Phone data shows Clancy searched psychosis, suicide before killing children
Phone analysis reveals Lindsay Clancy's searches on hallucinations, psychosis, and suicide methods before the deaths of her three children.
In the weeks before she strangled her three young children, Lindsay Clancy used her phone to search for information about hallucinations, psychosis, and the side effects of medications she had been prescribed, according to data presented at her murder trial on Thursday.
The analysis of her phone, detailed by a Massachusetts State Police forensics expert, showed searches for suicide methods, bipolar disorder, and insomnia in late December 2022. In January, her searches turned to postpartum depression.
Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of her children, Callan, Dawson, and Cora. Her attorneys do not dispute that she killed them but argue she was not criminally responsible due to severe mental illness, including bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis.
The court also heard from a note Clancy wrote in October 2022, in which she expressed doubts about her parenting and questioned her decision to stop breastfeeding her youngest child. In the note, she wrote of being terrified of harming her children's development and described feeling overwhelmed by parenting information.
Text messages between Clancy and her then-husband, Patrick, were read aloud in court. The messages from the day of the killings showed the couple coordinating daily routines and exchanging supportive words, with Patrick texting, "You're a good mamma."
Prosecutors argue Clancy was an intentional killer who sent her husband out for takeout and a pharmacy run before attacking the children with exercise bands. They have presented testimony from medical providers who said Clancy never expressed a plan to harm herself or her children.
Clancy's defense says she sought help from multiple providers, tried various medications, and even admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital, but her condition worsened. If convicted of murder, she faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.