A jury is to determine whether Lindsay Clancy is criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023 in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She was being treated for postpartum mental health issues when she killed the children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was 8 months old. Plymouth County Superior Court Judge William Sullivan is presiding over the jury trial, which began on July 27 and is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Curated by: Meghann Cuniff (223 videos)
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague gave the closing argument in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial in Plymouth, Massachusetts, this morning (Thursday, August 27, day 22). You can watch defense attorney Kevin Reddington's 52-minute argument here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERESSn0szFs "There's no dispute that Lindsay Clancy was suffering from mental illness and that she tried to kill herself. There's there's no dispute about that. All of the evidence that you've heard, even the experts that the Commonwealth put before you, say that she was suffering from mental illness and she tried to kill herself." "That's not the issue in this trial, the issue is whether, at the time she killed Cora, Dawson and Callan, she knew the difference between right and wrong, and whether she could conform her behavior to the requirements of the law. This case is not about our mental health system or how it treats women or what's in the DSM-5 and what's not-that's a distraction to get you angry and passionate about an important issue, but an issue." 01:49 "She had support at home. She had 18 weeks of maternity leave with the opportunity to extend that as much as she needed, which is excellent. Which is what all women should have, but she had that. She had support from both sides of her family, hers and Patrick's. The two older kids, Cora and Dawson, were in preschool three and a half days a week, and she had the nanny..." 12:47 "She had those thoughts at the beginning of December of harming her kids, and she told Patrick and her mother about them. But who she didn't tell is important and very telling. She didn't tell a single provider, not Tufts, not Jollotta, not Jennifer McAllister, not Dukes, no one at McLean, no one at MGH, no one at South Shore, didn't tell any of them." "And why? Because the police might take away your kids. That's a rational thought, but telling mandated reporters that you're having a thought of harming your kids, that they might be taken away for their safety, that's a rational thought, and it also shows she knew it was a bad thought, a wrong thought, because you don't think someone's going to take your kids away because you're thinking something positive or neutral." "It's because it's bad. It's because it's wrong. It's because it's against the law. So she knew that it was wrong, and she was able to conform her behavior to the law because she didn't tell those providers." 21:35 "And you have those text messages between the defendant and her mom, and her mom obviously was very attentive, very caring, asked very pointed questions. How are you doing? How are you sleeping? How are the medications? Obviously, a very concerned, loving mom. How does Lindsay answer?" "I'm getting a little better. I'm sleeping better, she said. "The only time her sleep was interrupted is if Cora had a bellyache or one of the kids was up. But she's she's doing better every day. She's sleeping better. She's feeling better. She still says I'm not myself. I'm not where I want to be, but she's moving in the right direction. And we have that text from her mom, the the day she leaves on the 22nd, headed back home. I'm glad to see you're doing so much better...." 27:42 "You heard from Patrick. They had been there at least three times in the months before. She had lived in that area for four years. She knew where it was. She knew generally how long it would take to get there." "What she needed to know was how long specifically on that night, it would take to get there, because she knew she would have a limited amount of time to do what she wanted to do, and what she had decided to do was to kill the children and then kill herself, and so she needed to know not generally but exactly how much time will I have, and then obviously sees that that's not enough time, so then she searches CVS, and not only does she search CVS, she calls them ... Because she's adding to this errand that she's sending Patrick out on, and she has to make sure she's not interrupted." 36:37 "Those are decisions and choices and actions that she's controlling, so she has to explain away the phone call because her behavior and her ability to have the phone call don't make sense if she's being compelled by a voice, if she's not in control." 41:22 "So you know she killed those kids as soon as he left, and when she got the call from him, she had already strangled them, and she didn't tell him, she didn't ask for help, she didn't say, "Oh my God, what have I done?" 52:00 "And the order also shows a rationality. ... She didn't have time to try to find a child who ran off and hid. So taking Dawson first and moving him to a separate room, having Cora stay with Callan, and having Dawson go in another room-that's rational. That makes sense. That's ordered thinking." 54:15 "The indifference that she showed to their pain, to their struggle, to their suffering..." 55:59 "She is guilty."