PLYMOUTH, MASS. (WHDH) - It was an emotional day of testimony in the courtroom Wednesday morning as Patrick Clancy returned to the witness stand in his ex-wife Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial. Lindsay is charged with killing the couple’s three young children at their Duxbury home in 2023.
Clancy’s defense team doesn’t dispute that Clancy killed the children, but plans to raise an insanity defense. Her defense claims she was over-medicated and suffered from severe postpartum depression (PPD) at the time.
— Pyschiatrist speaks on postpartum psychosis diagnosis —
On Wednesday morning, the prosecution continued their questioning. Patrick testified that he went to go pick up dinner on the night of his three children’s deaths. On Monday, He described what his children were doing before he left to go pick up dinner.
“I came upstairs, I took Callan for a minute, and I rocked him by my knees, kissed Cora on the head, and I said I’ll be right back,” Patrick said on the stand Monday. “[Dawson] was eating chicken nuggets on the couch.”
It was revealed in court that Lindsay asked him to make a second stop at CVS Pharmacy that same night. Prosecutors played a video for jurors showing him walking around the store. While inside, he called Lindsay to ask about what she needed; he said the call was quick and that she sounded busy.
Prosecutors said while he was gone, Lindsay strangled their children with an exercise band and tried to take her own life. Patrick testified Wednesday about finding a bloodied Lindsay in their backyard after she jumped out of their second-floor bedroom window in a failed suicide attempt. He then described rushing to the basement where he found his children’s lifeless bodies.
“I saw Cora…she had a band around her neck,” Patrick said.
Prosecutors played the 9-1-1 call Patrick made on the night investigators said she killed her three children. As the call was played, Lindsay was seen crying with her head in her hands. Lindsay’s parents were also emotional, and many others in the courtroom were visibly upset.
The judge took a recess after the call was played.
Prosecutors said one week after the children’s deaths, Lindsay called Patrick from her hospital bed and told him she had been hearing voices that told her to commit the crimes.
“She said she heard a man’s voice telling her that if she didn’t do it now, she would lose her chance, or something like that,” Patrick said. He continued that he did not recall hearing his ex-wife say she was suffering from psychosis.
Testimony is expected to resume Thursday morning and continue for the next several weeks.
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