Lindsay Clancy

On the evening of January 24, 2023, first responders entered a family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts and headed for the basement. There, they found three young children—5‑year‑old Cora, 3‑year‑old Dawson and 8‑month‑old Callan Clancy—unresponsive. ^[1][2][3]

Outside, in the yard of the same home, their mother, 35‑year‑old Lindsay Clancy, lay badly injured after jumping from a second‑story window. She survived but was left paralyzed from the waist down. ^[1][2][3]

What happened in that house in the hours before has become the focus of one of the most contentious criminal trials in recent Massachusetts memory—a case that sits at the intersection of motherhood, mental illness, modern psychiatry and the limits of criminal responsibility.

A Mother on Trial

"Intrusive Thoughts I Never Had Before"

In the months leading up to the killings, Clancy was not hiding her distress. Her attorneys say she sought help from multiple outpatient providers, tried a series of prescribed psychiatric medications, called a suicide hotline, went to an emergency room, and applied—but was not accepted—into a hospital‑based full‑day treatment program. ^[2] At one point she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital for several days. ^[2]

The Perinatal Nurse Practitioner

On the stand, Jollotta described a patient in distress, but not a patient she believed was psychotic. She acknowledged that Clancy reported thoughts of suicide. ^[1] She recalled a mid‑December phone call with Lindsay and her husband, Patrick, during which they said Lindsay was having her “worst day” and suffering “persistent, intrusive thoughts of suicide.” ^[1]

According to Jollotta, she told them that Clancy should consider a higher level of care, such as intensive treatment at a hospital like Massachusetts General. ^[1] Clancy ultimately enrolled instead in a postpartum program at Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island but was soon discharged, with advice from that program to stop one of her antipsychotic medications. ^[1]

That recommendation alarmed Jollotta. She testified that she was worried about the hospital’s desire to take Clancy off Seroquel, an antipsychotic that can aid with sleep, and feared that stopping it could worsen Clancy’s mood and insomnia. ^[1] Clancy, however, pushed to discontinue it, and Jollotta agreed to a gradual taper. ^[1]

The nurse practitioner said she suspected Clancy might have an underlying bipolar disorder, pointing to reports that Lindsay sometimes went days without sleep. ^[1] Patrick Clancy, she testified, rejected that idea. ^[1] Later, a forensic psychiatrist who evaluated Lindsay after the killings diagnosed her with bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis, a finding the defense leans on heavily. ^[2]

Despite the suicidal thoughts and severe distress, Jollotta told jurors she did not see evidence that Lindsay was losing touch with reality. She said Clancy never spoke of a plan to harm herself or her children and showed no signs of psychosis or mania in their interactions. ^[1]

On cross‑examination, Jollotta elaborated on the boundaries she observed. She explained that for a patient who has suicidal thoughts but no plan, she would ask more questions; if someone described a concrete plan, she might call 911. ^[4] In Lindsay’s case, she testified, Clancy had suicidal thoughts but “did not disclose a plan” and had “no intent” to carry it out. ^[4] She also said Patrick Clancy was aware his wife was struggling with suicidal thoughts. ^[4]

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington pressed her on what she didn’t know. He argued that she was unfamiliar with care Clancy had received from other providers. ^[1] Jollotta admitted she had never spoken to Dr. Tufts, Lindsay’s psychiatrist, and had not accessed Tufts’ medical records. ^[1] She said she believed Tufts had begun treating Clancy in September. ^[1]

Jollotta also testified that she never spoke with staff from the Rhode Island hospital where Clancy attended the postpartum program and did not have access to records from McLean Hospital, where Lindsay admitted herself on New Year’s Eve. ^[1] She agreed it would have been important to find out the diagnoses and treatments from those institutions but acknowledged she never did. ^[1]

Over and over, she told the court she proposed alternative treatment options—different medications, behavioral therapy, support groups, meditation—and urged Clancy to document her symptoms in writing. ^[1] Ultimately, she said, it was up to Lindsay whether to follow that advice. ^[1]

Jollotta is now one of several providers whom Lindsay and Patrick Clancy have sued over her care. ^[1]

The Psychiatrist in the Crosshairs

If Jollotta’s testimony centered on what she saw, Dr. Jennifer Tufts’s testimony revolved just as much around what she might have missed.

Tufts began seeing Lindsay Clancy via telehealth in September 2022, only weeks after finishing her psychiatric residency training and joining a private practice. ^[2] She continued to treat Clancy through a series of roughly 25‑minute video appointments up until the day before the children died. ^[2] Tufts’s diagnoses were generalized anxiety disorder and an adjustment disorder with depressed mood. ^[2]

On the stand, Tufts said that during those months Clancy sometimes told her she was “close” to feeling suicidal, hopeless or like she was going to die. ^[2] But, Tufts testified, Lindsay repeatedly denied having a specific plan to take her own life or to harm anyone else and never revealed any thoughts about harming her children. ^[2] Tufts also said Clancy never reported manic episodes, hearing voices or other classic signs of psychosis. ^[2]

The psychiatrist told jurors that treating Clancy over video did not seem to pose a problem. She testified that she did not feel she was missing anything by not seeing Lindsay in person. ^[2] When asked what she did after Lindsay told her she felt hopeless, Tufts said she tried to reassure her that her condition could be addressed and that there was hope and different types of programs available. ^[2]

A Brief Stop with Julie Paul

Two Stark Narratives for the Jury

Behind the scenes of these appointments and hospital visits, something in Lindsay Clancy’s mind was deteriorating. What exactly that was—and how it should be understood in the eyes of the law—is now the central question before a jury.

Prosecutors, led in part by Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham, present Clancy as an intentional killer. They argue that on January 24, 2023, she contrived to send her then‑husband Patrick out of the house on errands and then strangled Cora, Dawson and Callan in the basement of their Duxbury home, using exercise bands. ^[1][2][3]

Buckingham has warned jurors not to treat the proceedings as “a public debate about women’s mental health and how the medical system treats women,” urging them instead to focus on the specific actions Clancy is accused of taking. ^[1][2]

The defense offers a radically different story. They say that Clancy, after months of failed treatment attempts and what they characterize as overmedication, descended into postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder so severe that she heard command hallucinations ordering her to kill her children and herself. ^[1][2][3] A forensic psychiatrist who evaluated her after the children’s deaths diagnosed her with both bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis, a diagnosis the defense argues matches her symptoms. ^[2]

There is sharp disagreement over whether she ever told any of her treating clinicians about hearing voices or other psychotic experiences before the killings. The defense insists her psychosis pre‑dated the deaths and was missed or mishandled. ^[3] But Tufts, Jollotta and Paul all testified that Lindsay never reported hallucinations or specific plans to hurt herself or her children to them and that they saw no signs of mania or psychosis in their encounters. ^[1][2]

The medications themselves have become another battleground. Her attorneys and family say her condition worsened as she cycled through a frequently changed mix of psychiatric drugs, some of which they argue are problematic for people with bipolar disorder. ^[2] Clinicians like Tufts counter that it is often difficult in practice to distinguish the effects of a drug from the relentless course of a serious mood disorder. ^[2]

The Questions That Won’t Go Away