Shortcut: The Unresolved Case of Lindsay Clancy - ATC International

Meshel Laurie (0:02)

This is Australian True Crime International. In January 2023, American woman Lindsay Clancy killed her three young children, Cora, Dawson and Callan, strangling them with the exercise bands in the basement of their home. She then attempted to take her own life. She survived, but suffered life altering injuries and is now confined to a wheelchair.

None of that is under dispute. What does have the world divided is whether she should be treated like a murderer and imprisoned for life or like a woman suffering from extreme mental illness and treated in hospital. Last week, the six-week criminal trial of Lindsay Clancy collapsed after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.

We now know that 11 jurors agreed that she should be found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity, but that one juror, a man, refused to agree to that proposition. Despite admitting he held reasonable doubt about her sanity at the time of the crimes. Margaret McLean is a former criminal prosecutor and trial attorney who now teaches law at Boston College. She also hosts The Margaret McLean Show, providing legal analysis and live stream coverage of major criminal trials. She's been following the Clancy trial very closely and she joins us to talk about it.

This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Culin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

Margaret McLean (1:38)

So Lindsay Clancy was a mother of three beautiful young children and she had just given birth to the baby.

She was actually a nurse at the Mass General Hospital, a labor and delivery nurse, believe it or not. And so they lived in this beautiful South Shore town, so south of Boston, and she started not feeling very well. So she thought she had postpartum depression, and she went to see various providers. She felt anxious, she didn't feel herself. She saw different providers. She just didn't, nothing really helped. So she ultimately checked herself into McLean Hospital, which is an institution. She stayed for a little less than five days, checked herself out. So it was not long after that, that she sent her husband Patrick on errands to go get, take out for the family at the 3V restaurant, and also to pick up a prescription for Cora.

So Patrick left the house and they had their, they had a happy marriage. There was no indication that there was anything wrong with their marriage, no affairs, nothing like that. So Patrick leaves the house. And during that particular timeframe, Lindsay took her children down to the basement.

She allegedly heard a voice commanding her to kill the three children first and then take her own life. So she took an exercise band to each child individually, and pulled it until the child was incapacitated. And then she went upstairs, two flights. She allegedly cut herself with a knife, with a kitchen knife on the wrists and on her neck. And ultimately, she jumped out the window and became a paraplegic. So she's on her back. Patrick comes home, and first of all, he goes into the house, and it's eerily silent. Like they have three little kids. We're talking a five-year-old, a toddler, and a baby, right? So it's very quiet. So he goes upstairs. He sees that the window is wide open. It's January, and he sees droplets of blood. So he runs outside, out to the back of the house, and he sees his wife lying on the ground. And she's able, he says, what did you do? I tried to kill myself. Where are the kids? They're in the basement. So he rushes over to the basement, and he finds each of the two of the children, you know, all three of them with exercise bands around them. The emergency, the ambulance came, the police came.

I believe two of the children were pronounced dead at the scene, and the baby died three days later. So ultimately the DA, Tim Cruz, brought first degree murder charges against Lindsay Clancy, and she was held without bail to, she's in Tewksbury Hospital still, which is a facility designed for somebody, waiting trial designed for someone with a mental illness. And she, it's a locked facility so she can't get out. That's how it started.

Meshel Laurie (4:56)

Could you tell us the difference please between postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis, which her defense team says that she was afflicted by?

Margaret McLean (5:06)

Yes. So postpartum depression is when some, back in the day it was referred to as the baby blues. But when someone, you give birth to a child and you feel depressed, you don't feel yourself. I mean, in severe cases, you feel suicidal and need medical attention. But postpartum psychosis is something altogether much different. It's when described by these experts at trial, when someone's in such a severe state of psychosis that they are really out of their mind. And in this particular case, Lindsay Clancy was hearing a commanding voice. I'd say you're untethered from reality. And according to our law, it means that you don't understand, you don't understand that what you're doing is wrong and you're unable to stop yourself because you're in such a severe state of mental anguish.