The live Lindsay Clancy trial resumed this week in Plymouth Superior Court, where jurors listened to emotional excerpts from the former labor and delivery nurse’s personal journals. The entries, written in the months before she killed her three young children, painted a raw picture of a mother struggling with severe postpartum mental illness.
Clancy, now 35, does not deny that she strangled 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan inside the family’s Duxbury home on January 24, 2023. Instead, her defense has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, commonly known as an insanity defense. Prosecutors, meanwhile, argue that she planned the killings deliberately.
Journal Entries Reveal a Mother in Crisis
On Monday, Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, read aloud from several of her personal journals in front of the jury. According to Boston.com, Clancy wrote at length about feeling “overwhelmed” and “guilty” following the birth of her third child, Callan, in August 2022.
One entry, read in court, captured her state of mind in stark terms. “I feel like I’m drowning every day,” she wrote, as reported by Boston.com. In another passage highlighted by ABC News, Clancy described struggling to function day to day, writing, “I have crazy brain fog. I feel like I can’t make a plan. I live moment to moment waiting for the next nap time.”
As per NewsNation, Clancy also documented her attempts to cope with the mounting anxiety through affirmations she wrote to herself, including phrases like “I am calm,” “I will sleep tonight,” and “Today will be a great day.” Despite those efforts, she also wrote “There is nothing that needs to be on my mind. The weight is lifted from my mind,” suggesting an ongoing internal struggle to quiet her racing thoughts.
According to Yahoo News, one particularly striking entry dated November 18, 2022, read: “I’m so desperate to get a mental break from taking care of everyone that my mind is trying to find something physically wrong with me.” The defense has pointed to entries like this as evidence of a woman in the grip of a serious psychiatric crisis rather than someone acting with premeditated intent.
“I Want Help. I Want to Be Well.”
Perhaps the most emotionally charged line read to jurors so far, as ABC News reported, came from an entry in which Clancy wrote simply, “I want help. I want to be well.” The defense has used lines like this throughout the trial to argue that Clancy repeatedly sought treatment and recognized something was wrong, but that the medical system failed to properly address her deteriorating condition.
Other portions of her writing, according to Yahoo News, described her feeling “disconnected” from both her newborn son and her then-husband, Patrick. She also wrote about being “terrified” that Callan would get sick, and about the guilt of switching him from breastfeeding to formula so she could focus on stabilizing her own mental health.
Clancy additionally wrote about financial guilt tied to being on leave from her nursing job, expressing that she felt “incredibly sad and guilty” about spending the family’s money without contributing income after giving birth, per NewsNation’s court coverage.
Multiple Journals Entered as Evidence
Testimony on Monday established that investigators recovered more than one journal belonging to Clancy. As per NewsNation, a witness told jurors he had reviewed at least two additional journals beyond the one already discussed in earlier testimony, including one with entries spanning from October 13, 2022, through January 18, 2023, just days before the killings. A separate journal, labeled with Callan’s name, largely documented the infant’s feeding and sleep schedule rather than Clancy’s emotional state.
The presence of multiple journals, prosecutors have suggested, shows a pattern of behavior over several months. The defense, however, argues that same pattern demonstrates a consistent and worsening psychiatric decline that went unaddressed by her care providers.
How the Trial Has Unfolded So Far
The live Lindsay Clancy trial began with jury selection on July 20, 2026, at Plymouth Superior Court. Nearly 90 potential jurors were screened on the opening day alone, with the judge ultimately seeking to seat a panel of 18, including six alternates, given the disturbing nature of the case.
Jury selection stretched across several days. By July 22, 17 of the planned 18 jurors had been seated, according to court coverage from WJAR, with one juror needing to be replaced after telling the judge he could not handle serving on the panel. Opening statements followed shortly after, with Patrick Clancy called as the trial’s first witness.
Here is a quick timeline of how the case has progressed:
- January 24, 2023: Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy are killed inside the family’s Duxbury home; Lindsay Clancy is found badly injured after jumping from a second-story window.
