Lindsay Clancy sobbed in court on Wednesday while doctors testified about the autopsies of her deceased children. Who Is Lindsay Clancy came into focus as Judge William Sullivan interrupted the proceedings and later told jurors to separate reaction from the evidence they were hearing.
She has pleaded not guilty to three murder charges tied to the deaths of Cora, Dawson and Callan, who died at the family home in the Boston suburb of Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023. During the testimony, Clancy was hunched over the defense table with a box of tissues nearby.
William Sullivan and the jury
Testimony in the murder trial was interrupted multiple times as Judge William Sullivan excused the jury during the doctors' testimony. Renee Stonebridge and Barbara Olson described the injuries to Cora and Dawson, and Sullivan told jurors: "Sometimes there's evidence that's presented in the trial that creates an emotional reaction" and "says you must separate any emotional reaction on your part from the informational value and weight that the evidence produces."
Clancy began crying as Barbara Olson described Cora's injuries. A few minutes later, during a recess, she was removed from the courtroom in her wheelchair.
Kevin Reddington's defense
Kevin Reddington has argued that Clancy had postpartum psychosis and severe mental illness, and that she attempted to take her own life after strangling her children. That defense sat against the testimony heard on Wednesday, when jurors also heard from six witnesses, including two doctors who conducted the autopsies, three law enforcement officers who kept watch over Clancy in the hospital, and therapist Latiesha Dukes.
Dukes, who treated Clancy in the weeks before the killings, testified that Clancy expressed concerns about being addicted to benzodiazepines and did not show obvious signs of mania or psychosis. She also said she was unaware of some of Clancy's struggles finding treatment for postpartum depression.
Rebecca Jollotta and the trial
Jurors had heard from psychiatric nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta on Tuesday about patient portal messages she exchanged with Clancy in the period before the killings. Jollotta testified that Clancy repeatedly attempted to change psychiatric medications despite acknowledging that switching drugs would likely affect her mental health, and prosecutors cited Clancy's message saying, "It's just a scary, very scary, stressful time for me, and starting new meds with side effects is very scary to me."
Jollotta said she tried to be encouraging and told Clancy that her conditions would improve and that new medications can take weeks to take effect. She is one of several medical professionals being sued by Clancy and Patrick Clancy over allegations of overmedicating and failing to properly treat her after the birth of her third child.
The trial now turns on what the jury makes of the autopsy evidence, the doctors' descriptions of the injuries to Cora and Dawson, and the competing explanations offered by the defense and the medical witnesses who have testified so far.
