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 to 988lifeline.org to chat online.
Testimony is set to resume Thursday in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury mother charged with killing her three young children in January 2023.
After multiple witnesses over the last several days testified about Clancy’s postpartum mental health and her efforts to get treatment, prosecutors shifted the focus back to the victims Wednesday as medical examiners described the fatal injuries Clancy inflicted on her children.
Clancy sobbed uncontrollably as the medical examiners delivered graphic testimony about the nature of the three children’s injuries. At one point, as pathologist Dr. Barbara Olson noted the neck trauma caused on Clancy’s 5-year-old daughter, Clancy’s cries grew so loud that the judge in the case paused the trial because the witness’s testimony could not be heard.
Jurors were escorted from the courtroom as Clancy’s legal team comforted her, but the testimony was allowed to resume soon after.
Clancy has admitted to killing her three young children at the family’s Duxbury home. 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.
Clancy, who cut herself and jumped from a second-story window in a failed attempt to end her life after killing her children, remains paralyzed from the waist down. She has been held without bail at Tewksbury State Hospital, where she continues to receive treatment.
Should jurors acquit her in Plymouth Superior Court, she would not go free but would be sent to a state psychiatric hospital where she’d come up for periodic reviews to determine whether she can live safely in the community.
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By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
The parties entered the courtroom around 9:20 a.m. without the jury present.
Judge William Sullivan called the lawyers to a sidebar.
What’s unique about the insanity defense? — 8:55 a.m.
By Lea Skene, Globe Staff
As the Clancy trial draws a large following of armchair observers and becomes the subject of widespread speculation online, the action inside the courtroom is following a specific procedural structure largely unique to insanity cases.
Perhaps the most striking feature of such cases: The facts often aren’t in dispute. It’s the defendant’s mental state the jury will consider — to determine whether she should be held legally responsible for her actions.
How addictive are benzodiazepines? — 8:41 a.m.
By Jason Laughlin, Globe Staff
A repeated concern Lindsay Clancy raised, according to testimony from her providers, was a fear that she would become addicted to the benzodiazepines she was prescribed to help her sleep.
Two providers, Rebecca Jollotta, a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner, and Latiesha Dukes, a therapist, both testified that they considered her fears unwarranted.
These drugs, which include Ativan, Klonopin, and Valium, all of which were taken by Clancy at different times, are effective treatments for people with anxiety and difficulty sleeping, and are well tested. They have been used since the 1960s, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
There is a risk of addiction, though, and they should not be used without a doctor’s oversight. An article this year in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences states that these drugs should not be used for longer than eight to 12 consecutive weeks, and doses should be gradually increased or decreased, not changed abruptly.
Using benzodiazepines for too long can cause excessive sedation, cognitive impairment, loss of motor coordination, and long-term health consequences, including addiction, the article said.
The connection between sleep deprivation and mental illness — 8:37 a.m.
By Jason Laughlin, Globe Staff
Repeatedly, Lindsay Clancy told her providers that she was being plagued with insomnia.
“I really need help,” she wrote one provider in December 2022 describing, among her symptoms, interrupted sleep.
Chronic insomnia is more than an irritation. Over time, sleep deprivation can be mentally and emotionally crippling and can worsen existing mental health conditions. One 2024 review of journal articles about the mental health consequences of poor sleep found strong connections to increased anxiety, less expression of positive emotions, and overall reduced response to emotional stimuli. There were also some signs that certain kinds of sleep deprivation can contribute to greater expression of negative emotions and depressive symptoms.
A 2011 study found people without depression who develop insomnia are twice as likely to develop depression.For new mothers, disrupted sleep is almost impossible to avoid, particularly for the first six months of a baby’s life. Giving birth has physical and psychological effects on a woman’s sleep patterns as does the demands of infants who sleep irregularly.
Sleep disturbances and poor sleep quality appear associated with postpartum depression, a condition clinicians found Clancy had, according to a 2016 study.
The relationship is similar to a chicken and egg scenario, where both conditions can reinforce each other.
“The relationship between poor postpartum sleep and [postpartum depression] is likely bidirectional, with each increasing the risk of the other,” one 2024 study in Seminars in Perinatology stated.
Conversely, good sleep is a treatment for postpartum mental health issues.
Dr. Uruj Haider, director of the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program, described sleep as an important component of treatment for postpartum psychosis, a severe mental illness that can cause hallucinations, delusions, and both homicidal and suicidal behavior.
Here’s how Tuesday’s testimony unfolded — 8:30 a.m.
By Camilo Fonseca, Globe Staff
A doctor with the state medical examiner’s office took the stand in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial Wednesday and delivered graphic testimony about the nature of her children’s injuries.
Clancy, who is charged with murder in the deaths of her three children, sobbed in court as Dr. Renee Stonebridge and Dr. Barbara Olson testified.
Earlier Wednesday, Latiesha Dukes, a therapist who treated Clancy, testified that she reported having intrusive suicidal thoughts and anxiety that something would happen to her children. Clancy did not show any signs of psychosis or mania, Dukes said.
Therapist who treated Lindsay Clancy testifies she didn’t show signs of psychosis
Before Dukes took the stand, jurors heard testimony from a State Police sergeant, whose questioning prompted the judge to excuse the jury and evaluate the evidence before allowing jurors to return. The break was prompted by Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, asking the trooper, Daniel Lawlor, about his interactions with the prosecution.
Reddington suggested investigators theorized that a psychologist hired by the defense told Clancy to call her then-husband, Patrick, from her hospital bed and tell him she “heard voices.” Lawlor, who was sent to stand guard outside Clancy’s hospital room some days after she killed her children, said without the jury present that he did not have conversations with the prosecution about their theory of the case.
This is a key point for the defense because Reddington is arguing that Clancy had a psychotic break when she strangled her children and couldn’t resist voices telling her to kill them and herself.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Jenna Reyes can be reached at jenna.reyes@globe.com. Follow her @jennaelaney and Instagram @jennaelaney.
