In the latest update regarding the murder trial of mother-of three Lindsay Clancy, prosecutors state Clancy will be permitted to play her husband’s anguished emergency call in court.
Clancy, 35, is accused of ruthlessly murdering her three children – Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan – back in January 2023.
Judge F. Sullivan ruled Thursday that he will allow the jury to hear an audio recording of the call, after he provides a limiting instruction to the panel to consider it not for it’s emotiveness but for evidentiary value, court records show.
The mother of three has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder, with attorneys arguing she was legally insane and suffering from postpartum depression and severe psychosis.
However prosecutors allege the former labor nurse with a duty of care, savagely strangled her three young children with exercise bands inside the family’s Duxbury home on January 24, 2023, after sending her unsuspecting husband, Patrick Clancy, out to collect takeout from a restaurant about 25 minutes away.
Authorities allege Clancy then turned the violence on herself, cutting her wrists and neck before leaping from a second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt.
The mother of three survived the fall but suffered spinal injuries that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
Upon returning home from the food run Patrick Clancy found his wife gravely injured outside the family home and placed the desperate 911 call.
In a new ruling made on Thursday, Jurors will hear the haunting 911 call made by Clancy’s husband as he discovers the lifeless bodies of their three children
The alleged murders happened on January 24, 2023, in their Duxbury , Massachusetts, home that she shared with her husband Patrick
Lindsay’s children Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, eight months, who were allegedly strangled to death with exercises bands by their mother
Still on the phone with dispatchers, he rushed inside in a frantic search for Cora, Dawson and baby Callan.
Instead, court filings say, the devastated father stumbled upon an unimaginable scene in the basement.
His anguished cries echoed down the 911 line as he screamed: ‘She killed the kids!’
Prosecutors argued the recording is one of the most significant pieces of evidence in the case because Patrick Clancy can allegedly be heard desperately pulling the exercise bands from around his children’s necks.
‘The fact that Mr Clancy was able to remove each band so quickly is probative of whether the defendant tied the bands around the neck of each child and walked away, or whether she manually pulled the bands around each child’s neck until they died,’ prosecutors stated.
They concluded that the audio supports their contention that the bands had been manually tightened rather than tied or knotted, reinforcing allegations that the killings were carried out with deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty.
Judge William Sullivan ruled Monday that jurors will hear the recording during trial. He has also ruled prosecutors may show autopsy photographs of the three children, subject to further decisions over which images will ultimately be admitted.
The latest courtroom victory for prosecutors comes as the heartbreaking case has grown into a wider legal battle over the psychiatric treatment Clancy received before the deaths.
Lindsay was described as a loving mother who said she wanted to have more children, now prosecutors claim that she acted out of a premediated plan to strangle her children
Lindsay and Patrick Clancy posed with their children, her lawyers plans to pursue an insanity defense, saying she was suffering from post-partum depression and even psychosis caused by a cocktail of prescription drugs
Patrick, Lindsay’s husband, has forgiven her and filed a suit against her doctors. He is shown with the children, Cora, Dawson, and baby Callan
Earlier this year, Patrick Clancy filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing multiple doctors and healthcare providers of failing to recognize his wife’s rapidly deteriorating mental state while prescribing her a succession of powerful psychiatric medications in the weeks before the children were killed.
Clancy later filed her own malpractice lawsuit making similar allegations, claiming she was prescribed a dangerous cocktail of medications without proper oversight and that her providers failed to diagnose an underlying bipolar disorder, instead exposing her to treatment that she says triggered a catastrophic psychotic break.
The lawsuit was filed against Dr Jennifer Tufts, nurse Rebecca Jollotta, Aster Mental Health Inc, and South Shore Health System.
The lawsuit also claims she checked into Women & Infants Hospital for postpartum depression, where staff suspected her deteriorating mental health were caused by misdiagnosis and overmedication.
The mother also checked into McLean Hospital, a psychiatric treatment facility, but discharged herself days later after stating she didn’t belong there, Daily Mail previously reported.
Those civil lawsuits mirror the central argument expected to underpin her criminal defense.
Her attorney, Kevin Reddington, has argued Clancy was taking a concoction of 13 psychiatric medications and was suffering from severe postpartum mental illness as she battled with ‘homicidal ideation and suicidal thoughts’ that left her incapable of appreciating the wrongfulness of her actions.
Prosecutors fiercely dispute that account, insisting the mother carefully orchestrated the killings by creating a window of time after sending her husband out for takeout.
They also countered that Clancy was evaluated by medical professionals and was not diagnosed with postpartum depression.
However, Reddington has indicated he will pursue an insanity defense at trial.
Should juror’s acquit Clancy under the insanity plea, the mother would not roam free but alternatively be sent to a state psychiatric facility where she’d come up for periodic reviews to determine whether she is able to be reinstated in the community again.
The high profile trial is expected to begin July 20 in Plymouth Superior Court.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Lindsey’s lawyer, Aster Mental Health Inc and South Shore Health System for comment.
If you or someone you know needs help, please call or text the confidential 24/7 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US on 988. There is also an online chat available at 988lifeline.org.
