “And as a nurse, she knew that’s not the right way to approach it.”
Sprague rejects the defense’s argument that Clancy did not receive the care she needed, saying her providers were working with the information Clancy gave them.
“This doesn’t mean that she wasn’t struggling, that she wasn’t dealing with these mental health issues,” Sprague says. “She had depression.”
But, she adds: “They were doing the best they could with her level of cooperation and compliance with the plan.”
Prosecutor begins her closing argument
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague says the case isn’t about the “mental health system or how it treats women.”
“That’s a distraction to get you angry and passionate about an important issue, but an issue that’s not on trial here,” she says.
The case, Sprague says, is about whether Clancy could recognize what was wrong with her actions and conform her actions to the law. In Clancy’s case, she had more support and resources than most have when navigating the American health care system.
“This wasn’t a woman suffering from a lack of care, a lack of resources,” she says. “She had an abundance of health, an abundance of care. She had all of that and more.”
Clancy wrote about her ‘horrible, intrusive thoughts’
Before Reddington concluded his closing argument, he held up a posterboard with some of Clancy’s desperate writings as her mental health deteriorated.
He says she was in “the depths of the despair” before the killings.
She wrote that he was having “horrible, intrusive thoughts” that prompted her to seek treatment.
At one point, her writings became like gibberish, he says.
“There’s nothing other than little chicken scratches because her mind was gone,” Reddington said.
Reddington describes Clancy attempt to research support for postpartum depression, called a suicide hotline, visited multiple providers and was voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
“My God, what does she have to do? She was reaching out for help and she wasn’t getting it,” he says.
Lawyer talks of Clancy’s deterioration during mental health treatment
Reddington has told the jury that Clancy ’lived for her kids” but after she starting seeing a doctor, “it was not a wonderful life anymore.”
“You have the medical records. You heard the testimony. You know her concerns. You know her fears,” Reddington said. “Does this sound like a young lady that didn’t care and wanted to score more drugs off somebody? That’s another repulsive allegation.”
Reddington holds up a posterboard with some of Clancy’s desperate writings as her mental health deteriorated.
He says she was in “the depths of the despair” before the killings.
Reddington talks of Clancy’s devotion to her children
The defense attorney holds up a small “wish box” that Lindsay Clancy and her then-husband, Patrick, bought on their honeymoon in Hawaii, before they had children.
Over the years, the couple filled the box with slips of paper recording their hopes for the future. Some were dated 2017, 2018 and 2020.
“They reference her wishes to have healthy kids, her wishes for her kids to be successful, her wishes to have a good birth the second time around,” Reddington says.
The box offers a glimpse of the life the couple had imagined for their family years before Clancy killed their three children, he says.
Defense lawyer criticizes prosecution’s case
Reddington is reminding jurors of what he told them at the beginning of the trial.
“In my opening statement, I told you, I said, ‘Watch the evidence, watch the manipulation,’ because that’s what this case was built upon originally and how it developed as the case progressed until it’s in front of you,” he says.
Reddington says the prosecution has tried to paint Clancy’s suicide attempt as less serious than it was.
“She made a very, very significant suicide effort,” he says. “They were arguing that it was a fake suicide. Dinky little cuts. No bleeding … You know that’s not what happened.”
Closing arguments begin with Reddington for the defense
Reddington is up first.
He thanks the jury for their service during the monthlong trial, through tough and gut-wrenching testimony.
“Sadly, juries carry this burden with them for years,” Reddington says.
He names all three children.
“They are the victims in this case,” Reddington says.
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