Clancy’s defense argues she was overmedicated and suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children in January 2023, leaving her not criminally responsible

NEED TO KNOW

Lindsay Clancy’s mother took the stand Monday, Aug. 17, as a defense witness in her daughter’s murder trial.

Prosecutors have argued that Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, intentionally killed her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan — at the family’s Duxbury, Mass., home in January 2023. She then attempted to die by suicide by cutting her wrists and jumping out of a second-story window of the home.

Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty. Her defense has argued that she was overmedicated and suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings, leaving her not criminally responsible.

The prosecution rested its case Monday, allowing defense attorney Kevin Reddington to begin calling witnesses, including Clancy’s mother, Paula Musgrove.

Musgrove became emotional while discussing her late grandchildren and described Clancy as a “loving mother.” She testified that she occasionally stayed with her daughter, who confided in her about her declining mental health and concerns over the side effects of the medications she was taking in the months leading up to the killings.

“She told us she had thoughts of harming the children,” Musgrove testified, recalling a time she stayed with Clancy and her then-husband, Patrick, at their home in December 2022.

The court also heard testimony from Clancy’s sister, Allison Ozga, and former co-worker, Margaret Hamp, a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Hamp recalled a conversation with Clancy at work in which she mentioned Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who admitted to drowning her five children in a bathtub in 2001. Hamp testified that Clancy became emotional and said, “How could a mother hurt her children?”

Yates, who had a long history of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis, was initially convicted in 2002 of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. Her conviction was later overturned, and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a retrial four years later. She is currently institutionalized at a state mental health hospital.

Reddington has argued that Clancy was inadequately treated by psychiatrists for the mental health issues she was experiencing in the months leading up to the killings. Clancy and her now-ex-husband Patrick have also filed lawsuits against several medical professionals. Patrick’s complaint alleges Lindsay was prescribed several medications in the weeks before the killings, including eight over a three-week period in November and December 2022.