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Lindsay Clancy plans to pursue insanity defense, lawyer says
Speculation that Clancy might pursue an insanity defense began soon after she allegedly strangled her children and severely injured herself in a suicide attempt.
A lawyer for Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury mother accused of strangling her three children to death last year, said Clancy plans to argue she can’t be held criminally responsible for the killings due to her mental health.
In a court filing Friday, defense attorney Kevin Reddington wrote that “statements of the defendant as to her mental condition will be relied upon by defendant’s expert witnesses and the defendant does intend to present to the Court a defense of lack of criminal responsibility.”
Per the state’s model jury instructions, a defendant isn’t criminally responsible for their conduct if they have a “mental disease or defect” and as a result lacked “substantial capacity” to either act according to the law or appreciate the criminality or wrongfulness of their conduct.
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Speculation that Clancy might pursue an insanity defense began soon after she allegedly killed 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan Clancy before severely injuring herself in a suicide attempt.
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During various court appearances, Reddington and Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague have sparred over whether Clancy was in her right mind during the alleged attacks on Jan. 24, 2023. By Reddington’s account, Clancy was struggling with her mental health following the birth of her third child and had been prescribed more than a dozen psychiatric medications, with mixed results.
In the weeks and months prior to the killings, “She was in such a state, she was unable to emote,” he said during Clancy’s superior court arraignment. “She was unable to feel. She had no ability to love, whether it was her husband or her kids.”
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Clancy “obviously had no reason to kill those three beautiful children,” Reddington argued. “You have to ask yourself why. Why? And when you ask yourself why, you consider all of these factors, it’s readily apparent … that this woman was a troubled soul.”
Sprague, however, has painted the young mother as a cold and calculating killer who allegedly searched “Can you treat a sociopath?” on the internet a few days before allegedly killing her children.
“The defendant is a danger to herself and others,” Sprague argued in an earlier district court arraignment. “She planned these murders, gave herself the time and privacy needed to commit the murders, and then she strangled each child in the place where they should have felt the safest: At home with their mom.”
But as veteran criminal defense attorney Janice Bassil told Boston.com in 2023, planning and psychosis aren’t mutually exclusive.
“I think prosecutors and often the experts they call upon often confuse … planning with a lack of mental illness, and that isn’t necessarily true at all,” said Bassil, who has represented clients who pursued an insanity defense following a murder charge.
She said part of a successful insanity defense is convincing jurors the defendant wouldn’t have acted the way they did if they weren’t sick.
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“The people who have a mental health defense like this, it’s not like they’re getting off scot-free,” she told Boston.com at the time. “They’re tortured by what they did.”
When a defendant is found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, authorities will often petition the court to commit the person to a mental health facility, according to the state’s model jury instructions. The court may ultimately order the defendant discharged if at some point they’re deemed no longer mentally ill and dangerous. Clancy has been committed to the state-run Tewksbury Hospital while her case is pending.
In another court filing Friday, prosecutors requested a September trial date.
“While DNA testing results and reports from experts are outstanding, it is reasonably believed that this discovery will be complete well in advance of September of 2025,” Sprague wrote in the motion.
A conference in the case is scheduled for Wednesday.
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