Speaker 1: A loving mom. Lindsey Clancy googles ways to kill, then
Speaker 1: murders her three thoughts dead in the basement with her
Speaker 1: own exercise bands. Tonight, she claims, I was crazy good evening.
Speaker 1: I Nancy Grace, this is crime stories. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2: She knew, she knew right for wrong.
Speaker 3: What appears to be perfectly seen obviously was not.
Speaker 2: This woman. Whatever happened, whether it was.
Speaker 4: Planned in her mind, committed one of the most heenous
Speaker 4: acts I have ever heard.
Speaker 5: On Summer's Street was full of the police.
Speaker 6: Phil Hardy off the top Florida house and place earth
Speaker 6: as well, and.
Speaker 5: Neck injuries and Nick collaboration. She's conscious at this time.
Speaker 6: We're gonna check with the place.
Speaker 1: Who's over twenty foot fall.
Speaker 7: It's unknown where the knife is or whatever she used
Speaker 7: to splitter. She's in the looks like the opinion are
Speaker 7: on the back. We'll get that she.
Speaker 5: Did use the knife at first. Unknown where that is
Speaker 5: at this time. I'm on the way. We're with the
Speaker 5: county arrest as the two pediatrics arrests. We got to
Speaker 5: mutulate on the way.
Speaker 1: You are hearing the nine to one one calls at
Speaker 1: least part of them because the initial nine one one
Speaker 1: is from the father, the dad of those children. The
Speaker 1: judge has ordered that that not be released. While we
Speaker 1: are not bound by that judge's ruling, we are adhering
Speaker 1: to it in the interest of justice. Instead, you are
Speaker 1: hearing back and forth between law enforcement. Is that the
Speaker 1: missing piece of the puzzle. Mom slits her own wrists
Speaker 1: and jumps out a window after killing all three of
Speaker 1: her children, the youngest just eight months old. We have
Speaker 1: seen child murders by mommy many many times before. Is
Speaker 1: this the fact that sets her Lindsey Clancy apart from
Speaker 1: other moms? Well, do I have to say taught mom
Speaker 1: Casey Anthony Instead of any remorse, she was in every
Speaker 1: bar in town on stripper poles. Okay, so that's not
Speaker 1: really a good comparison. What about Angia Yates. Angrea Yates
Speaker 1: murdered all of her children similar to this case. She
Speaker 1: waits until her husband Rusty is gone, locks the doors
Speaker 1: and methodically kills each child, and they fought to live.
Speaker 1: Their bodies were bruised from fighting to get out from
Speaker 1: under the water where she held them under. Andrea Yates
Speaker 1: claimed postpartum psychosis and she was deemed to be psychotic
Speaker 1: at the time of the murders, and she is in
Speaker 1: a mental facility today years later. But then you've got
Speaker 1: Deanna Laney, also known as rock Mom, who bludgeoned her
Speaker 1: children dead with a rock, leaving one of them, as
Speaker 1: I recall, with permanent brain damage. She claimed psychosis. After
Speaker 1: eight short years she has walked free. Different scenarios, same
Speaker 1: underlining theory, joining me in All Star Powel. But first,
Speaker 1: let's take a listen to those nine on one calls
Speaker 1: again again to the control room do not play dad.
Speaker 4: On Summer's Street was full the police stille party across
Speaker 4: the top floor of the house players as well, and
Speaker 4: neck injuries and the neck collaborations.
Speaker 7: She's conscious at this time.
Speaker 5: We're gonna check with my plate who was over at
Speaker 5: twenty foot fall.
Speaker 7: It's unknown where the knight is or whatever she used
Speaker 7: to slay her. She's in the looks like their opinion
Speaker 7: are on the back. Well, uh get that she.
Speaker 6: Did use a knife at first.
Speaker 5: Unknown where that is at this time. I love I'm
Speaker 5: on the way where with the county arrest as the
Speaker 5: two pediatrics arrests were got to mutilate on the way
Speaker 5: mutualate at this time.
Speaker 1: Before I head out to our all star panel, including
Speaker 1: Christina Rex, out of this jurisdiction. He was being in
Speaker 1: the court room since the beginning and was at the
Speaker 1: crime scene the night of the murders of the three children.
Speaker 1: Before I go to Christina Rex and the rest of
Speaker 1: our panel, I want you to hear what Clancy's defense
Speaker 1: attorney has to say.
