The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother charged with strangling her three young children to death in their Duxbury home, continued this week with testimony before the jury.
He testified that Clancy was not suffering from postpartum psychosis…
Clancy’s lawyer spent Monday morning cross-examining the prosecution’s psychiatric expert about the definition of postpartum illness, trying to convince jurors the state’s expert had too rigid a framework for viewing the case.
Dr. Avram Mack testified that the DSM, the diagnostic manual used by psychiatrists in the United States, defines the “postpartum onset” specifier as four weeks after birth.
Under cross-examination he conceded that the World Health Organization’s system uses a different window, and that a proposed revision to the DSM uses six weeks.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington pressed further, saying postpartum depression and psychosis can hit up to a year or more after a birth.
“Postpartum is not a disease, doctor,” Reddington said.
Mack said diagnosing psychiatric conditions requires an authority, and in the United States clinicians use the DSM.
He testified that Clancy was not suffering from postpartum psychosis but from a major depressive episode and that she was criminally responsible for what she did.
The exchange took place during the prosecution’s rebuttal case. Closing arguments may come as soon as this week.
Clancy is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan.
She does not deny killing them but says she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Clancy’s defense attorney also spent Monday morning attacking the credentials of the prosecution’s key psychiatric expert, pressing him on how rarely he has testified on the central question in the case.
Kevin Reddington got Dr. Avram Mack to acknowledge this was only about the third time in his career he had testified in court on criminal responsibility.
Reddington also confronted Mack with prior cases in which, he said, courts had questioned Mack’s qualifications, which Mack largely said he did not recall or disputed.
Clancy faces three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths…
Clancy faces three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her children, Cora, Dawson and Callan. She does not dispute killing them but says she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Last Friday, the sole witness was Sheila Cavanaugh, a chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who visited Clancy roughly 14 times after the killings and Clancy’s subsequent plunge from a second-story window that left her partially paralyzed.
Cavanaugh described first encountering the defendant on January 25, 2023, when Clancy could not speak.
“She was dressed in medical armor. She had tubes. She was intubated.
She had bandages. She had a neck brace. She was just covered and layered in equipment that allowed her to breathe,” Cavanaugh said.
Cavanaugh testified she vividly recalled the first words Clancy uttered once the breathing tubes were removed.
“She said to me, as I held her hand to comfort her, ‘I am so glad my children are safe,’” Cavanaugh said. “I replied theologically to Lindsay, and I said, ‘Lindsay, your children are safe. They are safe in Heaven with God.’”
The chaplain further stated that Clancy referenced hearing a persistent male voice. “She alluded to having heard a voice.
And the voice, according to Lindsay, told her that if she did not follow the command, neither she nor her children would not be safe,” Cavanaugh said, adding that discussions of “the voice” arose multiple times during those hospital visits.
Prosecutors quickly challenged the reliability of that account during cross-examination.
Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham noted Cavanaugh’s meticulous written records of the meetings.
The chaplain further stated that Clancy referenced hearing a persistent…
“You wrote very detailed notes,” Buckingham said.
“Yes, I did,” Cavanaugh replied.
“And you never once wrote about the voice, correct?”
Buckingham pressed.
“Correct,” Cavanaugh answered.
The exchange underscored a recurring theme in the trial: defense experts and witnesses describing auditory commands and mental collapse after the fact, while contemporaneous medical documentation often lacks those specific details.
Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder.
Her attorneys acknowledge she caused the children’s deaths but argue she lacked criminal responsibility due to severe postpartum psychosis, a condition they claim left her unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions or conform her conduct to the law.
On Wednesday, forensic psychologist Dr. Paul Zeizel, who met with…
On Wednesday, forensic psychologist Dr. Paul Zeizel, who met with Clancy dozens of times after the incident, concluded his testimony by affirming the defense’s central claim.
Under questioning from Reddington, Zeizel agreed that Clancy had lost substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform to the requirements of the law because of mental illness.
Reddington asked about records from January 7, 2023—two weeks before the killings—regarding intrusive thoughts.
“Did she have, at this point, intrusive thoughts continuing regarding voices in her head that she heard constantly?” Reddington asked. “Yes,” Zeizel said.
“What were these voices saying to her?” Reddington followed. “They were getting worse, and they were telling her to kill herself,” Zeizel replied.
Yet under cross-examination, Buckingham highlighted the absence of such reports in the actual clinical records from September 2022 through late January 2023.
“My question to you, though, was where in the records from September to Jan. 23 or Jan. 22 did she tell any of the providers she saw that she heard a voice telling her to kill herself?” Buckingham asked.
“It’s not in the records,” Zeizel acknowledged.
Buckingham further asked how many times Clancy had reported currently hearing voices in the years since the killings.
“She has not heard voices since the event took place in 2023,” Zeizel said.
Prosecutors also reviewed hospital notes from Tewksbury State Hospital marking the anniversaries of the children’s deaths and their birthdays, pointing out that staff recorded no unusual behavioral health issues on those emotionally charged dates.
Earlier in the defense case, former medical examiner Dr. Elizabeth Laposata detailed the injuries Clancy sustained in the fall from the window, including spinal damage and cutting injuries, in an apparent effort to rebut any suggestion that the suicide attempt was less severe than claimed.
Dr. Donald Condie reviewed outpatient records and described symptoms consistent with postpartum depression, including anxiety and brain fog.
Clancy’s former mother-in-law, Susan Clancy, a longtime labor and delivery nurse, described her as “very nurturing, very loving” and “a wonderful mother” who “loved her children, all of them, very, very much,” while noting Lindsay had sought help for sadness and insomnia in late 2022.
For many following the proceedings, the central question remains whether…
For many following the proceedings, the central question remains whether claims of auditory hallucinations and psychosis—emerging most vividly after the fact—should absolve a parent of responsibility for the deliberate strangulation of three defenseless children.
The prosecution continues to probe inconsistencies between post-incident statements and the contemporaneous medical record, while the defense insists the evidence shows a mother overwhelmed by untreated mental illness.
