Lindsay Clancy's high-profile trial started Monday with opening statements. Testimony then began with her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, taking the witness stand. Lindsay Clancy is accused of murdering her three young children inside her Duxbury, Massachusetts home in 2023.
Clancy, 35, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her children - 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan. All three children were found dead in the family's home on Jan. 24, 2023 .
Prosecutors say Clancy strangled them with exercise bands. Clancy was paralyzed after trying to take her own life that night. She attends court in a wheelchair.
Prosecutors allege that Clancy planned the murders, sending her now ex-husband on errands so she could have time to kill their children. Clancy's defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, admits that Clancy killed her children, but he argues she was overmedicated for mental health issues and was suffering from extreme portpartum psychosis. Patrick Clancy testified that on January 16, 2023, he went skiing with 5-year-old Cora and left the family's two younger children with Lindsay at home.
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague asked why he felt comfortable doing that, despite Lindsay's past suicidal tendencies and statements that she had thoughts of harming the children. "Her mood seemed better. She was more active.
She was able to partake in more things," Patrick Clancy said. Sprague asked Patrick Clancy if he was hopeful at the time that things were getting better with Lindsay. He said yes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-1f1a9957 link copied On January 8, 2026, the Clancy family went to the Museum of Science in Boston. A week later on January 15, the family went to the Cape Codder resort. The prosecutor asked Patrick Clancy, who is no longer married to Lindsay Clancy, about her demeanor during the outings.
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague showed surveillance footage from the museum, the resort and a water park. Sprague noted that Patrick Clancy was comfortable trusting the children alone with Lindsay while he was not nearby. https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-67160205 link copied Patrick Clancy returned to the stand around 2:15 p.m.
after the afternoon recess. Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague displayed a picture of his daughter Cora, asking if that is what she was like in 2023, around the time Lindsay Clancy was released from McLean Hospital. Patrick Clancy hesitated and began to become emotional.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington objected and there was a sidebar. When the sidebar ended, Patrick Clancy described his deceased children, taking deep breathes before answering questions. Lindsay Clancy reached for tissues and cried as photos of her three children were displayed on the screen in the courtroom.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-37f28a7c link copied Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan said the trial is expected to last six to eight weeks. The list of potential witnesses has nearly 200 names on it. If Lindsay Clancy is found guilty of first-degree murder, she faces life in prison without a chance at parole.
If she's found not criminally responsible for the deaths of her children, she will be sent to a state mental health facility in Massachusetts. https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-ec5493ec link copied Watch the complete opening statements from the Lindsay Clancy trial in the video above. https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-c2026167 link copied At 1 p.m.
with Patrick Clancy still on the stand, Judge William Sullivan dismissed court for the afternoon recess. Clancy is expected to continue direct questioning around 2 p.m. https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-a0edff58 link copied In December 2022, Lindsay Clancy told her father that she wanted to die by suicide, according to her ex-husband Patrick.
Lindsay Clancy was then taken to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. One doctor recommended inpatient treatment at McLean Hospital. Two others recommended a day program in Providence.
She went to the program in Providence, and Patrick would pick her up each day. By Dec. 31, 2022, Lindsay Clancy was back in an emergency room with concerns about suicide.
"I was exhausted," Patrick Clancy said. "I said I think it's time to go to McLean. We didn't have a diagnosis so we just didn't know what was wrong.
For me, I was just hoping McLean could evaluate her and find out what was wrong." After receiving treatment at McLean, Lindsay Clancy began asking to be discharged so she could go to her daughter's birthday party. On Jan. 5, 2023, she was discharged from McLean Hospital.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-dbcc6fd2 link copied In December 2022, Lindsay Clancy switched to a new medication, Patrick Clancy testified. "That was really where her big spiral started," he said. "She started to lose a lot of weight, she became really depressed and was having a hard time.
She started to say she was suicidal." Also in December 2022, Patrick Clancy testified that his wife told him that she was having intrusive thoughts about hurting their children. "The way she was describing it was that something might happen to the kids," he said. Patrick Clancy said he asked Lindsay if she felt she needed to be kept away from the children.
She said she did not. "It was very confusing because the next minute she was making them lunch or putting them to bed," he testified. "I never saw Lindsay harm the kids." https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-1ec18cd8 link copied Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague attempted to show that while Lindsay Clancy was prescribed a large amount of drugs, she did not appear to have taken many of them.
Of the prescriptions collected as part of the investigation, most bottles were only missing a small amount of pills, Sprague said. "There were a lot of pills prescribed, but not a lot of pills taken, correct?" Sprague said. By Thanksgiving 2022, Patrick Clancy said his wife was "in rough shape, not talking much, low energy, really depressed." https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-566d8874 link copied In the fall of 2022, Lindsay Clancy asked Patrick to sleep in the basement because she was having trouble sleeping.
"She kept getting worse and worse," Patrick Clancy said. Patrick testified that Lindsay switched psychiatrists because whatever she was doing with her current provider, "it wasn't working." After switching to her new provider, Lindsay Clancy came home with different medications. Following his children's deaths, Patrick Clancy provided a bag of prescription medications to the district attorney's office, in addition to what was taken by Massachusetts State Police that night.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates-patrick-clancy/#post-update-ca6ce340 link copied According to Patrick Clancy, he went to New Hampshire with Lindsay in September 2022 for a wedding. She told him during a walk that she thought she was going to start taking Zoloft. "I think it's going to help with my anxiety and going back to work," Patrick Clancy testified his wife told him.
He said his wife also said she was going to go see a psychiatrist. Patrick Clancy said that he later learned Lindsay already had the prescription when she told him about it at the wedding. She took it for a period of time, but told Patrick that her sleep suffered so she stopped taking it....