Speaker 4: She's extremely emotional. However, she's unable and has been unable
Speaker 4: to express any happiness or sadness or cry. And in fact,
Speaker 4: sometime about a month or two ago, she made the comment,
Speaker 4: I just wish that I could feel something now. Our
Speaker 4: society fails miserably in treating women with post partum depression
Speaker 4: or even post partum psychosis.
Speaker 1: From our friends at court chop, let me see a
Speaker 1: picture of the three children. We are seemingly focusing on
Speaker 1: the mom Lindsay Clancy, not on the three murder victims
Speaker 1: who could not fight back. They were strangled dead with
Speaker 1: mommy's exercise bands. After she googled ways to kill After
Speaker 1: she googled can you treat a sociopath? After writing in
Speaker 1: her journal that she resented her older two children, she
Speaker 1: sends the dad out for takeout food and to the pharmacy,
Speaker 1: waits for him to leave, and murders her children. And
Speaker 1: let me remind everyone, Lindsey Clancy is presumed innocent. Joining
Speaker 1: me Christina Rex, reporter WBZTV in the courtroom from the
Speaker 1: get go and on the crime scene that night, I
Speaker 1: hear the defense lawyer saying she's been crying. Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess so she should crying. Some juncture she says
Speaker 1: she's crying. Sometimes she says she's not crying. I don't
Speaker 1: care if she's crying. They're dead. First, before we get
Speaker 1: to what's happening in the courtroom, there's gonna be hand
Speaker 1: to hand mutual combat over this case, because the prosecutor
Speaker 1: is digging in that mommy made a plan, The defense
Speaker 1: is digging in. This is not just postpartum depression, is
Speaker 1: postpartum psychosis. But I want to go to the night
Speaker 1: of the crime itself. Christina Rex, what did you observe
Speaker 1: at the scene?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so this is top three worst crime scenes I've
Speaker 8: ever been to. You know, as a reporter, we're behind
Speaker 8: the crime scene tape, so luckily I'm not. I didn't
Speaker 8: see the groupsome details, but I've never seen police officers
Speaker 8: weeping at a crime scene the way I did that night.
Speaker 8: When we had gotten there, it was, you know, a
Speaker 8: breaking news. We just heard it over the scanner. We
Speaker 8: didn't know what was going on. We just could tell
Speaker 8: it was something bad. But when I got to the
Speaker 8: crime scene and I saw police officers leaving the house
Speaker 8: in tears, we knew it was really, really a bad situation.
Speaker 1: And said that Christina Rex is my understanding that it
Speaker 1: was so bad that the seasoned officers had to get counseling.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's not unusual in Massachusetts after a traumatic event,
Speaker 8: often ones involving children for the police stations to offer counseling.
Speaker 8: But in this case, we know officers took the station
Speaker 8: up on that, it took the department up on that,
Speaker 8: and really did need that support because it was how
Speaker 8: traumatic this crime scene was.
Speaker 1: The children were all found herded into the basement and dead,
Speaker 1: strangled with mommy's exercise bands. You get there on the scene, again,
Speaker 1: what did you actually observe.
Speaker 8: Police officers in and out of the house bringing out
Speaker 8: evidence bags, which is pretty standard to see police officers crying,
Speaker 8: And I remember the district attorney showed up on the
Speaker 8: scene and held a press conference after ten pm, which
Speaker 8: I know that doesn't seem odd maybe to the general public,
Speaker 8: but for the district attorney, the head of the department
Speaker 8: for that entire county, to show up on scene to
Speaker 8: speak to the media that late at night, you knew
Speaker 8: this was something really serious.
Speaker 1: Were you there when the children's bodies were wheeled out?
Speaker 8: Yes, but in Massachusetts the often the medical examiner will
Speaker 8: bring a van and block the view of any members
Speaker 8: of the public or cameras as they bring the bodies out,
Speaker 8: so I didn't actually see them.
Speaker 1: I want to go to that night. Christina Rex joining
Speaker 1: us out of wb Z TV. Was mommy taken into
Speaker 1: custody that night.
