See Lindsay Clancy’s mother take the stand, talk about grandkids
Lindsay Clancy’s mother, Paula Musgrove, was called to testify by her defense.
Lindsay Clancy’s mother took the stand on Monday, Aug. 17, as her daughter’s murder trial entered its fourth week of testimony.
Paula Musgrove was called as the defense’s third witness after the prosecution rested early Aug. 17. She testified after the defense called her other daughter, Lindsay’s sister Allison Ozga, to the stand. The defense’s first witness was Margaret Hamp, a labor and delivery nurse who worked with Lindsay at Mass. General Hospital.
Musgrove and her husband, Mike Musgrove, have been living out of hotels to be near Lindsay, Ozga said on the stand. Paula Musgrove testified that she is retired but worked for Weight Watchers. Her husband recently retired but was a school photographer.
Musgrove described her daughter as a “loving,” “dedicated” and “fun” mother, saying she felt becoming a mother was “the best thing that ever happened to” Clancy.
“She always wanted to be a mother and have many children,” she said. “She would do anything for her children.”
Clancy, 36, is facing murder charges 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.
Prosecutors allege she planned the killings by sending her husband, Patrick Clancy, to pick up takeout food and medicine, then strangling the children with exercise bands while he was gone. Afterward, Clancy cut her wrists and neck and jumped out of a second-story window, leaving her paralyzed.
Clancy’s defense is arguing that she lacks criminal responsibility – also known as an insanity defense – because she was suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis at the time of the killings.
Clancy’s mother noticed changes in her daughter leading up to children’s deaths
Musgrove called her relationship with her daughter’s family “close.”
“I loved my grandchildren with all my heart,” Musgrove said in a breaking voice. “You’ll never know what it is to love a grandchild until you become a grandmother. It was the most beautiful thing.”
Patrick and Lindsay Clancy appeared “very happy” in the summer of 2022, Musgrove said, but things began to change with her daughter a few months later, in October.
“I noticed she had become very anxious. She told me she was anxious about going back to work because Callan was having trouble taking a bottle, and she didn’t feel right about leaving him,” she said, noting that her daughter said she planned to request an extension on her leave.
About a week later, she received a text message from Clancy on Oct. 20, 2022, a copy of which defense attorney Kevin Reddington showed on poster board.
“Mom, will you please come up and stay with me for a bit? I’m really sick. Something is wrong. I had horrible insomnia all night and I just don’t know how I’m going to get through the day. I started taking the medicine my doctor prescribed for anxiety and I think it’s made things worse,” the text read. “It’s just really scary and I don’t want to be alone.”
Musgrove traveled from her home in Connecticut to Clancy’s in Duxbury the same day and stayed for a week, she said.
‘She told us she had thoughts of harming the children’
Around the holidays, Musgrove testified that she frequently visited and stayed with her daughter, who she described as “not getting better.”
“She was afraid to be alone and she actually asked if she could sleep with me” one night in late November or early December, Musgrove said. Musgrove testified that around Christmastime and into January, her daughter had lost weight, become paranoid and said she felt her mind was not her own.
“She would say to me, ‘This isn’t me, I’ve never been like this before.’ And I would agree, because she wasn’t,” she said. Clancy became afraid to drive and said the medications she was on made her forgetful and were “destroying her mind,” Musgrove continued.
Musgrove described one scene from December 2022 in which Lindsay, whom she said appeared “nervous,” told her and Patrick she had distressing thoughts.
“She told us she had thoughts of harming the children,” she testified.
Reddington finished direct examination shortly before 12 pm ET. Judge William Sullivan called for a midday break, with court resuming around 2 p.m. ET for cross-examination and redirect.
Contributing: Peter Blandino, The Patriot Ledger