Lindsay Clancy‘s defense was handed a major win Wednesday by her psychologist who testified she was too sick to be criminally responsible for killing her three young children.
The former nurse, 36, is on trial for the murders of her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, at her home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in 2023.
She strangled her children with exercise bands and then allegedly attempted to kill herself, but her efforts failed and left her paralyzed and in a wheelchair for life.
Clancy has admitted to killing her children but pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis, and is seeking to be committed to a state mental health facility rather than prison.
Inside the courtroom on Wednesday, jurors heard testimony from her psychologist that Clancy was in the throes of psychosis when she killed the children.
Dr Paul Zeizel, a highly experienced, well-respected forensic psychologist who works with Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington, explained that someone in the grips of psychosis can continue with normal tasks.
So Clancy could continue to do things like take Cora to the doctor and search things online that day even if she was in the grips of psychosis, he said.
‘My opinion is that she did have indeed a mental disease or defect, that’s a legal construct, not a DSM-5 one, but she had bipolar disorder with postpartum psychosis,’ Dr Zeizel said.
Lindsay Clancy, 36, has admitted to killing her children but pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis
Her psychologist, Dr Paul Zeizel, testified that she was too sick to understand her actions when she strangled her three children to death
‘In addition, she was unable to conform her behavior to the law, and she had no appreciation for the wrongfulness of her act.’
Dr Zeizel also discussed Clancy’s behavior while she has been held at Tewksbury Hospital, noting that there is nothing unusual about it.
‘She is extremely well-regarded and well-liked on that unit by everyone,’ he said.
She has good and bad days, but she is not in there laughing and partying at the hospital, according to Dr Zeizel.
‘She does speak about her children,’ he added.
‘She really loves them and misses them and thinks of them every single day, almost every moment of the day.’
Under cross-examination, prosecutor Shanan Buckingham pressed Dr Zeizel about Clancy’s claim that a man’s voice told her to kill herself and the children.
He said that Clancy also told a chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital after the killings about the voice, as well as her husband Patrick.
Clancy is on trial for the murders of her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, at her home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in 2023
Dr Zeizel previously testified that Clancy first mentioned hearing a ‘male voice’ telling her to kill the children and herself while on a phone call with her husband, Patrick
Judge William Sullivan ruled that that TikTok user and therapist Emily Thorndike, who previously worked at McLean psychiatric hospital where Clancy was staying in December 2022, cannot testify at the trial
Dr Zeizel said that Clancy has not heard voices since the killings in 2023.
But she had heard voices before then, he testified.
Prosecutors have repeatedly raised questions about when Clancy first mentioned hearing voices.
Earlier in the trial, Dr Zeizel testified that Clancy first mentioned the voice on a phone call with her husband, Patrick.
‘She had said that 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,’ Dr Zeizel testified.
Later on Wednesday, Judge William Sullivan ruled that TikTok user and therapist Emily Thorndike, who previously worked at McLean psychiatric hospital where Clancy was staying in December 2022, cannot testify at the trial.
Thorndike told the judge she watched Patrick’s testimony about her stay at McLean psychiatric hospital and felt the prosecution’s characterization of the facility was ‘misleading.’ But Thorndike had left her position at the hospital about a year before Clancy was admitted.
Shortly after the trial resumed from the lunch break, Sullivan abruptly announced the court was adjourned for the day.
‘Due to an unforeseen circumstance, we are going to excuse you until tomorrow,’ he told the jury.
‘This is not something we saw coming. But you’re not to speculate about what it is, you’re not to hold it against either side. It’s just something that we have to deal with,‘ he added.
The trial is set to continue on Thursday at 9am ET.
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