Speaker 8: Yes, but it's complicated, so she had injuries of her own,
Speaker 8: so she was taken to a hospital. She was actually
Speaker 8: taken to the local hospital near Duxbury where they lived,
Speaker 8: and then brought to Boston because of the seriousness of
Speaker 8: her injuries you can see in the pictures here. So
Speaker 8: she was in custody in the sense that she was
Speaker 8: technically arrested and had police guards outside of her hospital
Speaker 8: room and at her hospital bed, and she wasn't allowed visitors.
Speaker 8: But you know, not taken into custody in the sense
Speaker 8: of going to jail the way we would think of
Speaker 8: it traditionally, because she was so hurt.
Speaker 1: Joining me is a renowned medical examiner, the chief medical
Speaker 1: examiner in Terren County, that's Fort Worth, Texas. He's an
Speaker 1: esteemed lecturer at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU.
Speaker 1: He's a star of a hit podcast, Make Him in
Speaker 1: the Morgue, and he has performed well over ten thousand autopsies.
Speaker 1: Not only that, he has a husband and a father.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kendall Crowns, We've got two divergent views of what happened.
Speaker 1: I don't know the truth of it. Was she in
Speaker 1: postpartum psychosis not depression psychosis? Were you actually do not
Speaker 1: understand what you're doing? In this case, she heard a
Speaker 1: quote unknown mal voice ordering her to kill the children.
Speaker 1: She states that she said, go to God baby when
Speaker 1: she killed her children. So I've got the injuries to
Speaker 1: the three children, what happened to their bodies, And I've
Speaker 1: got mommy trying to slit her wrists and jumping out
Speaker 1: of a window and apparently paralyzing herself. Let's start with
Speaker 1: the children. Doctor Kendall Crown's strangulation. With the use of
Speaker 1: exercise bands, what would the bodies reveal? Would I be
Speaker 1: able to tell if they fought back like I know
Speaker 1: they did in the injury of Yates case because their
Speaker 1: bodies were covered in bruises.
Speaker 9: So sized bands are these kind of rubbery stilicone or
Speaker 9: latex bands. They have a fair amount of stretch to them.
Speaker 9: Each child has them tied around their necks quite tightly,
Speaker 9: So as far as findings would be, you would it's
Speaker 9: a ligature strangulation, so it would leave an impression around
Speaker 9: the neck that she could find at autopsy. Due to
Speaker 9: the young nature of the children, their throat structures, hyoid bone,
Speaker 9: thyroid cartilage wouldn't fracture because they aren't bony yet. You
Speaker 9: might see some neck muscular hemorrhages. As far as them
Speaker 9: fighting back, the infant, of course, probably wouldn't do much
Speaker 9: of anything. The slightly older children. The oldest child could
Speaker 9: kind of grab at the ligature trying to pull it off,
Speaker 9: which would leave fingernail marks on the neck as she
Speaker 9: was trying to remove the ligature from about her neck.
Speaker 9: If she fought back against her mom, she might have
Speaker 9: scratched at her mom, but it wouldn't show many injuries
Speaker 9: to her hands. Children don't have a lot of strength,
Speaker 9: so you don't usually see a lot of offensive injuries
Speaker 9: on them, meaning like punching or something like that. Typically,
Speaker 9: what you're going to find in a case like this
Speaker 9: is them trying to get that ligature off their neck
Speaker 9: and seeing scratches around their neck.
Speaker 1: Dodger Kndall crowns. If the children have been dosed with
Speaker 1: let's just say benadryl as an example, how would we
Speaker 1: tell that, because if they didn't try to fight back,
Speaker 1: were they dosed.
Speaker 9: So commonly in these type of cases, the mother does
Speaker 9: poison them or gives them a drug to put them
Speaker 9: in a sedative sedative state so they aren't moving around
Speaker 9: and they aren't fighting back, and also the parent doesn't
Speaker 9: have to deal with them crying as well, which is
Speaker 9: going to be very difficult. Benadryl is a typical one
Speaker 9: that is used because it'll put a child into a sleepy,
Speaker 9: trans like state, so they can be easily killed. One
Speaker 9: of the things we're going to look for in this
Speaker 9: situation is benadryl in the stomach, which leaves kind of
Speaker 9: a pink residue in the stomach contents itself, depending on
Speaker 9: how much benadryl was used, and then we'll also look
Speaker 9: at it in tuxologic testing, looking for specifically diphen hydramine,
Speaker 9: which is the non trade name of benadryl.
