Lindsay Clancy trial live updates: Doc who treated daughter Cora, 5, on her last day paints tragic picture of hours before stranglings
Editor’s note: Coverage of this case is disturbing. Scroll with discretion.
Lindsay Clancy and her eldest child seemed “very normal” to the family pediatrician who treated Cora, 5, mere hours before the killer mom strangled her daughter and her two young sons in 2023.
The doctor told the 18-person jury Thursday at the Massachusetts murder trial that she “always thought [Lindsay] was a good mom.”
Clancy, 35, doesn’t contest that she killed her three young kids with exercise bands in the basement of the family’s Duxbury, Mass. home in January 2023, while experiencing a slew of postpartum mental illnesses.
The labor and delivery nurse is charged with three counts of murder and faces life in prison without parole if convicted.
Clancy’s defense argues that she is not criminally responsible for killing Cora, Dawson, 3, and infant Callan because she was suffering at the time from the rare, severe phenomenon of postpartum psychosis exacerbated by a dangerous cocktail of 15 psychiatric medications, despite seeking mental health treatment for months.
Follow The Post’s live updates on the Lindsay Clancy murder trial for the latest news in the gut-wrenching case:
Lindsay Clancy, 5-year-old daughter Cora both seemed normal during physical just hours before stranglings: pediatrician
Pediatrician Lindsay Rosshirt conducted a physical of Lindsay Clancy’s 5-year-old daughter Cora the day of the murders and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, she testified.
“It was a very normal visit,” Rosshirt said of the Jan. 24, 2023 physical. “Cora seemed to be behaving normally…I didn’t notice anything out of the normal. She seemed perfectly well-behaved and mom seemed appropriate as well.”
The doctor said nothing seemed out of the ordinary that day.
Cora had had stomach aches so Rosshirt recommended Clancy give her a children’s laxative and come back in two weeks if things didn’t improve, she said.
Clancy’s then-husband and the children’s father, Patrick Clancy, was out picking up the medicine at a nearby CVS that evening while Lindsay was home alone with all three kids, and killed them.
Rosshirt also said during the check-ups of Clancy’s youngest child, 8-month-old Callan, she never noted any signs of postpartum depression in Clancy — something she would lookout for in mom’s of newborns.
“I always thought she was a good mom,” Rosshirt said during cross-examination by Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington.
Lindsay Clancy told good friend about sleep, anxiety problems, but never opened up about suicidal thoughts: testimony
Bethany Decollibus, a good friend of Lindsay Clancy, told the jury that Clancy told her she had trouble sleeping and had anxiety, but never opened up about having suicidal thoughts.
“She mentioned feeling anxious,” said Decollibus, a marriage therapist.
At the birthday party for Clancy’s daughter Cora in January 2023 — the same month of the murders — a concerned Decollibus asked Clancy about her ongoing struggles with insomnia.
“She responded that things hadn’t gotten any better and she felt like a zombie,” Decollibus recalled.
When asked if Clancy ever confided in her about having suicidal or homicidal thoughts, Decollibus answered no. Clancy also never told her about hearing voices.
Lindsay Clancy confided in coworkers about mental health struggles: testimony
One of Lindsay Clancy’s co-workers, Andrea Hennigan, testified that the labor and delivery nurse confided in her and two other co-workers about her mental health struggles.
Hennigan — a nurse at Mass General Hospital’s birthing ward where Clancy worked — said she kept in touch with the mom of three during her maternity leave in 2022.
At one lunch that November, Clancy told Hennigan and two other nurses that “she wasn’t in a mental state or ready to go and take care of patients. She talked about insomnia and not feeling herself. I believe she might have used the words ‘brain fog,'” Hennigan told the jury.
Then Hennigan and the two other nurses reached out asking to set up another visit with Clancy who texted them that “I can’t get together right now because I’m involved in an intensive program but hopefully soon.”
Hennigan texted Clancy on Jan. 23, 2023, the day before the murders, telling her she was thinking about Clancy.
“I’m no longer in the program,” Hennigan recounted Clancy’s text response. “I’m continuing to work with my psychiatrists to find the right medication that will allow me to sleep at night but still function during the day.”
“I’ve had a lot of bad or negative side effects from the medications so I’ve had to come off of them and it’s been very difficult or it’s taken a long time or something like that,” Hennigan recalled of Clancy’s text.
“Lindsay was a very loving, carrying mother. This was exactly what she wanted. She wanted a big family and she was happy to have her kids close in age,” Hennigan said on cross-examination.
