“But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”~Amos 5:24
The known facts about Lindsay Clancy, age 36, are simple and indisputable.
MASSACHUSETTES LIVE – Luis Fieldman
Timeline of events on Jan. 24, 2023
Before 4 p.m. Lindsay Clancy took her 5-year-old daughter, Cora, to a pediatrician appointment, interacting with a receptionist, nursing staff and a doctor.
“There were apparently no issues with the defendant’s demeanor or behavior” as Clancy completed the appointment with her daughter and left without “issues or concerns,” according to [Jennifer] Sprague, the prosecutor at the arraignment.
When Clancy came home, she went outside with Cora and her 3-year-old son, Dawson, to play in the snow. They built a snowman, Sprague said.
Clancy also sent photos to her mother and husband and “nothing in the text was out of the ordinary or any sign of any distress or trouble.”
4:02 p.m. Lindsay Clancy searched her phone for Miralax [constipation relief] for kids.
4:13 p.m. She searched for takeout from ThreeV, a Plymouth restaurant. Immediately after that, Clancy used Apple Maps on her phone to figure out how long it would take someone to drive from her home from Duxbury to the restaurant, according to Sprague.
“She would know how long someone would be gone if they were in that errand,” Sprague said.
4:47 p.m. Clancy went to the CVS website and called the store branch on Summer Street in Kingston. She spoke with the manager of the store and asked if they had Miralax medicine for kids. The manager said they did not, but there were other similar medicines available.
Sprague said the manager told investigators Clancy’s voice did not sound slurred or impaired in any way. “It was a perfectly normal conversation.”
4:53 p.m. Clancy texted her husband, Patrick, who was working in his home office in the basement, and she asked, “Any chance you want to do take out from ThreeV? I didn’t cook anything.”
Sprague alleged this was an “unusual request” because the family typically orders take-out from somewhere close to home, but admitted the family had been to this restaurant in the past. Patrick texted back “Yes” and Clancy asked him to check the menu.
5:06 p.m. Patrick texted his wife asking what she was going to get. Clancy said a Mediterranean power bowl. Patrick said he would get the scallop and pork belly risotto.
5:10 p.m. Clancy called ThreeV and placed the order. “The hostess who took the call said there was nothing out of the ordinary about this call.” Clancy got the order correctly, gave the correct name for pickup as Patrick, and her voice was not “slurred or impaired,” Sprague said.
5:15 p.m. Patrick left the house to run the errands and Clancy texted him with items to pick up.
5:32 p.m. Surveillance footage shows Patrick at CVS on Summer Street in Kingston, where he went to the children’s medication aisle.
5:33 p.m. Phone records show that Patrick called his wife and she did not answer the phone.
5:34 p.m. Clancy called Patrick back and the call lasted 14 seconds. “He’s there at the store, unsure of which medication to get, and she tells him exactly what she wants. He had no issues communicating with her. It was a completely normal call. Although he did mention that she seemed like she was in the middle of something,” according to Sprague.
5:37 p.m. Patrick made the purchase and left the store.
5:54 p.m. Patrick is seen on surveillance footage at ThreeV restaurant. He picked up the food and was out of there within a minute.
At about 6 p.m. Patrick arrived home and “the first thing he noticed was the silence,” Sprague said. Patrick did not see or hear Clancy or the children.
At and after 6:09 p.m. Patrick called her cell phone looking for his family and she did not answer. He went to the bedroom on the second floor and the door was locked. He was able to open it and when he looked inside, he saw blood on the floor in front of a full-length mirror and the window open.
Immediately, he ran downstairs into the backyard where he found Clancy lying on the ground. Patrick called 911. His wife appeared to have cuts on her wrist and neck but Patrick told 911 those wounds were no longer bleeding and she was conscious.
At this time, Patrick asked, “what did you do?” Clancy reportedly said, “I tried to kill myself and jump out the window.”
Patrick can be heard on a 911 call asking her “where are the kids?” He later told police she had said “in the basement.”
“Immediately after this happened, she knew what she had done and she knew where the kids were,” Sprague said.
