A 911 Call, a Locked Door and a Mother’s Unraveling: Day Two of the Lindsay Clancy Trial

The Lindsay Clancy trial reached its most difficult moment yet on Wednesday, when jurors at Plymouth Superior Court listened to the seven-minute emergency call her former husband placed after returning to their Duxbury home in January 2023. Lindsay Clancy, seated at the defense table in a wheelchair, folded over and wept as the recording played. Judge William Sullivan called a recess and she was wheeled out of the courtroom sobbing.

Several jurors appeared shaken. So did much of the gallery.

The Charges and the Central Dispute

Clancy, 35, a former labor and delivery nurse, faces three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and eight-month-old Callan — on January 24, 2023. She has pleaded not guilty and faces a life sentence if convicted.

There is little argument in this courtroom about what happened. The fight is over her mind.

Prosecutors, led by Jennifer Sprague, are building a case that the killings were deliberate and planned, that Clancy engineered a window of time alone with her children, and that she remained anchored to reality throughout. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington argues the opposite: that his client was in the grip of severe postpartum psychosis, worsened by a shifting cocktail of prescription medication, and cannot be held criminally responsible.

Clancy attends each session in a wheelchair. She was gravely injured in a suicide attempt the same night her children died and is paralyzed from the waist down.

A Father’s Second Day on the Stand

Patrick Clancy, the children’s father, was the first witness prosecutors called after opening statements on Monday. He returned Wednesday morning to walk the jury through the hours before he found his family.

He described being at home when his then-wife asked him to run errands. She placed a takeout order at a local restaurant just after five o’clock, and minutes later texted him to stop at a pharmacy for children’s medicine. He called her while searching the aisles for what she had asked him to buy.

The prosecution supported that account with brief testimony from two employees — a pharmacy worker and a restaurant hostess named Saria Shelgren, who identified Patrick on surveillance footage and said nothing about their exchange struck her as unusual. Neither witness faced cross-examination. Their appearances gave the courtroom a short reprieve from a punishing morning.

Coming Home

Patrick then described arriving back at the house. He called down toward the basement and no one answered. He tried phoning his wife. He checked the bathrooms and the children’s rooms and found them empty.

Then he reached his own bedroom and discovered the door was locked. That, he told the jury, was the moment he understood something had gone badly wrong.

Inside, he found blood throughout the room. His wife was on the ground outside the house, conscious but barely able to speak.

The Recording

The 911 call captures him urging her to stay awake while he waits for help. Her voice is faintly audible, low and unintelligible. When paramedics reached her, he stayed on the line with the dispatcher and went looking for the children.

What follows on the recording is the sound of a father who has found them.

Sprague asked him afterward whether anyone had ever warned him against leaving the children alone with their mother, and whether Lindsay had told him in January 2023 that she wanted to hurt them.

Warning Signs, Doctors and Dosages

Earlier testimony established that Clancy had struggled significantly after the birth of her third child. Patrick told the court she had confided in the preceding months that she was having thoughts of suicide and thoughts of harming their children.

Her condition, he said, deteriorated in December 2022 after a physician increased her Seroquel dosage. In the weeks that followed she was seen at two medical facilities, including a stay of several days in a locked psychiatric ward in early January.

He also recounted a phone conversation with her in the aftermath of the children’s deaths. She did not talk about the children, he said — she talked about what she had experienced. He testified that she described hearing a man’s voice pressing her, telling her that if she did not act immediately she would lose her opportunity. She had never mentioned hearing voices before that conversation.

Under redirect questioning, Patrick acknowledged he had not personally watched her take every pill. He believed she was following her prescriptions because that is what she told him.

Cross-Examination and a Portrait of Two Truths

When Reddington took over, the tone shifted. Patrick described his former wife as an intensely devoted mother, someone who did everything for their family.

That duality has defined the trial so far. Prosecutors have shown the jury photographs and video from birthday parties, a museum outing and a trip to an indoor water park — evidence, they argue, of a woman functioning normally and aware of her surroundings. The same body of evidence, in the defense’s telling, shows a couple who were trying hard to hold things together while she sought treatment for an illness that was overtaking her.

Patrick stepped down for the final time shortly after four o’clock Wednesday afternoon, closing out roughly three sessions of testimony across two emotionally brutal days.

What Comes Next

Court resumed Thursday morning at nine, with a full day of prosecution witnesses expected. Attorneys anticipate the proceedings will run for several more weeks, and expert testimony on Clancy’s psychiatric state is likely to become the decisive battleground.

For the jury, the question ahead is narrow but immense: whether a woman can be held criminally accountable for acts committed in a state of mind she may not have controlled.

Editor’s note: This coverage deals with child deaths, suicide and severe perinatal mental illness. If you or someone you know is struggling with postpartum mental health symptoms or thoughts of self-harm, help is available — reach out to a healthcare provider or a crisis line in your area.