- 2023–2025: Multiple pretrial hearings, competency evaluations, and delays push the trial date back several times.
- February 2026: A previously scheduled trial start date is postponed again as both sides gather medical records and expert evaluations.
- July 20, 2026: Jury selection begins in Plymouth Superior Court.
- Late July 2026: Opening statements begin; Patrick Clancy and first responders testify.
- Early August 2026: Journal entries are read aloud in court as the trial moves into its second week.
Husband’s Testimony Set the Emotional Tone
Before jurors ever heard Clancy’s own words, they heard from her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, who testified during the trial’s opening week. He described returning home the night of the killings to a chaotic scene: a bloodied bedroom, an open window, his wife on the ground outside, and their three children in the basement with exercise bands still around their necks. A recording of his 911 call, in which he told the dispatcher “She killed the kids!”, was also played for the jury.
Patrick Clancy testified that his wife’s mental health rapidly deteriorated in the months following Callan’s birth. He and Lindsay Clancy have also filed separate civil lawsuits accusing her medical providers of failing to properly diagnose and treat what they describe as a severe postpartum psychiatric condition.
First responders and emergency room physicians also testified during the trial’s first week, describing the scene as “chaotic” as they worked to save the children. Clancy, for her part, remains paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the fall from the second-story window.
What Prosecutors Are Arguing
Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham has worked to keep the jury’s attention on the specific actions Clancy is accused of taking rather than on broader questions about maternal mental health. “This is not a public debate about women’s mental health and how the medical system treats women,” Buckingham said in her opening statement, as reported by ABC News.
Prosecutors allege that Clancy “deliberately and meticulously” strangled her children with exercise bands after sending Patrick out of the house on an errand, and that she then attempted to take her own life by jumping from the window, an act prosecutors describe as evidence she understood the seriousness of what she had done.
What the Defense Is Arguing
The defense’s central argument is that Clancy was legally insane at the time of the killings due to severe postpartum psychosis, compounded by what her legal team describes as overmedication with psychiatric drugs. Reddington has told jurors that Clancy and Patrick sought extensive mental health treatment in the weeks before the killings but were unable to get the level of care she needed, including a hospital stay just weeks before January 24, 2023.
If convicted of murder, Clancy faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. If the jury instead finds she lacked criminal responsibility due to mental illness, she would be committed to a state mental health facility rather than prison.
A Psychiatrist Takes the Stand
Also testifying this week was a psychiatrist involved in Clancy’s treatment following her hospitalization after the killings. Dr. Jhilam Biswas of Brigham and Women’s Hospital recalled that when Clancy was asked how she felt two days after the incident, she responded with a single word: “horrified.” Biswas also testified that Clancy asked whether she had a lawyer and questioned whether her body and legs had been broken in the fall, details that both sides may use to support very different interpretations of her mental state at the time.
Case Now Ahead of Schedule
Despite the emotionally difficult and lengthy nature of the testimony, the judge overseeing the case indicated last week that proceedings are running slightly ahead of the original schedule. The trial is still expected to last several more weeks as both prosecutors and the defense continue calling witnesses, including additional medical experts.
Duxbury Police Sgt. Robert Flynn, who responded to the scene the night of the killings, also testified this week about the department’s security sweep of the home to confirm there were no additional victims or suspects inside.
Why This Case Has Drawn National Attention
The live Lindsay Clancy trial has become one of the most closely watched criminal cases in Massachusetts in recent years, largely because of the questions it raises about postpartum mental illness, medical treatment failures, and where the legal system should draw the line on criminal responsibility. Legal analysts have described the case as unusually complex, given the combination of graphic facts and a sympathetic mental health narrative the defense is presenting.
As testimony continues, both the prosecution and defense are expected to lean heavily on expert psychiatric witnesses to argue over whether Clancy understood the nature and consequences of her actions on the night her children died.
This case continues to develop, so check back for the latest updates as testimony in the Lindsay Clancy trial continues this week.