When EMS arrived, Patrick asked them to stay with Clancy so he could find his kids. The 911 call keeps going, and Patrick was heard going back into the house and into the basement. He called out for his kids and is heard on the 911 call screaming in shock after finding them.
Patrick found each child with exercise bands used to strangle them tied around their necks, according to Sprague. He yelled out for the police to come down to the basement and dispatchers could hear him on the call. Police rushed the children to ambulances that brought them to the hospital and Cora and Dawson were declared dead there.
Callan, an infant, was put on a medical helicopter to Boston Children’s Hospital, where medical staff were able to restart his heart but not his brain activity. He was placed on life support and died three days later.
Clancy was brought to South Shore Hospital and then to a Boston-area hospital, where she remained with several broken bones in her back and her ribcage.
Friday, Jan. 27 Callan Clancy died after turning 8 months old.
Using an erasable whiteboard because she was still temporarily intubated, Clancy wrote a question. “Do I need an attorney?”
Always in Touch with “External Reality”
Sprague said, “She [Lindsay Clancy] knew that she had murdered her children and she had the clarity, focus and mental acumen to focus on protecting her own rights and interests.”
Sunday, Feb. 5, 1:35 p.m. While sitting with a psychologist hired by her defense attorney to evaluate her mental state, Clancy called her husband using the doctor’s cell phone. She left a voicemail stating she loved him.
Monday, Feb. 6, 10:09 a.m. Clancy again used the doctor’s cell phone to call her husband. This time, he answered, and during their conversation, Clancy said that after Patrick left the house on Jan. 24, she killed the kids because she “heard a voice and had quote a moment of psychosis.”
Patrick asked what voices she heard and she said she “heard a man’s voice telling her to kill the kids and kill herself because it was her last chance.”
The Defense of Lindsay Clancy
Needing a defense after her arrest, Linsay Clancy settled on diverting personal responsibility for her actions to postpartum psychosis, excessive medication, and the compelling command of a mysterious male voice to kill her children.
Psychosis has been defined as “a severe mental condition in which thought and emotions are so affected that contact is lost with external reality.”
External Reality in turn is identified as “the objective physical world that exists independently of individual perception or thought. It encompasses all objects, events, and entities that can be observed and interacted with, forming the basis of our shared experience of the world.”
So, the question the jury must deliberate is whether Lindsay Clancy lost touch with “external reality” at any time in general, and when strangling her children in particular.
The timeline of her actions in life, right up to the moment of her arrest, indicates that Lindsay never lost touch with external reality. Indeed, her well thought out plan was executed within a short framework of time. Step by step, hour by hour, moment by moment, Lindsay carried out the reality of her plan to kill her children, and then attempt suicide.
What Should be Done?
When the known evidence is reviewed by the jury, one can hope that justice will prevail.
Justice will be honored when a mother who, for self-centered reasons, planned and executed her own children is found guilty in the first degree in the eyes of the Law.
Justice will be satisfied when the penalty of death is imposed.
The death penalty is warranted for the punishment fits the crime.
The death penalty is warranted to demonstrate the value of a life, and in this case, three children.
The death penalty is warranted in order to prevent the mother from killing again.
The death penalty is warranted to bring closure to friends, family, and loved ones of the victims.
The death penalty is warranted as a matter of public safety as others are warned of receiving the same fate.
The death penalty is warranted so that the guilty is not a further burden on society with the long-term cost of incarceration.
Therefore,
“Let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
~Amos 5:24
Safe in Heaven
If there is a silver lining in this tragic story, it is that despite the horrific way in which they died, Cora, Dawson, and Callan will never again be hurt by their mother, or anyone else. They are safe in the arms of Jesus, surrounded by the love of God the Father, and looked after by the saints and angels. Soon, these little ones will sing the songs of Zion, one of which says this.
Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong;
they are weak, but He is strong.Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.Jesus loves me He who died
heaven’s gate to open wide.
He will wash away my sin,
let His little child come in.Jesus loves me, this I know,
as He loved so long ago,
taking children on His knee,
saying, “Let them come to me.”
The Collected Works of Stanford E. Murrell 