Speaker 1: Dodger Kimmel Crown's I want to move to the mom,
Speaker 1: Lindsey Clancy. I feel that there is enough evidence to
Speaker 1: show she knew what she was doing. She had the
Speaker 1: wherewithal to lie to her husband saying she was too
Speaker 1: exhausted to cook dinner and could he bring home takeout,
Speaker 1: and to the pharmacy to make sure he would be
Speaker 1: gone long enough, long enough time to herd the children,
Speaker 1: get them down to the basement to retrieve the exercise bands. However,
Speaker 1: have you seen the list of meds she was on.
Speaker 1: It's called poly pharm I don't know what doctors were
Speaker 1: giving her all these meds, but take all these meds
Speaker 1: and this alone would make you out of your mind.
Speaker 1: Listen to this. I'm going to give you the street names,
Speaker 1: the Latin names. The clinical names are unpronounceable to us
Speaker 1: regular people. Ambion which is zulpinum, klonopin, valium which is diazepam, prozac, lamic,
Speaker 1: till adavan, remern, sarah quill, trazodone. I mean, I believe
Speaker 1: she was on either eleven to thirteen prescriptions, and the
Speaker 1: each one is heavy duty. I'm not talking about a
Speaker 1: baby aspen doctor, serious serious medication, sleep pills, long acting
Speaker 1: anxiety pills, Sleep and anxiety. That's valium, antidepressant, mood stabilizers,
Speaker 1: another anxiety and sleep, another sleep an antipsychotic, another sleep.
Speaker 1: This woman had checked herself into voluntarily into clinics before
Speaker 1: the murders. What are these meds, doctor Kendall Crowns.
Speaker 9: So the medications you're describing are mixture of anti anxiety,
Speaker 9: antidepressants and as you said, sleep aids. She's obviously struggling
Speaker 9: with us ongoing anxiety depression, and this can all be
Speaker 9: brought on by pregnancy. It's a known clinical diagnosis. I'm
Speaker 9: not a psychiatrist, so I couldn't tell you exactly how
Speaker 9: it all works and what medications are best. But obviously
Speaker 9: she was going through something to be on that many
Speaker 9: anti anxiety, antidepressive medications. So does it play a factor?
Speaker 9: I couldn't tell you, but again it is something to consider.
Speaker 10: At approximately six to eleven last night, the Duxbury Police
Speaker 10: received a nine to eleven call for a report of
Speaker 10: a suspected attempted suicide of a female resident who had
Speaker 10: jumped from a window at the home at forty seven
Speaker 10: Summer Street. Upon arrival, Duxbury Police and Fire located the
Speaker 10: woman and she was treated on scene and transported to
Speaker 10: a local hospital for treatment, where she remains at this time.
Speaker 10: She's been identified as Lindsay Clancy, aged thirty two. First
Speaker 10: Responders subsequently located three children in the homes under the
Speaker 10: age of five, unconscious with obvious signs of severe trauma.
Speaker 10: A five year old girl and a three year old
Speaker 10: boy were transported to Beth Israel deacon His Hospital in Plymouth,
Speaker 10: where they were pronounced deceased. They'd been identified as Cora
Speaker 10: Clancy and Dawson Clancy. A seven month old infant boy
Speaker 10: was med flighted to Boston Children's Hospital, where he remains
Speaker 10: for treatment as we speak. Preliminarily it appears the children
Speaker 10: were strangled.
Speaker 1: How did they know that doctor Kendel Crowns, that was
Speaker 1: Timothy Cruz from Plymouth County, the district attorney at that time.
Speaker 1: How could they look at the bodies. That's where our
Speaker 1: friends at WNU are and know the children. The babies
Speaker 1: were strangled.
Speaker 9: So I believe when they are all found, they have
Speaker 9: the exercise bands tied about their necks, so right there
Speaker 9: you're going to know they're strangled. If the exercise bands
Speaker 9: are not there, you're going to have a ligature impression
Speaker 9: left around the neck from the band itself, which is
Speaker 9: this kind of gray red to tan impression that matches
Speaker 9: the exercise band. The other thing is is because it's
Speaker 9: going to clip off the internal jugular and the carotid artery,
Speaker 9: you're going to get particular hemorrhages, so you'll have multiple
Speaker 9: little particular pinpoint hemorrhages about the face, in the inner eyelids,
Speaker 9: and on the micosa in the mouth. All those findings
Speaker 9: externally point to strangulation.
