Prosecution argued Clancy was not psychotic during January 2023 killings
The prosecution in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial rested its case Monday in Plymouth County, Mass., after presenting evidence prosecutors said showed the 36-year-old was not experiencing psychosis when she fatally strangled her three young children at their home on Jan. 24, 2023.
The defense does not dispute that Clancy killed the children — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months — but argues she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis.
Plymouth County prosecutors said Clancy committed the killings while her then-husband, Patrick, was out of the house. She then jumped from a second-story window and was paralyzed from the waist down, according to the prosecution’s account.
Witnesses for the prosecution testified about Clancy’s struggles with her mental health around the time of the killings. The defense opened its case Monday with witnesses including Margaret Hamp, a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital who was a former co-worker of Clancy’s, along with Clancy’s daughter, Allison Ozga, and her mother, Paula Musgrove.
The final prosecution witness was Ian Whiffin, a customer engagement manager at a digital forensics company who served as an expert witness for the prosecution in both trials of Karen Read. Read was found not guilty in the 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe.
Earlier coverage documented the prosecution’s presentation of internet-search records it said showed Clancy planned the killings and faked a suicide attempt afterward, along with testimony from a psychiatric nurse practitioner who treated Clancy before the killings about Clancy’s reports of hopelessness. The defense’s case is now underway.