In the latest events of Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial, jurors heard the devastating 911 call that Patrick Clancy made after coming home to find that his wife had strangled their three children. While the Massachusetts mother does not deny she murdered her children, her defense attorneys claim that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time.

Content Warning: This article discusses an exceptionally disturbing case involving multiple children’s murders. The details may be upsetting or triggering for some readers. Reader discretion is advised, and those who may be sensitive to these topics are encouraged to proceed with caution or discontinue reading.

Murder Charges

Lindsay Clancy is charged with three counts of murder in the death of her three young children–Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. Prosecutors argue that this is not a situation of mental health or insanity, but rather a mother who no longer wanted her children. 

If she is convicted of murder, she will face life in prison without parole. However, if found not guilty by reason of insanity and lack of criminal responsibility, she will be placed in a state mental health facility.

Moments Before Tragedy

Patrick Clancy, who has since divorced the defendant, took the stand on Wednesday to describe the inconceivable pain he felt coming home on January 24, 2023, and jurors listened to the frantic call he made to 911. He said the last image he had of his 3-year-old son was him on the couch eating chicken nuggets with a side of green beans. 

Lindsay asked her then-husband to go out and get some food and stop at the pharmacy on the way home. Prosecutors argue that she has accepted full responsibility and that she acted intentionally when sending her husband away so she could strangle her children.

Surveillance video from the pharmacy was played for the jurors, showing Patrick Clancy calling his wife asking what medicine he needed to get. “She was pretty quiet. It sounded like she was busy,” he testified.

“I remember hanging up thinking she was probably in the middle of giving baths or something like that.” 

Silence in The Home

But when he returned home, it was too silent. He searched the home for anyone and came across a bloody mess in the master bedroom. Lindsay had attempted to take her own life in a variety of ways.

She jumped out of the former married couple’s home’s second-story window, leaving herself paralyzed from the waist down. Patrick said she was still conscious when he spoke with her outside, and she told him the kids were in the basement, but did not mention they were dead.

After Patrick discovered his children, who appeared strangled with exercise bands, he sobbed on the phone to the 911 operator, screaming, “Oh my God!” and then, when the dispatcher continued to ask what happened, he said, “She killed the kids.”

Lindsay Clancy visibly sobbed in the courtroom as the 911 call was played, as did her parents, who were sitting in the gallery. Patrick immediately exited the court after he finished testifying.

Postpartum Psychosis

Lindsay Clancy’s attorneys have not tried to dispute that she killed her children, but that she was driven by her mental state, which they claim was postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that occurs after childbirth and is associated with stress, sleep deprivation, and hormonal changes.

Postpartum psychosis is different from postpartum depression and only affects 1 to 2 per 1,000 women following childbirth. Cleveland Clinic experts say that it is a mental health emergency that affects someone’s sense of reality. While a rare condition, it is most common in people with other mental health conditions, such as bipolar affective disorder.

The defendant alleges she heard voices in her head the day she killed her children, telling her, “This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself.”

Lindsay tried to get help for her post-pregnancy mood disorders, took multiple psychiatric medications, and when all else failed, she checked into a psychiatric hospital. But 19 days after she was discharged, she killed her children.

Day of The Killings

Patrick Clancy testified earlier this week about his then-wife’s deteriorating mental health in the months leading up to the killings. He said she had intrusive thoughts about harming their children and killing herself, but that she appeared better in the two weeks before the murders. 

On Monday, Patrick said that the day of the killings started out as one of her “best days.” Lindsay took her oldest child to a doctor’s appointment and returned home to build a snowman with all the children and do art projects.