PLYMOUTH, MASS. (WHDH) - After five weeks of testimony and 80 witnesses, jurors heard closing arguments from the defense and prosecution in the Lindsay Clancy trial Thursday morning. They then began deliberations, but had not yet reached verdict by the end of the day.
— Jury hears closing arguments in Lindsay Clancy trial —
The defense argued Clancy suffered from postpartum psychosis and shouldn’t be held criminally responsible for killing her three young children, Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months. The prosecution built their case on the notion that even though Clancy struggled with her mental health, she was aware of her actions at the time.
Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, used poster boards displaying text messages and family photos of Clancy and her children with her ex-husband, Patrick, showing her as a loving mother.
Reddington also showed the jury pictures of Clancy in her hospital bed after her suicide attempt to show the state she was in at the time of the killings.
“A son, my prince,” Reddington read off one of the poster boards. “But they would have you think she killed him first. Cruelly. Because she didn’t like him. That is repulsive.”
“Isn’t it interesting when you consider subjective evidence, googling ‘slitting her throat,’ googling ‘suicide,’ googling drugs, googling ‘side effects,’ googling ‘ketamine treatments,’ googling all these drugs, googling the effects of Tuffs medications,'” Reddington said. “It goes on and on and on, and we have a chart description to see. And obviously she wasn’t consuming all of these at the same time because the one thing this kid tried to do is what she was supposed to do.”
Many items on display during Reddington’s closing argument were evidence in the trial, including bottles of pills Clancy was prescribed. Reddington also accused the district attorney of questioning the validity of Clancy’s suicide attempt.
“She’s going to throw herself out of a window, I guess kind of slide out, hanging out the window, remember that one,” Reddington said. “Hanging off of the window.”
Clancy is paralyzed from the waist down following her suicide attempt. She sat in her wheelchair and was seen crying softly at times as Reddington spoke.
— Evan Gotlob speaks about closing arguments —
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague then spoke to the jury, saying mental health was not on trial and that Clancy had support from both sides of her family and others.
The prosecution recapped the Commonwealth’s case, reinforcing the testimony from prosecution witnesses who said Clancy did not suffer a psychotic break at the time of the killings. They argued Clancy was calculated and planned the killings.
“You know that she knew the difference between right and wrong during that time because she had those thoughts at the beginning of December of harming her kids,” Sprague said. “And she told Patrick and her mother about this. But who she didn’t tell is important, and it’s very telling. She didn’t tell a single provider. Not Tufts, not Gilatta, not Jennifer McAllister, not Dukes, no one at McClain, no one at MGH, no one at South Shore, didn’t tell any of them. And why? Because the police might take away her kids. That’s a rational thought: that telling mandated reporters 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.”
The prosecution also pointed to Clancy’s phone search history, saying it showed she mapped out how long it would take Patrick to run errands, and added an extra stop when she didn’t think it would be enough time to kill the children and herself before he got home.
Sprague also addressed the voices Clancy claimed to hear that told her to kill her children. She said that that isn’t true, and added that Patrick found Lindsay injured in the backyard.
The jury will reconvene Friday morning to continue deliberating.
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