PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial are set to return for their third day of deliberations 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. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The 12 regular jurors and six alternates began deliberating on 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.
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. Clancy's sentence could be as severe as life in prison, or she could be released or remain confined in a mental health facility if acquitted.
All three children — Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months — were strangled with exercise bands in the family's basement in their home in coastal Duxbury, Massachusetts, before Clancy tried to kill herself while her husband was getting takeout and at a pharmacy on Jan. 24, 2023.
Clancy, 36, who grew up in Wallingford, Connecticut.