Lindsay Clancy updates: Jury deliberations continue for a third day Monday

Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial resumed deliberating for a third day Monday to determine whether to hold the former labor and delivery nurse criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023 — a case that has drawn attention to maternal mental health after childbirth.

The 12 regular jurors and six alternates began discussing the case Thursday in Plymouth County Superior Court after hearing testimony from more than 70 prosecution witnesses, including her then-husband, and 10 defense witnesses over five weeks.

While Clancy doesn’t deny strangling her children, her lawyer said she did it because she had lost her grip on reality due to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth. In the months before the killings, Clancy sought treatment for her worsening mental health, including a stay in a psychiatric hospital.

Prosecutors said Clancy knew what she was doing. They say she strangled the children because she was depressed and tired of living, and made a conscious choice to kill them before attempting suicide.

Here’s what to know as the case rests in the hands of the jury:

Who is Lindsay Clancy?

Clancy, 36, is a Massachusetts woman who is charged with murder in the deaths of her children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. She hasn’t disputed killing them but has pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

Clancy was on maternity leave from her job as a labor and delivery nurse when the children were strangled on Jan. 24, 2023. She has been in custody since.

What happened to her family?

The children were strangled with exercise bands in their home. Their father, Patrick Clancy, discovered them in the basement when he returned from errands Lindsay Clancy had asked him to run. He found her badly injured in the yard, where she landed after jumping from a second-story window.

She remains paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair.

According to court testimony and exhibits, Clancy’s psychiatric decline began about three months after Callan was born, as she looked ahead to returning to work. Starting in September 2022, she sought help from multiple providers and programs, even checking herself into a psychiatric hospital for several days in early January 2023.

Her defense maintains that her care was disjointed and that her medications were poorly managed or even improper. Clancy and her husband have separately sued several people who treated her. Those claims haven’t yet played out in civil court.

Prosecutors sought to underscore that Clancy had ample access to care but sometimes disregarded providers’ advice, switched among providers and stopped taking certain medications. The clinicians testified that although she reported feeling suicidal, she denied having a plan to harm herself or anyone else and didn’t exhibit signs of mania or psychosis.

According to Clancy’s mother, however, Clancy told her mom and then-husband in December 2022 that she thought about harming the children.

What to know about the trial

The trial hinges on Lindsay Clancy’s mental health and whether she understood that killing the children was wrong.

Prosecutors contend that she did and that she acted intentionally. They noted she was involved in everyday activities the day of the killings, such as taking her children to the doctor and playing with them in the snow. The prosecution claims she deliberately sent her then-husband on errands to get him out of the house, and prosecutors have questioned the seriousness of her suicide attempt.

Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, maintains that she was so mentally ill that she shouldn’t be held criminally responsible for the killings. According to her defense, she had bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis and, ultimately, it led her to believe she heard a voice telling her to kill the children so she could end her own life.

In diary entries Clancy wrote in the months before the killings, she described feeling anxious, overwhelmed, preoccupied with the details of her infant’s care, beset by “brain fog,” and “desperate to get a mental break from taking care of everyone.”

Both the prosecution and the defense have drawn on expert testimony to support their contrasting views of Clancy’s mental state at the time of the killings.

One forensic psychiatrist, testifying for the defense, said Clancy was “clearly psychotic” and held a delusional belief that her children would be better off dying with her than being left behind. The prosecution’s experts agreed that she had serious psychological problems, but said she wasn’t psychotic. They also questioned Clancy’s account of being commanded by a voice and asserted that she knew right from wrong and had control of her behavior.

How soon could a verdict come?

The 12 regular jurors and six alternates returned to the courtroom Monday after failing to reach a verdict on Friday and being excused for the weekend.

Clancy’s lawyer Kevin Reddington says he has “no way of knowing” how long jury will take on verdict

What are the charges the jury is deliberating on?

If Clancy is convicted, her sentence could be as severe as life in prison without the possibility of parole. If she’s found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, the court will decide whether she can be released from custody or should remain confined in a state mental health facility.

The jury could find her guilty of murder or the lesser crime of manslaughter, or it could acquit her if it finds that she wasn’t in control of herself due to psychiatric problems.

If the jury can’t reach a verdict, prosecutors would have to decide whether to retry the case. If a mistrial were declared for some other reason, the next steps could depend on the circumstances.

In his instructions, Judge William Sullivan told the jury that they will consider three counts of murder in the first degree for each of the children but can consider murder in the second degree.

“If you find the defendant guilty of murder you shall decide the degree of murder,” he told the jury.

The judge said a defendant may form the required intent needed to prove a murder charge and act with premeditation even if she suffered from a mental impairment or consumed prescription.

Similar cases have led to insanity verdicts.

Possibly the best-known is Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in a bathtub in Texas in 2001. Her attorneys said she suffered from postpartum psychosis and believed killing her children would save them from hell.

Her initial murder conviction was overturned, and in a retrial she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state mental hospital.

What is postpartum psychosis?

It’s a rare and serious condition that can cause disorganized thinking, delusions, hallucinations and other symptoms. It affects an estimated one to two out of 1,000 women after childbirth, but the risk is somewhat higher for people with certain mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder.

Postpartum psychosis is different from postpartum depression, a more common mood disorder.

Experts at the Cleveland Clinic describe it as a mental health emergency affecting someone’s sense of reality.

“[Mothers] don’t behave like themselves. In fact, they start lose touch with reality and symptoms of this illness can wax and wane. That means that sometimes they might be acting normal or be able to do different things,” said Dr. Susan Feingold, a psychologist who advocates for women with postpartum psychosis and helped create legislation that allowed the condition to be considered a “mitigating circumstance” in criminal proceedings in Illinois. “And other times, they have, you know, they might be having hallucinations or delusions with beliefs, they can be very confused and they don’t understand what’s happening.”

Though most people with postpartum psychosis don’t harm their children, mothers with severe cases may try to do so, and also may try to harm themselves.

Dr. Nicole Cirino of Baylor College of Medicine said women in the grip of postpartum psychosis often believe they are helping their children.

In their own minds, “they may be saving their children from damnation,” Cirino said.

Awareness of postpartum psychosis has grown in recent years, but maternal mental health advocates said it’s rarely considered in criminal prosecutions. Illinois is the only state with a law allowing for undiagnosed or untreated postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis to be a mitigating factor in sentencing.

Symptoms may include hallucinations, delusions, paranoia or other behavior changes. A woman may also have mood changes, such as mania or depression, disorganized thinking or behavior, insomnia, irritability or agitation.