New hearing in Lindsay Clancy case after lawyer announces plan to pursue insanity defense

A new court hearing was held Wednesday in the case of Lindsay Clancy, the mother accused of killing her three children inside their home in Duxbury before attempting to take her own life in January 2023.

The hearing came just days after defense attorney Kevin J. Reddington announced that Clancy plans to pursue an insanity defense.

“Statements of the defendant as to her mental condition will be relied upon by the defendant’s expert witnesses and the defendant does intend to present to the court a defense of lack of criminal responsibility,” Reddington wrote in a Plymouth Superior Court filing on Dec. 13, 2024.

Massachusetts’ model jury instructions on homicide state that a defendant’s “lack of criminal responsibility must be due to a mental disease or defect.” It also states that a person is not guilty if they lacked criminal responsibility when they committed the offense, sometimes referred to as “not guilty by reason of insanity.”

Boston attorney Peter told Boston 25′s Bob Ward this is potentially a risky strategy.

“An insanity defense is really difficult to prove. Jurors don’t seem to like it. It’s not like you can walk up with a letter from a psychologist and say he wasn’t in his right mind, so let him off. It’s very, very difficult. Juries traditionally are very skeptical of the insanity defense,” Elikann explained.

In another Plymouth Superior Court filing also dated Dec. 13, 2024, Second Assistant District Attorney Jennifer L. Sprague requested a September trial date.

“While DNA testing results and reports from experts our outstanding, it is reasonably believed that this discovery will be complete well in advance of September of 2025,” Sprague wrote in the filing.

While Clancy waived her right to appear for the hearing, a trial date of Dec. 1, 2025, was set in court.

Clancy, 33, is charged with three counts of murder and strangulation in the deaths of her 5-year-old daughter, Cora, her 3-year-old son, Dawson, and her 8-month-old baby, Callan. She has pleaded not guilty.

Since the tragedy unfolded inside the family’s Summer Street home on the evening of Jan. 24, 2023, Reddington has maintained that Clancy, whom he has described as a “troubled soul,” had been suffering from postpartum depression and that she was overmedicated at the time of the deaths of her three kids.

Prosecutors say Clancy used exercise bands to strangle her kids before jumping out of a window in a suicide attempt. Court documents also revealed that Clancy used her cell phone and her journal to document her mental state and her feelings about her children, in addition to keeping track of her medications and researching ways to kill.

Prior to the deaths of the kids, Clancy used maps on her phone to determine how long it would take to go to and from a restaurant and then texted her husband, Patrick, who was working in his home office, to pick up a takeout order.

Patrick agreed to pick up the food and while he was gone, his wife allegedly took the lives of their children. In February 2023, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague described in court the moment Patrick returned home with the takeout order.

Patrick was heard “screaming in agony and shock” as he located his children, face down on the floor, with the bands used to strangle them tied around their necks, according to Sprague. “He yells out, ‘She killed the kids!’” Sprague added.

Clancy, who was ordered to be committed at Tewksbury State Hospital in May 2023, suffered serious spinal injuries that left her paralyzed when she jumped from the window.

Patrick Clancy, Lindsay’s husband, told The New Yorker in an interview published in October 2024 that he didn’t blame Lindsay for what happened and didn’t express anger with her.

“I wasn’t married to a monster. I was married to someone who got sick,” Patrick said in the interview.

The case is due back in court for a hearing on Feb. 7, 2025.

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