Lindsay Clancy trial in murder of 3 children begins, ex-husband Patrick takes stand

Judge William Sullivan ended court for the day around 3 p.m. with Patrick Clancy, Lindsay’s ex-husband, still on the stand as the first witness.

Something unrelated to the case came up that will cause there to be no testimony on Tuesday. The trial will resume on Wednesday with Patrick Clancy still on the witness stand.

Each day, court will begin around 9 a.m. There is normally a morning recess, then a break from 1 to 2 p.m. 

Once court resumes in the afternoon, testimony will go until about 4 p.m. each day.

The day that Lindsay Clancy has admitted to killing her children was January 24, 2023. 

Patrick Clancy, Lindsay’s ex-husband, testified that the couple exchanged text messages throughout the day while he was working in the basement and she was upstairs playing with the children.

He said that he went upstairs only once or twice to interact with the children because it was a busier work day than usual. 

Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague asked if Lindsay Clancy was having suicidal thoughts that day.

“She was having one of her best days,” Patrick said.

Patrick Clancy testified that on January 16, 2023, he went skiing with 5-year-old Cora and left the family’s two younger children with Lindsay at home.

Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague asked why he felt comfortable doing that, despite Lindsay’s past suicidal tendencies and statements that she had thoughts of harming the children.

“Her mood seemed better. She was more active. She was able to partake in more things,” Patrick Clancy said.

Sprague asked Patrick Clancy if he was hopeful at the time that things were getting better with Lindsay. He said yes. 

On January 8, 2026, the Clancy family went to the Museum of Science in Boston. A week later on January 15, the family went to the Cape Codder resort. 

The prosecutor asked Patrick Clancy, who is no longer married to Lindsay Clancy, about her demeanor during the outings.

He said she seemed “much better.”

Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague showed surveillance footage from the museum, the resort and a water park. Sprague noted that Patrick Clancy was comfortable trusting the children alone with Lindsay while he was not nearby.

Patrick Clancy returned to the stand around 2:15 p.m. after the afternoon recess.

Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague displayed a picture of his daughter Cora, asking if that is what she was like in 2023, around the time Lindsay Clancy was released from McLean Hospital.

Patrick Clancy hesitated and began to become emotional. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington objected and there was a sidebar.

When the sidebar ended, Patrick Clancy described his deceased children, taking deep breathes before answering questions. 

Lindsay Clancy reached for tissues and cried as photos of her three children were displayed on the screen in the courtroom.

Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan said the trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.

The list of potential witnesses has nearly 200 names on it.

If Lindsay Clancy is found guilty of first-degree murder, she faces life in prison without a chance at parole. 

If she’s found not criminally responsible for the deaths of her children, she will be sent to a state mental health facility in Massachusetts.

Watch the complete opening statements from the Lindsay Clancy trial in the video above. 

At 1 p.m. with Patrick Clancy still on the stand, Judge William Sullivan dismissed court for the afternoon recess.

Clancy is expected to continue direct questioning around 2 p.m.

In December 2022, Lindsay Clancy told her father that she wanted to die by suicide, according to her ex-husband Patrick.

Lindsay Clancy was then taken to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. One doctor recommended inpatient treatment at McLean Hospital. Two others recommended a day program in Providence.

She went to the program in Providence, and Patrick would pick her up each day.

By Dec. 31, 2022, Lindsay Clancy was back in an emergency room with concerns about suicide.

“I was exhausted,” Patrick Clancy said. “I said I think it’s time to go to McLean. We didn’t have a diagnosis so we just didn’t know what was wrong. For me, I was just hoping McLean could evaluate her and find out what was wrong.”

After receiving treatment at McLean, Lindsay Clancy began asking to be discharged so she could go to her daughter’s birthday party. On Jan. 5, 2023, she was discharged from McLean Hospital.

In December 2022, Lindsay Clancy switched to a new medication, Patrick Clancy testified.

“That was really where her big spiral started,” he said. “She started to lose a lot of weight, she became really depressed and was having a hard time. She started to say she was suicidal.”

