This story may contain content readers find disturbing or triggering. For help with postpartum mood disorders, the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline is free, confidential, and 24/7. Text or call 1-833-TLC-MAMA. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call 988 or go tohttps://988lifeline.org/to chat online.
Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial will resume for an eighth day Thursday, when prosecutors are expected to call a doctor from the medical examiner’s office to the stand in Plymouth Superior Court.
That could pave the way for the submission of autopsy photos that have been impounded from the public’s view.
Clancy, 35, has admitted to strangling her three young children to death at the family’s Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023.
Prosecutors contend that she acted intentionally and should be held criminally responsible. Clancy’s defense says she suffered from postpartum psychosis, which affected her sense of reality.
Thursday is expected to be a full-day of testimony.
During a half-day on Wednesday jurors heard from the Clancy family’s former nanny, Elaine Rossi.
Rossi worked at the family’s Duxbury home for three months in 2022, leaving one month before Clancy strangled 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan.
Rossi described Clancy as a loving mother who confessed to struggling with postpartum issues. Rossi said the children appeared happy and well cared for and she never harbored any concerns about their safety or Clancy’s interactions with them.
Rossi was the prosecution’s 45th witness over seven days.
Clancy’s lawyer has argued she was experiencing “command hallucinations” and couldn’t resist a male voice in her head that told her to kill the children and herself. Clancy said she desperately sought help, but was misdiagnosed and overmedicated by numerous medical providers.
Prosecutors allege that Clancy premeditated the murders because she was unhappy with her life and wanted to kill herself and take the children with her because she didn’t trust anyone else to care for them.
Prosecutors will call their own mental health experts to challenge the defense’s theories but not until after the defense rests its case. That is not anticipated to happen until later in the trial.
Prosecutors are still in the midst of laying out their murder case. Once they rest, the defense will present evidence to support its claims. After that, prosecutors will call rebuttal witnesses, including mental health experts, in an effort to prove that Clancy was aware of her actions and the potential consequences and could have controlled herself.
Clancy attempted to kill herself immediately after slaying the children. She cut her neck and wrists and jumped from a second-story window of her home.
Clancy is now paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. She is being held at Tewksbury Hospital where she is receiving treatment.
If Clancy is acquitted, she would not go free. She instead would be sent to a state psychiatric hospital and would come up for periodic reviews to determine whether she can live safely in the community.
Travis Andersen of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.
