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Lindsay Clancy’s defense continued to lay out its case on day 16 of testimony in the trial of the Massachusetts mother accused of murdering her three children.
Clancy, 36, is on trial for murder in the January 2023 strangulation deaths of her three children – Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months – at the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home. She has pleaded not guilty to all three counts.
The prosecution alleges that Clancy planned the killings by sending her husband to pick up takeout food and medicine, then, while he was gone, strangling the children to death with exercise bands. Afterward, Clancy cut her wrists and neck and jumped out of a second-story window, leaving her paralyzed.
Clancy’s defense argues that she is not guilty because she lacks criminal responsibility, which is more commonly known as an insanity defense. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington says Clancy she was suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis at the time of the killings.
The case has drawn attention to postpartum mental health and sparked widespread online conspiracy theories.
Here’s what to know on Aug. 19.
How to watch Lindsay Clancy trial today
Watch the live stream of Day 16 of the trial from the Plymouth, Massachusetts, courthouse below:
Lindsay Clancy trial recap so far
Testimony began in Clancy’s trial with the prosecution’s case on July 27.
After 14 days of testimony and calling more than 70 witnesses to the stand, Plymouth County Assistant District Attorneys Shanan Buckingham and Jennifer Sprague rested the prosecution’s case on Monday, Aug. 17.
Reddington then began presenting the defense’s case. On Aug. 17, he called four witnesses: Clancy’s former coworker Margaret Hamp, Clancy’s sister Allison Ozga, her mother Paula Musgrove and emergency medicine doctor Michael Vulfovich as an expert witness.
Four people testified on Aug. 18, including Clancy’s former mother-in-law Susan Clancy and three expert witnesses: Dr. Donald Condie, a psychiatrist, Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, a forensic pathologist and Paul Zeizel, a psychologist.
What both sides are arguing in Lindsay Clancy trial
The prosecution has asserted that Lindsay Clancy orchestrated the murders because she could no longer control her family’s life.
In opening statements, Buckingham painted Clancy as “a woman who no longer liked the life she thought she wanted.”
On Clancy’s mental health treatment before the killings, Buckingham alleged she “chose to manipulate her providers” and “seek out the quick and easy fix when she was feeling depressed and anxious.”
Reddington has said Clancy heard a male voice telling her to commit the murders in an act of psychosis.
In opening statements, he described Clancy as a doting mother who “tried very hard to get the help she needed.”
“These children were loved and nurtured and cared for by her,” he said. “She didn’t want to get rid of her kids because of her selfish life as the government indicates. She loved those children right up to the time of their death.”
Psychologist Paul Zeizel returns to the stand
On Aug. 19, psychologist Paul Zeizel continued his testimony after first taking the stand for the defense the day prior.
Zeizel first met Lindsay Clancy at Reddington’s request while she was hospitalized in February 2023, days after the killings. He has met with her a total of roughly 60 times in the past three years, he said.
On Aug. 18, he testified that, while meeting with Lindsay in the intensive care unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Feb. 4, 2023, she asked to borrow his cell phone to call her then-husband Patrick Clancy. He did not answer, and Lindsay left a voicemail for him. When Zeizel met with her again two days later, Patrick Clancy returned the call.
“She told Patrick she loved him very much,” Zeizel said of the Feb. 6, 2023, phone call on speaker. “She was unable to express a lot of emotion, but she expressed love for him. And she had said 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.”
When Zeizel returned to the stand on Aug. 19, he testified that he believed Clancy to be suffering from psychosis at the time of the killings.
“She had no appreciation for the wrongfulness of her act,” he said.
On cross-examination, Buckingham pressed Zeizel about Lindsay’s initial phone call to Patrick. When asked whether Lindsay brought up her children during the phone call, Zeizel said no.
Buckingham then questioned Zeizel about his continued meetings with Lindsay and whether she has continued to hear auditory hallucinations.
“She has not heard voices since the event took place in 2023,” Zeizel said.
Later in the cross-examination, Buckingham questioned Zeizel about confirmation bias, or the idea of clinically diagnosing someone based on your beliefs without full evidence. She emphasized Zeizel’s close relationship with both Reddington and his continued meetings with Lindsay.
On Reddington’s redirect examination, he asked Zeizel whether he is biased in this case.
“I am telling the truth,” Zeizel said.
During Reddington’s redirect, he also asked Zeizel about whether Lindsay speaks of her children. He testified that she does and “thinks about them every single day almost every moment of the day.”
“Lindsay Clancy has bad days, and worse days,” he said.
TikToker takes stand without jury present
Emily Thorndike, a social worker and former employee at McLean Hospital, answered questions in front of judge William Sullivan and counsel as part of a voir dire. The jury was not present.
Voir dire is a process of preliminarily questioning witnesses to determine whether they are competent to testify, according to the Cornell Law School.
Thorndike was questioned as a potential witness after she posted a TikTok video early in the trial about her experience working at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility that treated Lindsay Clancy prior to the children’s killings.
She worked at McLean Hospital for several years in the short-term unit where Clancy had been admitted. She left in 2021 and began her own therapy practice, she said.
In the July 29 TikTok video, Thorndike refuted claims from prosecutors that Clancy was frequently assessed by mental health professionals in the five days she was at McLean. She said that staffing on the unit was especially thin during weekends and holidays, when Clancy was in the unit.
Reddington contacted Thorndike after her video went viral. He moved to call her as a witness to speak to the staffing on the unit, to which prosecutors objected. Sullivan allowed both sides to question her as part of a voir dire before he ruled on whether or not she could testify as an expert witness.
Thorndike said during the voir dire that she has been sequestered since being contacted by Reddington. She also said she reviewed records from McLean indicating that the staffing levels had not changed in the year between her leaving the hospital and Clancy’s admittance.
After Thorndike stepped down, Sullivan denied the defense’s motion to allow her to testify in front of the jury. He said he believed her to be credible but ultimately denied her as a witness because of the gap in time between when she worked there and when Clancy was a patient.