US5 min(s) read
The jury is currently out on the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, with the 36-year-old accused of killing her three children before jumping out of a window.
On January 24, 2023, Clancy allegedly strangled her three children - Cora, five; Dawson, thee; and eight-month-old Callan - before jumping from a second-story window in an attempt to take her own life.
Clancy's husband, Patrick Clancy, had been sent to the store while the tragic events took place, and he arrived back to the property to find Clancy severely injured outside.
The three children were rushed to hospital but all of them succumbed to their injuries, and while Clancy survived, she now requires a wheelchair.
The former nurse has not denied strangling her children, but claims she was suffering from undiagnosed postpartum psychosis and had struggled with the effects of several medications she had been prescribed.
After the five-week trial, 18 jurors now have to decide whether Clancy is guilty or not guilty, following testimony from healthcare providers as well as her ex-husband, mother, and sister, along with first responders and psychiatrists who evaluated Clancy after the tragic event.
Jean Cirillo, a psychologist and attorney from New York, told the US Sun that even if Clancy is found not guilty, her mental health defense could see her locked up longer than if she were in prison.
Cirillo explained: "She’s going to be hospitalized in a place for the criminally insane in Massachusetts until the doctors say she’s okay and she’s free to go out [if she is found not guilty].
"And that is taking a risk because I don’t think it would happen in this case with three children.
"But in some cases, people wind up staying longer in a psychiatric hospital than they would in jail for the offense they committed."
Cirillo confirmed: "So it’s not a get out of jail free card. You might get out of jail, but you’re going into a locked institution.
"She’s not going to walk free. You know, nobody out there or nobody on the jury has to worry about that.
"She is going to be committed to a locked institution, meaning she won’t be given visiting privileges with her family unless they come and talk to her, probably through a buzz, through glass, whatever it is, just like a prison."
Three years on from the incident, Clancy continues to take medication for her mental health and remains on 1-to-1 monitoring as psychiatrists testified that she is still at risk of suicide.
Cirillo added: "She’s not going to be walking around free for a long time because I think any mental health professional would hesitate to say she’s okay now.
"She’s no danger to society, say in two or three years, even if she seems perfectly sane, how do they know she’s not faking it? And nobody wants that responsibility, so it’s probably going to be a long time."
Cirillo added that if the jury finds Clancy guilty, she would still receive psychiatric treatment if she is sentenced to prison, however, the level of psychiatric treatment she would receive behind bars could vary.
"They have groups, but mostly the groups are to prevent re-offending more than to get deeply into psychological needs and feelings. And I think she needs that," Cirillo explained.
"And hopefully there’d be somebody skilled enough to give it to her. But yes, she would be given the medication, [but] the psychiatry might not be that great in the prison."
During the trial, the prosecution had argued that Clancy had shown intent and planning by sending her husband out on errands that would allow her "the time and privacy needed to commit the murders," according to Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham.
Cirillo added that the prosecution is trying to portray Lindsay as a "high functioning woman. She wanted to get rid of her kids. And then she set up this defense and her attempted suicide.
"Mainly their argument [is] that she was a conniving, planning woman who wanted to get rid of her kids and then thought she could get away with it by saying she was crazy.
"It might fail if they look at her psychiatric history. If they look at the argument, they’re now trying to make that she speaks perfectly normally, now that she’s away, now that she’s in an institution.
"Other than that, she doesn’t seem to show excessive remorse for her kids. Maybe she doesn’t realize that she did something horrible. You know, she doesn’t seem to show that much remorse."
Clancy is facing three first-degree murder charges, but jurors could put forward lesser charges, such as manslaughter or second-degree murder, which would face lesser penalties if found guilty.
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