The murder case against Lindsay Clancy, a Duxbury, Massachusetts, mom accused of killing her three children at their home, will go to trial next year. Her lawyers are planning an insanity defense — a defense that rarely works in Massachusetts, experts say.
The trial date has been set in the case of Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury, Massachusetts, mother accused of killing her three children in 2023, as attorneys and the judge hammered out scheduling details in the case during a hearing Wednesday.
The trial is set for Dec. 1, 2025, and is expected to take two to three weeks.
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Clancy has pleaded not guilty to murder charges brought by the Norfolk District Attorney's Office over the Jan. 24, 2023, deaths of their children, 5-year-old Cora Clancy, 3-year-old Dawson Clancy, and 8-month-old Callan Clancy. After killing her children, authorities said Lindsay Clancy cut herself and jumped out of a window in an attempt to kill herself.
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Clancy did not appear in court Wednesday waiving her right to appear before the judge. She was last known to be at Tewksbury Hospital for court-ordered mental treatment; her attorney, Kevin Reddington, said she is still in a wheelchair.
Clancy's lawyer said in a recent court filing that he plans to assert her "lack of criminal responsibility" at trial due to her mental condition.
In a document filed Friday, Reddington filed a notice of lack of criminal responsibility, saying "statements of the defendant as to her mental condition will be relied upon by defendant's expert witnesses and the defendant does intend to present to the Court a defense of lack of criminal responsibility."
It may be a tough sell. The insanity defense rarely works in Massachusetts, according to lawyers who have successfully made the argument.
"You're asking a jury to put aside their sense of justice," said Boston defense attorney Janice Bassil.
Wellesley-based attorney Keith Halpern said, "Juries tend to be skeptical of the defense."
The lawyers explained that, as part of her insanity defense, expert witnesses will be tasked with laying out Clancy's struggle with postpartum depression, while prosecutors will have to prove she does not suffer from mental illness.
"There's an argument that she sent her husband to pick up food so that it would give her time to kill her children. That doesn't mean she isn't mentally ill and it doesn't mean she even planned it," Bassil said.
A second filing by the defense, also dated Friday, requested a trial date in September of 2025. Reddington said that while DNA testing results and reports from experts were still outstanding, it was believed that that they will be complete well in advance of that date.
Earlier this year, Clancy's husband, Patrick, detailed the symptoms his wife was experiencing that should have been red flags in an interview with the New Yorker.
"I wasn't married to a monster — I was married to someone who got sick," he said in the interview, in which he also recalled his wife's mental health struggles.
Halpern anticipates he will be a key witness — prosecutors on Wednesday requested all recordings and noted from that New Yorker interview.
Halpern also said that he hopes the prosecution "read reports that recognize that this was a product of mental illness and that this case is resolved without a criminal trial."
Clancy is set to appear at her next hearing, in February, via Zoom.