Also in December 2022, Patrick Clancy testified that his wife told him that she was having intrusive thoughts about hurting their children.

“The way she was describing it was that something might happen to the kids,” he said. 

Patrick Clancy said he asked Lindsay if she felt she needed to be kept away from the children. She said she did not.

“It was very confusing because the next minute she was making them lunch or putting them to bed,” he testified. “I never saw Lindsay harm the kids.”

Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague attempted to show that while Lindsay Clancy was prescribed a large amount of drugs, she did not appear to have taken many of them.

Of the prescriptions collected as part of the investigation, most bottles were only missing a small amount of pills, Sprague said.

“There were a lot of pills prescribed, but not a lot of pills taken, correct?” Sprague said.

By Thanksgiving 2022, Patrick Clancy said his wife was “in rough shape, not talking much, low energy, really depressed.” 

In the fall of 2022, Lindsay Clancy asked Patrick to sleep in the basement because she was having trouble sleeping.

“She kept getting worse and worse,” Patrick Clancy said.

Patrick testified that Lindsay switched psychiatrists because whatever she was doing with her current provider, “it wasn’t working.”

After switching to her new provider, Lindsay Clancy came home with different medications. 

Following his children’s deaths, Patrick Clancy provided a bag of prescription medications to the district attorney’s office, in addition to what was taken by Massachusetts State Police that night. 

According to Patrick Clancy, he went to New Hampshire with Lindsay in September 2022 for a wedding. She told him during a walk that she thought she was going to start taking Zoloft.

“I think it’s going to help with my anxiety and going back to work,” Patrick Clancy testified his wife told him.

He said his wife also said she was going to go see a psychiatrist. 

Patrick Clancy said that he later learned Lindsay already had the prescription when she told him about it at the wedding.

She took it for a period of time, but told Patrick that her sleep suffered so she stopped taking it.  

On the witness stand Monday, Patrick Clancy went through details of their three children’s births, and the status of Lindsay Clancy’s mental and physical well being after each.

He said that after each birth, his wife would show anxiety when it was time for her to go back to work at the end of her maternity leave. But he said after Callan, the couple’s youngest child, was born, Lindsay Clancy never went back to work.

“A lot of stress. There were days when she had all three kids, different nap schedules, different needs. It was just really stressful,” he testified.

Two of the children went to daycare four times a week starting in the fall of 2022. At the end of that summer, they also hired a nanny. She was later let go because Lindsay was also at home.  

Patrick Clancy took the stand around 11:45 a.m. as the first witness in the trial.

Patrick and Lindsay Clancy were married at the time their three children were killed, but have since divorced. Patrick Clancy has remarried.

Lindsay and Patrick met in 2013 and started dating, Patrick said on the stand. They moved in together in September 2015.

Patrick Clancy is expected to take the stand, after the morning recess, as the first witness.

His motion to suppress media access to his 911 call and pictures of his deceased children was approved by the judge Friday.  

“The media shall not, record, display, reproduce, distribute or otherwise disseminate” the 911 call or the autopsy photos of the children, Judge William Sullivan wrote in his ruling.  

When those pieces of evidence are shown in the courtroom, the camera will be turned off. 

After about 30 minutes, defense attorney Kevin Reddington concluded his opening statement.

He reiterated to jurors that it will be an emotional trial. But he also tried to once again show that Lindsay Clancy loved her children and only killed them because of her mental health challenges.

“She had no motive. She loved her children,” Reddington said. 

Judge William Sullivan sent jurors out for the morning recess at 11:05 a.m., and Patrick Clancy is set to take the stand when they return. 

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington attempted to highlight Lindsay Clancy’s struggles with mental health.

“She’s living in her own hell. She knows what happened to those kids,” Reddington said. “This is a young woman that, with her husband, tried very hard to get the help she needed.”

Reddington said Clancy had several prescriptions, including Zoloft, that she took for mental health challenges. He said Google searches will show she sought information on postpartum care, ketamine treatment, insomnia and suicidal ideations.

