Lindsay Clancy’s ex-husband details ‘big spiral’ as expert says one part ‘scared me’ in mom’s murder trial

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Patrick Clancy, the father of three young children strangled inside their Massachusetts home, became the first witness Monday in his ex-wife’s murder trial, offering jurors a harrowing account of the mental health decline he witnessed before their deaths.

He was the first witness called in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, who faces murder charges in the deaths of the couple’s three children in January 2023. Prosecutors argue she acted deliberately, while defense attorneys contend severe mental illness drove her actions.

Patrick described watching his then-wife fall into a “big spiral” after she began taking Seroquel, testifying that she lost weight, became severely depressed and began expressing suicidal thoughts.

“Awful,” he said when asked how Lindsay was doing physically after starting the medication. “That was really where her big spiral started. She started to lose a lot of weight, and she became very depressed, and she was having a really hard time.”

Patrick’s testimony followed starkly different opening statements from prosecutors and the defense.

Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham told jurors that Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, were “deliberately and meticulously killed” by their mother on Jan. 24, 2023.

Buckingham alleged that Clancy deliberately sent Patrick from their Duxbury home to pick up medication and takeout food, giving herself enough time to strangle each child with an exercise band before attempting to kill herself.

The Commonwealth’s strategy, she said, is to reject the defense’s bid that Clancy suffered a sudden psychotic break and instead portray her as organized, purposeful and controlled.

During opening statements, defense attorney Kevin Reddington conceded that Clancy killed the children but argued that the only meaningful dispute is what was happening inside her mind.

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“She knows that she killed these children,” Reddington told jurors. “The issue for consideration is what was going on in that woman’s mind.”

McLean described the concession as a calculated move by a veteran trial attorney.

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“By doing that, he is attempting to strip the prosecution of their shock value and force the jury to look purely at Lindsay Clancy’s mental capacity,” she said.

Reddington argued that Clancy had no motive to kill children she had loved and nurtured. He also displayed graphic hospital photographs showing Clancy with injuries to her neck and wrists.

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McLean said the defense was framing Clancy’s paralysis “not as a consequence of a crime, but as the tragic final symptom of a complete postpartum psychotic break.”

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Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, has pleaded not guilty to three counts each of murder and strangulation. Her attorneys do not dispute that she killed the children but argue that she lacked criminal responsibility because of severe postpartum psychosis.

Judge William Sullivan told jurors that the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy was criminally responsible when the children were killed.

“It’s going to be black and white for some people, gray area for other people,” McLean said. “It is going to be one of the hardest things that this jury, or any jury, will ever have to decide.”