Speaker 10: As a result of information gathered during the course of
Speaker 10: the investigation, we developed problem cause and today are seeking
Speaker 10: and obtaining an arrest warrant on a Plymouth District Court
Speaker 10: charging thirty two year old Lindsay Clancy, the mother of
Speaker 10: these children with their homicides. Lindsay Clancy, as a state
Speaker 10: is being treated at Boston Hospital as soon as able.
Speaker 10: We will be arraigning her and the two childes of
Speaker 10: murders and the deaths of forate children.
Speaker 1: The baby Callen was being treated he died again. That's
Speaker 1: Timothy Cruz, the then Plymouth County District Attorney from our
Speaker 1: friends at wmur. Doctor Kendall Crowns, let me remind you
Speaker 1: is a chief medical examiner in Tyrrett County. That's fort Worth,
Speaker 1: doctor Kendall Crowns. If they had lived, would they have
Speaker 1: been brain damaged permanently?
Speaker 9: It is a possibility because of the fact that it
Speaker 9: only takes a matter of minutes, about three to four
Speaker 9: it's for you to have enough lack of oxygen to
Speaker 9: the brain to cause permanent brain damage. So even if
Speaker 9: they had survived, there would have been long term implications
Speaker 9: or sequella from the lack of oxygen getting through their brain.
Speaker 9: They potentially would have been in a persistent vegetative state
Speaker 9: for their entire lives.
Speaker 1: Okay, hold on, I knew it was only a matter
Speaker 1: of time, doctor kendl Crown's. You're hitting me with Latin
Speaker 1: doctor Phrasers. What is sequilla?
Speaker 9: That is the consequences of having the lack of oxygen
Speaker 9: to your brain prinkma or your brain. Your brain starts dying.
Speaker 9: So the sequela of brain death means you might be paralyzed,
Speaker 9: you might be unable to breathe for yourself. You might
Speaker 9: have to be on all sorts of machines to keep
Speaker 9: you alive, which would be the vegetative state that they
Speaker 9: potentially could have been from the brain damage caused from
Speaker 9: the lack of oxygen to their brain.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kendl Crowns, how do you do it? How do
Speaker 1: you stay so calm and clinical? I was thinking about
Speaker 1: you explaining sequela. It sounds like the Latin derivative of sequence,
Speaker 1: the sequence of events following the strangulations with Mimmy's exercise bands.
Speaker 1: The sequence of events would be that they are forever
Speaker 1: in a persistent, as you say, vegetative state. In other words,
Speaker 1: like a coma. They can't move, they can't talk, they
Speaker 1: can't play, they can't speak. They're just lying there on
Speaker 1: life support until they die. The sequella, the sequence of
Speaker 1: events vegetative, vegetable, that's what happened to them. How do you,
Speaker 1: doctor Kimmel crimes, especially in light of the fact you're
Speaker 1: a dad, How do you not talk talk about this case?
Speaker 1: And think about your own children.
Speaker 9: So any pediatric case, well really, any case is upsetting.
Speaker 9: It's sad when someone dies, especially with children. Children really
Speaker 9: can't defend themselves. Children are innocent and they had a
Speaker 9: long life to live. It's upsetting. It's upsetting to me.
Speaker 9: I mean, like you said, I have kids, but I
Speaker 9: separate myself from the fact that they are not my children.
Speaker 9: And I have a job to do and if I
Speaker 9: do not, if I get too emotional, I get wrapped
Speaker 9: up in the emotion of the death of this child,
Speaker 9: I cannot perform my duties. I have a job to
Speaker 9: do to determine the cause and manner of death, no
Speaker 9: matter how upsetting it is. That's what I'm there to do,
Speaker 9: is to determine their cause and manner of death. And
Speaker 9: I would be doing a disservice to the decendent or
Speaker 9: the dead person and the family, the living family if
Speaker 9: I don't do my job correctly. So I can't sit
Speaker 9: there and be upset about this horrible tragedy. That is
Speaker 9: a because I have a job to do and that's
Speaker 9: what I do every day.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kendall Crowns, I want to talk about the mother
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to go to doctor Catherine Bendorf.
Speaker 1: She is a psychiatrist, postpartum expert, co founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of the medical director at the Motherhood Center in New York.
