Lindsay Clancy's Officer Said She Was Dying That Night

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:07)
I don't know what's wrong with me. I want help. I want to be well.
Lindsay Clancy wrote that in a journal in her own handwriting months before. She allegedly killed her three children in the basement of her Duxbury, Massachusetts home. The jury in Plymouth Superior Court heard those words read aloud on the fifth day of testimony. They'd already spent the entire morning listening to doctors describe what happened to those children's bodies, the diary entries in the medical testimony. Same courtroom. Same dramatic day. The morning started with doctors, Dr. Michael Snyder from Beth Israel. Deaconess Hospital in Plymouth testified first. All three Clancy children arrived at the hospital in cardiac arrest on July 24th, 23 Paramedics had been performing CPR and using defibrillators in the ambulances, advanced life support the entire ride. Five-year-old Cora had no heartbeat when she reached the emergency room. She wasn't breathing on her own. Doctors found bruising around her neck and bleeding beneath the skin. They intubated her, listened for a heartbeat, used ultrasound for a direct view of cardiac function after 30 minutes of treatment. Cora was declared dead at 7:28 p.m. She was five. Eight-month-old Callan arrived at Boston Children's Hospital, cold and limp, ligature marks visible on his neck, swelling, but his heart was still beating. Doctors placed him on life support. Callan held on for three more days. Three-year-old Dawson was pronounced dead. Cora followed within the hour. Two of the three Clancy children gone this same night. Dr. Andrew Caparo from Boston Children's ER testified about treating Callan. The baby and the baby's head, CT, showed significant brain swelling from oxygen deprivation. He needed a ventilator to breathe, though according to Capriar, the baby was trying to breathe on his own. Then Dr. David Casavant from the hospital's ICU took the stand. Casavant testified that Callan had what he called an enormous amount of brain swelling. The baby didn't respond to any basic neurological tests. Doctors called his name, stroked his foot, pinched him, nothing. Casavant told the jury that the part of the brain that made Callan who he was, had stopped functioning. His heart was still beating because his brain stem was still doing its job, but the part that made him a person, the part that would have recognized his father's voice or reached for a toy was gone.
Brain death testing confirmed it. Patrick Clancy, the man who had pulled exercise band off of his children's three necks days earlier, consulted with doctors about ending life support. The family was given the chance to say goodbye. Life support was withdrawn on January 27th to 23, and Callan's heart stopped. Three children three days apart and a father who had to make that decision while his ex-wife was intubated in a different hospital across the city. Because while Callan was on life support, Lindsay Clancy was waking up at Brigham and Women's Hospital. The first thing she wrote on a whiteboard wasn't about her children. Dr. Kelly McDonough, an ER physician at South Shore Hospital testified about treating Lindsay Clancy the night of the killings. She arrived unresponsive but breathing on her own, moving her arms but not her legs. McDonough ordered CT scans from her head to her pelvis. The head CT came back clean. McDonough called it a normal study, no brain injury, no hemorrhaging, nothing remarkable on her imaging. Her spine was a different story though entirely. A thoracic injury that would leave her paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of her life. Her neck and wrists, those wounds, were what McDonough described as superficial lacerations. No arterial damage. They didn't require immediate medical attention. According to McDonough's testimony, the cuts never started bleeding again after Lindsay arrived at the hospital. Her body temperature had dropped to 82.1 degrees, likely from lying outside in the January snow after her fall from the second story window. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington pressed McDonough on cross-examination. Lindsay wasn't verbally responsive, but she did respond to pain stimuli. She never regained consciousness in that emergency room. Reddington drew attention to the severity of the spinal damage sparring with McDonough over which vertebrae were affected and what the damage meant. McDonough didn't have her notes in front of her. There are a lot of I don't recall responses. The wrist cuts Reddington established were not deep. Spinal injuries were the urgent concern. Grindseam technician Rose Stauffers from Massachusetts State Police was sent to South Shore Hospital to photograph Lindsay's injuries. She found her under blankets and a neck brace. Stouffer's tried to pull Lindsay's right arm out to photograph the wrist cuts Lindsay pulled back. Lindsay was transferred to Brigham and Women's overnight because South Shore didn't have the capability to treat injuries this severe. She arrived around 3:30 a.m. and immediately coated. Her blood pressure dropped to a level that could not sustain life. Doctors performed a massive transfusion. She stabilized. But Lindsay Clancy nearly died that night in the same city where her son was on life support. Three hospitals away.