Lindsay Clancy trial live updates: ‘Psychotic’ killer mom told son Dawson, 3, to ‘go to God’ as she strangled him, then 2 siblings, doctors say
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Horrific new details about “clearly psychotic” Lindsay Clancy‘s heinous act — and state of mind — the night she strangled her three kids are coming to light at her murder trial Friday, as Massachusetts prosecutors call their final witnesses to rebut her defense.
The Catholic killer mom told her middle child Dawson, 3, to “go to God” as she killed him — then his sister Cora, 5, and baby brother Callan, 8 months — with exercise bands in the basement of the family’s Duxbury, Mass., home in January 2023, a psychiatrist told jurors, wrapping up four weeks of the grueling trial.
Closing arguments are expected early next week.
Throngs of pink-clad Clancy supporters began showing up outside Plymouth County Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., Thursday, as the heartbreaking case captivates the nation, creating a watershed moment for discussion about postpartum mental illness and how struggling new mothers are treated.
Clancy’s defense argues she is not criminally responsible for strangling her young kids with exercise bands because she was suffering from undiagnosed postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder, exacerbated by a dangerous cocktail of 13 powerful psychiatric medications.
The labor and delivery nurse, 36, faces life in prison without parole if convicted on the three counts of first-degree murder.
Earlier Friday afternoon, psychiatrist Dr. Avram Mack, a prosecution rebuttal witness, testified about what Lindsay Clancy told him a male voice said to her before she killed her kids.
"The voice said, 'You should kill the kids. This is your last chance so you can kill yourself,'" Mack told the 18-person jury.
Closing arguments are expected to get underway early next week.
The jury was sent home for the weekend during the testimony of psychiatrist Dr. Avram Mack.
He is expected back on the stand Monday morning around 9 a.m.
Lindsay Clancy's attorney Kevin Reddington is now grilling psychiatrist Dr. Avram Mack about his credentials and expertise.
"Where in [your CV] does it say that you ever came within breathing distance of a pregnant woman...?" Reddington said.
"I remember being at the Brigham [and Women's Hospital in Boston] as a resident … that was 2001," Mack responded.
"I see myself as a generalist who has a couple areas of focus," Mack said, noting he eventually went into working in pediatrics.
Mack said in his entire career he'd worked with "roughly 10" women who had experienced the rare phenomenon of postpartum psychosis.
Lindsay Clancy "methodically" killed her kids and tried to kill herself, showing she had the mental capacity of knowing what she did was wrong, a psychiatrist testified during prosecutors' rebuttal.
"She was engaging in activity methodically, which highlights to me that there was an ability to conform behavior for living in a household," Dr. Avram Mack said of Clancy's activities on the day of the murders.
"The deaths were done methodically, one by one, in a way that was organized and that was intended to achieve a particular goal," Mack said.
Clancy was also methodical and organized when she attempted to commit suicide, the psychiatrist said.
"She retained the capacity that is required for having criminal responsibility for these actions," he said.
Lindsay Clancy told her 3-year-old son to "go to God" as she strangled him, a psychiatrist told jurors.
Dr. Avram Mack recounted what Clancy told him she did the day she killed her three kids and tried to kill herself.
"First she took Dawson down to the basement," and wrapped an elastic exercise band around his neck, the doctor — whom prosecutors called to the stand as they make their rebuttal — said Friday.
"While that was happening she was saying out loud, 'Go to God,' " Mack testified.
Clancy also said something similar to her other two kids as she took their lives, the psychiatrist said she told him.
"My understanding is that the sentiment 'Go to God' is a way of bestowing or thinking about the children as innocents, as ones who hadn’t done wrong while what she was doing was the opposite, was wrong or could be construed as wrong," Mack said.
"So 'Go to God' not only was a hope for the children but a description of the situation," he told the jury.
