Lindsay Clancy trial live: Journals and doctors take stage
The Lindsay Clancy trial live feed resumes Tuesday in Plymouth as jurors weigh emotional journal excerpts and psychiatric testimony from Monday. Clancy faces first-degree murder charges for strangling her three children in 2023. She admits the killings but pleads not guilty by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis; prosecutors say she acted deliberately and meticulously.
Key Takeaways
- Jurors heard Clancy’s journal entries describing overwhelm, insomnia, and a plea for help before the January 2023 killings.
- A psychiatrist said Clancy was “calm and cooperative” days later, with organized thoughts and no reported hallucinations that day.
- The defense argues postpartum psychosis; prosecutors allege deliberate, meticulous intent.
- Tuesday’s livestream features medical testimony, including South Shore Hospital surgeon Cristina Carpio.
What is happening in the Lindsay Clancy trial live today?
According to Boston.com, the Lindsay Clancy trial live coverage continues Tuesday after a marathon Monday of police and medical testimony. On the stand today is Cristina Carpio, a general surgeon at South Shore Hospital.
Clancy, now 35, is charged with first-degree murder in the strangling deaths of 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan Clancy at the family’s Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023. She does not deny killing her children but has pleaded not guilty under an insanity defense tied to postpartum mental illness.
Readers following True Crime & Unsolved Mysteries coverage will find this case turns on criminal responsibility, not whether the deaths occurred.
What did jurors hear from Clancy’s journals?
On Monday, jurors heard excerpts police seized from Clancy’s home. In one entry she allegedly wrote she was “completely overwhelmed” caring for three kids and felt like she was “drowning every day,” adding, “I want help. I want to be well.”
Other passages described “horrible insomnia and anxiety,” guilt over finances and switching from breastfeeding to formula, and a mind that “never shuts off.” A Nov. 18, 2022 entry said she was “so desperate to get a mental break” that her mind seemed to invent physical problems.
Detectives also described books and notebooks on postpartum depression and anxiety in a kitchen cabinet, including a largely blank postpartum anxiety workbook and the book “Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts.”
How are doctors describing Clancy’s mental state after the killings?
CNN reported that Dr. Sejal Shah examined Clancy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in late January and February 2023. Shah said Clancy was “calm and cooperative,” denied suicidal or homicidal intentions and hallucinations that day, and showed an “organized,” “goal-directed” thought process.
On cross-examination, Shah agreed Clancy was an “honest” patient and that someone can communicate and plan while still in psychosis. Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jhilam Biswas said Clancy, still intubated on Jan. 26, wrote she felt “horrified,” asked for an attorney, and inquired whether her body was broken and where her family was.
Emergency physician Dr. Kelly McDonough testified Clancy suffered a thoracic spine injury that left her paralyzed after jumping from a second-story window in a suicide attempt. Prosecutors say she killed the children with exercise resistance bands before that attempt; the defense says she heard a voice and was not criminally responsible.