Lindsay Clancy trial live updates: Killer mom ran road race mere hours after giving birth, defense and her doc reveal
See more of our coverage in your search results.
Editor’s note: Coverage of this case is disturbing. Scroll with discretion.
Jaws dropped Tuesday as a psychiatrist for killer mom Lindsay Clancy said at her Massachusetts murder trial that she ran a 5K road race mere hours after giving birth to her youngest child in 2022, months before strangling him and his two siblings with exercise bands in the basement of the family’s home.
Earlier, Clancy’s former mother-in-law and grandmother to the three slain kids, Sue Clancy, took the stand in the accused murderer’s defense, describing her as a “nurturing,” “loving” mom who was “begging for help” before the heinous act.
Clancy, 36, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and faces life in prison without parole if convicted.
Her defense argues that Clancy is not criminally responsible for killing Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in January 2023 because she was suffering from undiagnosed postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder, exacerbated by a dangerous cocktail of 13 powerful psychiatric medications.
Judge William Sullivan dismissed the jury for the day.
Psychologist Paul Zeizel does not appear to be done testifying, considering defense attorney Kevin Reddington was in the middle of questioning when Sullivan asked if it was a good time to break for the day.
The jury is due back at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Lindsay Clancy told her then-husband, Patrick, in a phone call from the hospital that she heard a male voice "ordering her" to kill her kids and herself, a witness testified.
Psychologist Paul Zeizel told the jury he visited Clancy days after she strangled the kids at Brigham and Women's Hospital and let her use his cell phone to speak with Patrick on Feb. 6, 2023.
"She told Patrick that she loved him very much," Zeizel testified. "She said she heard a male voice ordering her, telling her that she didn’t have any choice, that she had to kill her children and kill herself."
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington asked Zeizel if he told Clancy to make up hearing voices.
The psychologist said it was out of "human compassion" that he obliged when Clancy asked to use his phone 13 days after killing her children.
The psychologist has met with her over 45 times total in the past three-and-a-half years, including at the mental institution where she is being held during her case, as well as at the Plymouth County Superior Courthouse during the trial. Zeizel started to explain why he wanted to meet with Clancy in the courthouse, but prosecutors objected.
"The nature of the presentation in this court has been gut-wrenching," Zeizel began, before the judge sustained the objection and cut off his statement.
Lindsay Clancy is appearing to cry as prosecutors question medical examiner Dr. Elizabeth Laposata about Cora, Dawson and Callan's fatal injuries.
Laposata said the three kids would have lost consciousness within 10 seconds while Clancy strangled them with elastic exercise bands, and they would have died within 10 minutes as the bands remained around their necks.
Cora, 5, and Dawson, 3, were pronounced dead at the scene the night of Jan. 24, 2023, but baby Callan, 8 months, clung to life for three days before he was pulled from life support.
Clancy covered her face with her hands and held onto a tissue during the testimony. She could be seen shaking slightly.
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague questioned Dr. Elizabeth Laposata — an expert defense witness called by Lindsay Clancy — about violations at a medical examiner's office she once lead.
"Dr. Laposata, you were the head of the Rhode Island Office of the Chief Medical Examiner when it was cited for violations and unsafe conditions, right?" Sprague probed.
"Yes, the unsafe conditions were a light bulb out and a computer in the hallway ... I was happy to have the inspection," the doctor said.
Sprague pushed back, claiming there were many more violations than just those two.
"They were minimal. I don’t remember them. They were 20 years ago," Laposata said.
Sprague also repeatedly asked how it could be that Clancy didn't have any wounds or injuries on the top of her head if she hit the ground head first, as Laposata testified.
Prosecutors have cast doubt during the trial over whether Clancy truly intended to kill herself when she leapt from her bedroom window the night she strangled her children.
"Her scalp was intact," Laposata responded, adding that "the forces were transmitted through" Clancy's spine.
Dr. Elizabeth Laposata told jurors that Lindsay Clancy fell head first out of her second floor window when she tried to kill herself after strangling her kids.
"She did a free fall dive head first," Laposata said, as visual recreations of the fall were shown to jurors.
"What she got from that [fall] is a characteristic burst fracture or Jefferson Fracture," Laposata said. "What we see about people who hit their head head on, like if they take a dive into a swimming pool and they hit their head on the bottom, what it does is it takes the first cervical vertebrae and it squashes it and like a donut it spreads it out."
"She had six or seven fractures of that cervical vertebrae," the doctor said.
She said the fall also "crushed a number of her thoracic vertebrae."
Clancy cast her eyes downward and even had them closed completely at times during parts of the testimony.
She was in spinal shock and hypothermia after the suicide attempt, the doctor said, noting it was cold outside after she landed on the frozen ground of her backyard.
