Massachusetts nurse Lindsay Clancy allegedly ordered food and played in the snow with her children before strangling them to death in their Duxbury home in January, prosecutors say.
On Tuesday, prosecutors pushed to prove at a hearing at the Plymouth District Court on Tuesday afternoon that Clancy was mentally sane during the attacks. Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said that the defendant was in her right mind when she played with children in the snow and built a snowman in the backyard.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, on January 24, medics were called to the family’s residence off Summer Street after the defendant’s husband, Patrick, arrived home and found the children unconscious.
The two oldest kids, identified as 5-year-old Cora Clancy and 3-year-old Dawson Clancy, were later declared deceased at a hospital.
A day later, the couple’s third and youngest child, 8-month-old Callan Clancy, also died. The defendant jumped out of a second-story window in a reported attempted suicide after the attack but survived. She’s currently in a Boston hospital.
Sprague also said Tuesday that Clancy searched for a restaurant app on the day of the murders, called the restaurant, placed a pick-up order, then asked her husband to go get the meals. Sprague added that the restaurant that Clancy choose was further away from their home than the places they typically ordered food from.
“The hostess who took the call said there was nothing out of the ordinary about this call. Her voice was not slurred or impaired in any way,” Sprague said.
Clancy’s defense lawyer, Kevin Reddington, argued that she was overmedicated and taking numerous prescription drugs, which ultimately “destroyed” her mental state.
“[Clancy] was a beautiful person who was destroyed by this medication,” he said.
Reddington told the court Clancy now suffers from spinal cord injuries after trying to take her own life, resulting in paralysis from the waist down.
“She can’t walk…she can’t even go to the bathroom,” he said, noting that her emotional state was also “not well at all.”
“She needs significant medical treatment,” the lawyer added while pushing for his client to be transferred to a rehabilitation center.
According to The Boston Globe, Reddington said the defendant had been taking the following prescribed medications, in part, when the killings occurred:
- Ambien
- Klonopin
- Valium
- Prozac
- Lamictal
- Ativan
- Remeron
- Seroquel
- Zoloft
Sprague argued that Clancy stated that “she killed the kids because she heard a voice and had ‘a moment of psychosis,” specifically a “man’s voice telling her to kill the kids and kill herself because it was her last chance.”
Sprague described to the court how Clancy’s husband arrived home after going to the store, to find his children in the basement with exercise ropes wrapped around their “little necks.” She added that Patrick Clancy screamed to 911 dispatchers, “she killed the kids!”
The judge ordered Clancy to stay at the Boston hospital until she can move to another facility after Reddington argued that she needs to be in a rehabilitation center to heal. Her next court date has been set for May 2.
Check back for updates.
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[Feature Photo: (l) Lindsay Clancy/Plymouth County Court via Boston Globe; Lindsay and Callan Clancy/Facebook]
