Clancy Trial Day 12 brought a dated search into evidence on Thursday. A state police investigator testified that Lindsay Clancy's phone was used to search "Can you treat a sociopath?" on Jan. 20, 2023, four days before her three children died.
Timothy Chiappini and Kyle Pavao also testified about forensic analyses of Clancy's phone and Patrick Clancy's tablet. The testimony added a digital trail to a case in which Lindsay Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three murder charges tied to Cora, Dawson and Callan.
October 2022 notes
Prosecutors also pointed jurors to notes Clancy wrote on her phone in October 2022. In one, she wrote, "I'm struggling so hard because I wanted to parent each of my kids like my first, and since I can't, that's depressing to me," and added, "This is definitely the root cause of all our problems. Now I feel like I'm not parenting any of my kids the way I want to, and that makes me sad too. But I'm going to try my best."
In another note, she wrote, "I hate that he has to put himself to sleep. I'm sad I'm not breastfeeding anymore, but I think deep down these were the right choices," and said she was on the fence about starting a new medication for anxiety and depression. She also wrote, "I still don't want Cal to be our last, but I have a lot of figuring out to do before I have another. I'm on the fence about starting a new medication for anxiety/depression. I just want to feel happy. I want to be able to relax and take care of my kids, and then and when they go to bed at night, I want to deeply relax and hang out with Pat, and then fall into a deep sleep for eight hours," according to the note.
Defense and prosecutors
Defense lawyers do not contest that Clancy was responsible for the deaths of her three children. They argue that she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time, while prosecutors are using her notes and search history to present a different account of her mental state before Jan. 24, 2023.
Judge William Sullivan had already been managing emotional testimony in the trial. On Wednesday, he excused the jury at times while Renee Stonebridge and Barbara Olson testified about the autopsies and described the injuries to Cora and Dawson.
The search on Jan. 20 gave jurors another dated data point before the killings at the family's home in Duxbury. The next part of the case turns on how the jury weighs that record against Clancy's phone notes and the defense claim that postpartum psychosis drove her actions.
