Content warning: this piece includes discussion of child death and suicide that may be distressing to some readers.
In January 2023, Patrick Clancy left his Duxbury, Massachusetts home to pick up his daughter’s medication and takeaway for dinner, leaving his wife Lindsay Clancy at home with their three children.
When he came back, he told the court, the house was quiet.
He found Lindsay outside on the ground, injured. She had cuts to her wrist and the right side of her neck, and had jumped from a second-storey window. She directed him to the basement.
There, prosecutors say, he found their children – five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan – strangled with exercise resistance bands.
Duxbury police officer Brian Josephine, one of the first on scene, testified that when Patrick saw officers arrive, he screamed: “She killed the f***ing kids!”
Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead that night. Callan, on a ventilator, died three days later.
Lindsay Clancy, now 35, is standing trial in what has been called “America’s saddest murder trial” at Plymouth Superior Court. She has pleaded not guilty. Her lawyers don’t dispute that she killed her children – the question for the jury is whether she was criminally responsible for it.
The defence: overmedicated and in psychosis
Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and undiagnosed bipolar disorder that worsened as she was cycled through a shifting lineup of psychiatric medications in the months before the killings.
Prosecutors argue the opposite: that she acted “intentionally, rationally and swiftly,” and had planned the killings, including sending Patrick out on an errand that would keep him away from the house for longer than usual.
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Defence attorney: Kevin Reddington
Lindsay Clancy’s defence is led by Kevin Reddington, a 75-year-old criminal defence attorney based in Brockton, Massachusetts.
Over five decades since earning his law degree from Suffolk University in 1975, he’s built a reputation defending people accused of serious crimes, taking on more than 100 murder cases, many involving mental illness and insanity defences.
His best-known case came in 1989, when he successfully argued that his client, Therese Rogers, was delusional as a result of PTSD stemming from years of abuse by her boyfriend.
In the Clancy trial, Reddington isn’t disputing that Clancy caused her children’s deaths – his defence centres on whether she was criminally responsible at the time, arguing she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis compounded by what he has called “horrific overmedication.”
Lindsay’s diary
Weeks into the trial, both the prosecution and defence read from journals Clancy kept in the months before the killings, chronicling anxiety, guilt over breastfeeding, and what she described as “brain fog.”
“I want help. I want to be well,” Reddington read from one entry.
A nanny called her “a wonderful mom”
Elaine Rossi, who worked for the family between September and December 2022, told the jury she never once worried Clancy might be a danger to her children or herself – even as she noticed Clancy losing weight, struggling to sleep, and sleeping in the basement some nights.
“I observed a wonderful mom who loved her kids,” Rossi testified.
Her psychiatrist says she wasn’t negligent
Much of the recent testimony has centred on Dr Jennifer Tufts, who treated Clancy over telehealth appointments for roughly five months and saw her the day before the killings. Tufts testified Clancy never disclosed any plan to hurt the children and never appeared psychotic to her.
However under cross-examination, she confirmed she’d never once met Clancy in person, and that when asked whether reported suicidal thoughts would trigger a report as a mandated reporter, she said “not necessarily.”
“I do not believe that I have been negligent,” Tufts told the court.
There are lawsuits running alongside the trial
Both Patrick and Lindsay Clancy have filed separate wrongful death and medical malpractice lawsuits against clinicians who treated her, including Tufts. They allege physicians failed to catch how seriously her mental health was deteriorating. Those claims are contested and haven’t been proven – the clinicians who’ve responded so far deny the allegations.
Patrick has remarried
Reddington revealed during opening statements that Patrick has since remarried; multiple outlets have reported his new wife is Dr Rachel Danis, a reproductive endocrinologist, and that the couple married in New York earlier this year.
“They’re divorced, he’s remarried, he has a family,” Reddington told the court in his opening.
He has publicly forgiven her
Days after the killings, Patrick shared a message on the family’s GoFundMe page asking the public to forgive Lindsay, as he had.
“The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring towards everyone,” he wrote.
He later spoke to The New Yorker about the aftermath, telling the magazine: “I wasn’t married to a monster – I was married to someone who got sick.”
The internet is watching
Testimony is being live-streamed daily and picked up by outlets well beyond Massachusetts, and clips – a witness under cross-examination a diary entry read aloud – are racking up millions of views on TikTok and Instagram within hours of being posted.
Alongside genuine public interest, that volume has also fed a steady undertow of unproven theories, particularly about Patrick Clancy, that go well beyond anything actually presented in court.
Legal commentators and podcasters following the trial closely have strongly pushed back on much of this, pointing out it isn’t supported by the evidence and nor does it reflect the case presented by the defence. It’s a reminder of how fast a theory travels online, and how much slower the facts that would debunk it tend to move.
The comments section
The case has divided many across the world and particularly in America. A quick scroll of the comments reveals a split in a way that says something about how differently people process a case like this.
Alongside the women recognising their own intrusive thoughts, there’s also a group extending compassion toward Lindsay specifically, often people who’ve experienced or witnessed severe postpartum illness themselves and recognising how badly the system can fail a mother in crisis.
Just as visible are commenters with little patience for that framing at all, who see three dead children and no room for sympathy regardless of diagnosis. Whilst shock and anger at the deaths of three children is understandable, it also highlights the gap of how unevenly understood postpartum psychosis still is – even among people watching the exact same testimony.
What happens next
The trial is expected to run six to eight weeks in total and is still underway. If convicted of first-degree murder, Clancy faces life without parole. If the jury finds she lacked criminal responsibility, she’ll be committed to a state mental health facility instead.
If this brings up anything for you, Postpartum Support International’s helpline (1-800-944-4773) offers free, confidential support.
In England, Action on Postpartum Psychosis (0203 322 9900) supports women and families affected by postpartum psychosis. If you’re having thoughts of suicide, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7.
Image: Kevin Reddington
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