Jurors in Lindsay Clancy trial deliberating for a third day in child killings case

Jurors have resumed deliberating for a third day in the Lindsay Clancy trial, determining whether to hold the former labour and delivery nurse criminally responsible for the 2023 killing of her three children. The case has drawn attention to maternal mental health after childbirth.

Clancy, 36, was tried in Plymouth County Superior Court after she and her husband, her then-husband, faced trial for the deaths of their children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, aged 5, 3, and 8 months respectively. The children were strangled with exercise bands in the basement of their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

Over the course of the trial, the jury heard testimony from more than 70 prosecution witnesses and 10 defence witnesses over five weeks. Clancy's lawyer argued that she committed the killings due to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth. Clancy admitted to strangling her children, but argued that her actions were a result of losing her grip on reality due to this mental illness.

Prosecutors, however, maintained that Clancy knew what she was doing and made a conscious choice to kill her children before attempting suicide. They argued that she did so because she was depressed and tired of living. If found guilty, Clancy could face life in prison or be confined in a mental health facility. If acquitted, she would be free. Clancy did not testify during the trial, but her mental health history was extensively discussed, including her psychiatric hospitalization in the months preceding the killings.