Lindsay Clancy is willing to admit that she killed her three children, according to a motion filed by her attorney last week, if her murder trial is split into two proceedings.
Clancy allegedly strangled her kids, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months old, in January 2023, then tried to kill herself by jumping out of a second-story window of her Duxbury home. Her defense lawyer Kevin Reddington argued that Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time and isn’t criminally responsible for the deaths.
“The defendant states that the issue of the actions that resulted in the death of the decedents in the indictments at the bar is not a live issue and the defendant is willing to stipulate formally in writing to her involvement in the underlying conduct resulting in the death of the three young children,” Reddington wrote in the April 2 filing.
“With that understanding, the defendant submits that the only live issue for consideration at trial would be the defendant’s state of mind as it relates to the defense of lack of criminal responsibility,” he continued.
The motion, which renews a request for a bifurcated trials, comes after a judge denied Reddington’s initial request to split the trial into two parts: one which would decide if she was guilty and another that would determine whether she was legally sane.
The Commonwealth had argued against the split, saying that Clancy didn’t have a constitutional right to a bifurcated trial and that allowing one would mean that they’d have to present nearly identical evidence in both proceedings.
“The defendant understands that the government has a right to ‘prove its case’” Reddington wrote, “but where there is an agreement for a stipulation the defendants submits that it is elevating form over substance to require a full blown trial on the issue of culpability as opposed to criminal.”
Clancy is currently at Tewksbury State Hospital, where she is receiving both mental health treatment and care for the injuries she sustained following her suicide attempt. Reddington said that she is suicidal at times and partially paralyzed.
Patrick Clancy, the defendant’s husband and the father of her three kids, filed a wrongful death suit against his wife’s health care providers in January. The complaint claimed that her providers improperly and overly medicated Clancy after she reported postpartum depression and other mental health symptoms.
The suit, filed in Norfolk Superior Court, also described Clancy’s rapid decline in the months and weeks leading up to the killings.
Since the death of the children, Clancy’s husband has been supportive, telling the New Yorker in a 2024 article, “I wasn’t married to a monster — I was married to someone who got sick.”
Clancy’s trial in Plymouth Superior Court is set to start in July, but the next court date is a state conference scheduled for April 23.
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