The defense attorney added that Lindsay Clancy told her husband at the time, Patrick Clancy, in front of her mother that she had thoughts of hurting the children.  

Just after 10:30 a.m., defense attorney Kevin Reddington began his opening statement.

“Normally I’d thank you,” Reddington told jurors. “But in this case, God bless you.”

Reddington told jurors that they will have to listen to and see “some of the most horrific things.”

The defense attorney said that Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz brought first-degree murder charges against Lindsay Clancy when he knew “it was going to kill the soul of this young woman.” Reddington added that, “she knows that she killed those children.”

Reddington described Lindsay Clancy as a “heck of a mother” who loved her children. 

The prosecutor said in her opening statement that Lindsay Clancy made a “calculated decision” in killing her children, and was “controlling, meticulous and manipulative.” 

“This is not a public debate about women’s mental health and how the medical system treats women. This case is about this defendant, Lindsay Clancy,” prosecutor Shanan Buckingham said.  

After about 20 minutes, Buckingham concluded her opening statement and the defense took over.

Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham laid out the gruesome details of the night the Clancy allegedly murdered her children.

Buckingham said Clancy sent her husband at the time, Patrick Clancy, for takeout food and to pick up medication. Patrick and Lindsay Clancy have since divorced and he is remarried.

Clancy took the children to the basement, separated them, and allegedly wrapped exercise bands around their necks and pulled the bands tightly. Clancy then cut her wrists and jumped out of a window in the home, which caused her to be paralyzed.

Patrick Clancy returned home, and Buckingham said the home was “eerily quiet.” He entered the basement and found the children, still with exercise bands wrapped around their necks.

“He screams for help, and he says ‘She killed the kids,'” Buckingham said.

With Shanan Buckingham giving her opening statement and describing the murders of Lindsay Clancy’s three young children, Lindsay Clancy could be seen wiping tears away from her face.

Shanan Buckingham gave the opening statement for the prosecution, beginning just after 10:10 a.m.

Buckingham said Dawson, Cora and Callan were “deliberately and meticulously killed” on Jan. 24, 2023.

She urged jurors to keep an open mind while hearing evidence in the case. 

Jury selection, which took place over the course of four days last week, ended with 18 jurors seated.

Candidates were asked about their families’ experience with psychiatrists, psychologists or mental health facilities. Potential jurors were also asked about exposure to postpartum depression and bipolar disorder.  

By the end of the process, 12 women and six men were seated on the jury.

After a pair of sidebars concluded, the jury was called into the courtroom.

Judge William Sullivan asked members of the jury if they have heard anything since last week that would impact their ability to be fair or impartial.

With all jurors answering that they do not have any concerns about sitting on the jury, Sullivan concluded and the jurors were sworn in.

Just before 9:30 a.m., court was called into session.

Immediately after Judge William Sullivan called the case, he summonsed attorneys to sidebar.

Jennifer Sprague is the lead prosecutor for the case.

Kevin Reddington is serving as Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney.

Judge William Sullivan is overseeing the trial, which is taking place in Plymouth Superior Court. 

Patrick Clancy, who was married to Lindsay Clancy at the time of the children’s deaths, is expected to be the first witness to take the stand after opening statements.

The couple is now divorced and Patrick Clancy has remarried. 

On Friday, Judge William Sullivan approved Patrick Clancy’s motion to suppress media access to his 911 call and pictures of his deceased children at the trial. The photos and call will be presented to the jury.  

WBZ-TV legal analyst Jennifer Roman spoke about what can be expected from opening statements, which are set to be presented Monday morning.

“Both sides are going to lean into the very gruesome nature of this alleged crime. But they’re going to take a very different approach,” Roman said. “The prosecution is going to show signs that they think show premeditation, that she had been planning this and thinking about it and being methodical about it. The defense is going to throw the question, I think, back at the jury. How could somebody that’s otherwise been known to be a loving and devoted mother, a caregiver, how could she have done this to her children unless she was suffering from a mental defect.”