Long before Lindsay Clancy faced grave accusations concerning the death of her three children, she, a former labor and delivery nurse, once expressed a poignant sentiment about Andrea Yates.
Margaret Hamp, a colleague of Clancy, recounted a significant conversation on August 17 while testifying. They discussed the challenges of postpartum depression, particularly after a patient at Massachusetts General Hospital expressed self-harm thoughts, according to a report by Boston.com.
Hamp described bringing up the tragic story of Andrea Yates, a Texas mother who was acquitted by reason of insanity after she drowned her five children in a bathtub. This case has long resonated in discussions surrounding mental health and motherhood.
Even though Clancy was unfamiliar with Yates’ story, Hamp vividly remembered the deep impact it had on her, noting an emotional response that followed.
“She cried,” Hamp shared during her testimony, “and she said, ‘How could a mother hurt her children?'” The question lingered, highlighting the profound struggle many mothers face under the shadows of mental illness.
Now, Clancy has been accused of killing her own three children—Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan—at the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts home in January 2023, before trying to take her own life.
Clancy’s defense attorneys have argued, however, that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings after months of being overmedicated with an ever-changing cocktail of drugs.
During the first day of defense testimony, Hamp described Clancy as a dedicated mom who often worried about her children’s welfare while at work, once even calling police to do a welfare check on then 6-month-old Cora after spotting the baby crying on a monitor and being unable to reach her thusband Patrick Clancy, according to Boston.com.
“Lindsay never let Cora cry,” Hamp recalled. “She wasn’t at that point in parenting, and she was very communicative about that.”
According to Hamp, Clancy was “often emotional during [the] birth of complete strangers. She would cry, and she would just say, ‘That was so beautiful.’”
Lindsay Clancy’s Mother Paula Musgrove Testifies About Concerning Text
Clancy’s mother Paula Musgrove also testified about her daughter’s parenting, describing her as “a very loving mother,” according to The New York Post.
“She was dedicated to her children,” Musgrove said. “She was a fun mother. She was always doing things for her kids. She always wanted to be a mother and have many children. I felt it was the best thing to happen to her. She would do anything for her children.”
But, Musgrove testified that in October of 2022 she began to notice her daughter’s mental health decline. That month, Clancy—who was struggling with bipolar disorder and postpartum depression—texted her mother saying she was experiencing “scary” side effects from new medication.
“Mom, will you please come up and stay with me for a bit,” the text read, per Boston.com. “I’m really sick. Something is wrong. I had horrible insomnia all night, and I just don’t know how I’m going to get through the day. I started taking the medicine my doctor prescribed for anxiety, and I think it’s made things worse. It’s just really scary, and I don’t want to be alone.”
Her mother drove up from her Connecticut home the next day and began spending longer periods of time staying with her daughter and helping her care for the children.
Then, in December of 2022, Clancy told her husband and Musgrove that she was having dark thoughts about harming the children.
“I remember her being very nervous,” Musgrove testified, per The New York Post, before adding that Clancy told them, “I just have to tell you guys something.”
According to Musgrove, Clancy confessed to having “thoughts of harming the children.”
“I remember Pat asking her if she felt like she couldn’t be alone with the children,” she added, “and she said, ‘No.’ ”
When prosecutors asked whether Musgrove had any concerns for the children’s safety at the time, she replied,“No, because I was there,” according to the outlet.
As her daughter’s mental health continued to deteriorate over the months, Musgrove said Clancy would occasionally ask to sleep in her bed because she didn’t want to be alone and would talk about not being in her right mind.
“She would say to me, ‘This isn’t me. I’ve never been like this before,’” Musgrove recalled, per Boston.com. “And I would agree, because she wasn’t. She was attempting to go through the motions of her day, take care of the kids as best she could.”
Lindsay Clancy’s Sister Testified She Was “Still Struggling” Weeks Before Killings
Clancy eventually admitted herself into a psychiatric hospital in early January 2023 and repeatedly sought out help from multiple providers, which the defense has argued resulted in disjointed care and overmedication, per The Associated Press.
Her sister Allison Ozga testified about Clancy’s decline, noting that she “looked like she was going through the motions” at a birthday party for her daughter just weeks before she would strangle the children with exercise bands.
“She looked tired,” Ozga testified per Boston.com. “She looked like she was still struggling.”
Before resting their case, prosecutors called a series of medical providers to the stand who testified that she never talked about harming herself or others before the deaths and didn’t exhibit signs of psychosis. They contend that Clancy purposely sent her husband on errands on Jan. 24, 2023 so that she could kill the children.
Clancy’s trial remains ongoing.
