Will Patrick Clancy be called to testify again?
After a mistrial was declared Sept. 4 in the murder case against Lindsay Clancy, questions are now turning to what a potential second trial could mean for her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy — including whether he may be required to return to the witness stand.
Katherine Loftus, a legal expert who is not connected to the case, spoke exclusively with Oxygen about what typically happens when a case must be tried again.
“The entire case has to be re-presented,” Loftus said, noting that Patrick Clancy would likely be an essential witness because of his direct connection to the events. “Patrick Clancy would definitely, because he’s a fact witness. He’s the one who discovered both Lindsay and the children.”
Given that role, Loftus said there is little doubt he would be asked to appear again if prosecutors move forward with a second trial. “He would certainly have to come back and testify for a second trial,” she added.
The update comes after the judge in Clancy’s murder trial declared a mistrial on Sept. 4. Many were left wondering why Patrick wasn’t in court. Loftus explained that witnesses have no obligation to return to court.
“I don’t have personal knowledge of this,” she said. ”But what it seems to me is that they understand that the Commonwealth has an obligation to proceed with this trial against Lindsay because she took the lives of the three children. But I think it’s difficult for them to see her in this circumstance.”
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What Was Lindsay Clancy Accused Of?
Lindsay’s murder trial centered on the harrowing events of Jan. 24, 2023: the day she acknowledges she killed her and Patrick’s kids—5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan—in their Duxbury, Mass., home.
As Patrick testified, that evening, Lindsay requested that he drive to a local CVS pharmacy to pick up medication, then to a nearby restaurant to grab takeout for dinner. When he returned home, he found her lying in the backyard after jumping out a second-story window in a suicide attempt. In their basement, he discovered Cora, Dawson and Callan strangled with exercise bands, and all three passed away from the attack.
In their opening statement, the prosecution argued that during the time frame that Patrick was out of the house, Lindsay executed the children’s killings with “deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty.”
“This was not a woman in the throes of psychosis on Jan. 24, 2023,” Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham told jurors. “This was a woman who acted intentionally, rationally and swiftly to accomplish a very specific goal: to kill.”
“This was a woman who no longer liked the life she thought she wanted,” she added. “It was getting harder and harder to control, and when she saw the opportunity to escape, she made the selfish choice to take it, and to take Cora, Dawson and Callan first before attempting to take her own life.”
What Was Lindsay Clancy’s Defense?
Lindsay’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington did not dispute she killed the children, but he argued that her actions were driven by postpartum psychosis, not malice, and that she was therefore unable to understand the wrongfulness of them.
“This is a woman that was suffering from psychosis at the time that she went down to that basement,” he told jurors during his opening statement. “She had no motive. She loved her children. She intended to kill herself. She didn’t fake that.”