Midwife mom who strangled her three kids appears in court from hospital bed
The Massachusetts mother who strangled her three children and tried to kill herself afterwards appeared in court virtually today from her hospital bed as her attorneys revealed she is paralyzed.
Lindsay Clancy, 32, is charged with strangling her three kids on January 29 at their family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
Prosecutors call it a ‘pre-meditated’ attack, and that she deliberately sent her husband out to pick up food before strangling kids Cora, five, Dawson, three and Callan, eight months.
Clancy’s attorneys however say she was severely depressed, suffering with post-partum depression and even psychosis, caused by a cocktail of prescription drugs that turned her into a ‘shell’ of herself and robbed her of her personality and ability to feel emotions.
Today, prosecutors revealed the children were found in the basement of the family home with exercise bands tied around their necks.
They say Lindsay told her husband she heard a ‘man’s voice’ telling her to kill the children and then herself because it was her ‘last choice’.
Clancy remains in the hospital after trying to take her own life; she slit her wrists and jumped from a top floor window of her home after strangling her kids, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months
Lindsay slit her wrists and then jumped from her bedroom window, landing in the family’s backyard.
She suffered several spine fractures and is now a paraplegic, her attorney said.
‘She is not OK, at all. She suffered several, severe spine fractions.
‘She is not expected to recover meaningful function below that level of the spinal chord.
‘She’s paraplegic, unable to move her legs or feel sensation.
She is not OK, at all…She’s paraplegic, unable to move her legs or feel sensation, She is paralyzed
‘She is paralyzed. She needs significant medical treatment,’ he said, begging the court not to jail her and instead allow her to be sent to a medical rehab center.
Clancy’s attorneys say she was overprescribed a cocktail of prescription drugs to treat post-partum depression, and that it had turned her into a ‘zombie.’
In court today, her attorney Kevin J. Reddington, denied that the attacks were premeditated.
‘We all know this is an individual who is in dire medical condition. This woman is a danger to herself. I question whether she would ever make it to a trial.
‘She is suicidal, she is extremely emotional. She is unable to express any happiness or sadness or cry.’
Lindsay Clancy with her husband Patrick and their oldest children, Cora, five, and Dawson, three. She
After strangling the kids, Lindsay tried to cut her own wrists. She then jumped from a window at the family home. Baby Callan, eight months, died in the hospital. Cora and Dawson died at home
He said she was ‘thoroughly destroyed’ by the cocktail of medications prescribed to her after her third child was born.
‘Our society fails miserably in treating women with post partum depression or post partum psychosis.
‘It’s “medicate, medicate, medicate”. Throw the pills at you and see how it works.’
Prosecutors sought to undermine her attorney’s claims that she was driven to commit the murders by the drugs she was taking.
They told how she sent her husband out to a takeout restaurant that was far enough away from the home to give her time to kill the kids.
‘The bands had to have been squeezing their minds for several minutes.
‘She could have changed her mind,’ they said, calling it a ‘premeditated’ crime with a ‘extreme cruelty’.
Her husband Patrick has forgiven her, and is asking others to do the same.
Clancy’s lawyer previously told a judge that the drugs Lindsay had been prescribed left her feeling feeling like a ‘zombie’.
Investigators are now probing the theory that she might have been suffering from post-partum psychosis.
He also described the ‘horrific’ combination of prescription drugs Lindsay had been given.
Reddington says that between October and January, Clancy was prescribed a dozen medications: Zolpidem which is sold under the brand name Ambien, clonazepam, which is sold under the brand name of Klonopin, diazepam which is sold under the brand name Valium, fluoxetine which is sold under the brand name Prozac, lamotrigine, which is sold under the brand name Lamictil, lorazepam, which is sold under the brand name Ativan, mirtazapine, which is sold under the brand name Remeron, quetiapine fumarate, which is sold under the brand name Seroquel, and trazodone.