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Lindsay Clancy's two-word text to husband before he discovered their children dead
Jurors in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy were shown everyday text messages exchanged between the Massachusetts mother and her husband shortly before her three children were killed.
The 36-year-old mother is accused of strangling five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan in the basement of their Duxbury home on January 24, 2023.
She has pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis, while pursuing a medical malpractice suit against her former healthcare providers.
Testimony from Massachusetts State Police trooper Timothy Chiappini detailed the routine nature of the text messages sent just an hour before the children were found.
At 4:53PM that evening, Clancy messaged her husband, Patrick, asking (via the Daily Mail), "Any chance you want to do takeout from ThreeV" about a local restaurant.
After Patrick agreed, Clancy replied, "Okie dokie," and asked him to check the menu. When Patrick inquired if their baby boy had woken up yet, Clancy messaged back, "It was just a short nap."
While Patrick went out to pick up medication for his daughter at CVS and retrieve their dinner order, Clancy strangled the three children using exercise bands. Upon returning home, Patrick found his wife injured on the lawn following a suicide attempt, and subsequently discovered his children unresponsive in the basement.
Surveillance footage presented in court showed Patrick running errands during the timeframe of the crime, contrasting his routine tasks with the scene he discovered upon returning home.
Surveillance footage shows family outing weeks prior
Along with text records, prosecutors presented surveillance footage from a family trip to the Museum of Science in Boston on January 8, 2023, just weeks before the incident. The video showed Patrick lifting Dawson from a stroller while Clancy walked with Cora and carried baby Callan in a carrier.
Clancy was seen guiding Cora through an interactive exhibit while Patrick watched nearby. Text messages revealed that on the morning of the killings, Patrick had praised his wife as "a good mama" after asking about a doctor appointment for Cora.
Incriminating web searches and personal notes revealed
State police officers testified about a concerning search history found on Clancy's phone from the weeks leading up to the deaths. On January 20, four days before the killings, Clancy searched "can you treat a sociopath?"
Other searches uncovered on her device included "how to slit your throat to die," "where is the carotid artery," and "how to turn airbags off on Kia Sorento."
Jurors were also shown a personal note Clancy wrote on her phone on October 25, 2022, which caused her to put her head in her hands at the defense table while it was read aloud. In the entry, she wrote, "I'm terrified of something happening to my kids or doing something wrong to mess up their development."
She further stated, "I am sad and depressed because I am not able to parent my third child like my first." The note continued, "I am sad that I stopped breastfeeding. I feel not as connected with Cal now. I think I sort of resent my other children because they prevent me from treating Cal like my first baby. And I know that's not fair to them."
The trial is scheduled to continue on Monday morning.