Speaker 1: You know what, hold on, because I want to come
Speaker 1: back to you about the physical nature of her injuries,
Speaker 1: doctor Kendall Crowns. And I would like to state that
Speaker 1: I can't think of anyone I would trust more performing
Speaker 1: an autopsy than doctor Kendall Crowns because of his, of
Speaker 1: course experience and education, but his steadiness. And as a
Speaker 1: former prosecutor. What am I going to do with a
Speaker 1: doctor that gets on the stand and cracks up and
Speaker 1: starts crying or gets upset. I mean, okay, I'm already upset.
Speaker 1: I don't need my medical examiner to be upset. Doctor
Speaker 1: Catherine Bendorf, you just must be like a limp dishrag
Speaker 1: because you deal with this every day. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: I've got so much to say about you. I'll try
Speaker 1: to see it quickly so you can get to the case. Okay,
Speaker 1: hold on. Founding Member Payne Whitney Women's Program at will
Speaker 1: Cornell Medicine. That's the New York Presbyterian Hospital. That's not shabby.
Speaker 1: Doctor not shabby, author of What No One Tells You,
Speaker 1: A Guide to Your Emotions From Pregnancy to Motherhood. All
Speaker 1: I had was what to expect when You're expecting it,
Speaker 1: and I was too tired to read it. I never
Speaker 1: heard about this What No One Tells You, A Guide
Speaker 1: to your Emotions from Pregnancy to Motherhood, and the Nine
Speaker 1: Rooms of Happiness, Loving your life, finding your purpose, getting
Speaker 1: over life's little imperfections. Doctor Bendorf, I could go on,
Speaker 1: but I want to get to the case in chief.
Speaker 1: You heard all of those pills and meds she was
Speaker 1: on once, I believe for schizophrenia, how can one person
Speaker 1: take all those meds and even function.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 11: For individuals with postpartum psychosis, they have to try different
Speaker 11: medications to see what works, and they are often tried
Speaker 11: at different times, not all at the same time. So
Speaker 11: for individuals suffering from illnesses like this, bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders, depression, anxiety,
Speaker 11: we generally try things. These are trial and air psychopharmacology,
Speaker 11: as you said, for polypharmacy, you know might be seen
Speaker 11: because there are multiple different medications being tried at different times.
Speaker 11: Sometimes there's a cross taper when you're putting one on
Speaker 11: and taking one off. So you know, I don't have
Speaker 11: an understanding of how these meds and what sequence they
Speaker 11: were used, but for someone with postpartum psychosis, they are medication.
Speaker 11: They sound like medications that are legitimately used for such
Speaker 11: an illness.
Speaker 1: What do you make of her being on this potpourri
Speaker 1: of serious, serious drugs.
Speaker 11: Again, for individuals with postpartum psychosis, I would say typically
Speaker 11: one is on three medications at minimum, right, a mood stabilizer,
Speaker 11: an antipsychotic, and probably an anti anxiety medication. That's a
Speaker 11: typical group of medications to treat. To really get a
Speaker 11: hold of this severe, serious, life threatening illness that is
Speaker 11: a psychiatric or medical emergency, you need to use the
Speaker 11: big guns, so to speak. And not all medications the
Speaker 11: first time work for somebody, so you might have to
Speaker 11: try something else. So what I make is that in somebody. Again,
Speaker 11: I don't know the sequence of events or when they
Speaker 11: were used at what times, but yeah, it would be
Speaker 11: uncommon to have somebody on all of them at the
Speaker 11: same time.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make sense of what I am learning
Speaker 1: about the case. Back to investigative reporter Christina Rex from WBZTV,
Speaker 1: who was there on the scene the night of the murders.
Speaker 1: Anne has been in court. This is going to be
Speaker 1: a not down drag out in court. The prosecutor is
Speaker 1: digging in that Mommy knew what she was doing. The
Speaker 1: defense is arguing postpartum psychosis. Psychosis is much different from depression.
Speaker 1: Christina Rex, Is it true that mom tried to commit suicide?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: In this case, Yes, it seems to me the state
Speaker 1: is going to argue, why did she try to commit
Speaker 1: suicide if she didn't know what she had just done
Speaker 1: was wrong.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it does seem like they're going to try to
Speaker 8: argue that. And not only that, they claim in their
Speaker 8: opening statements that there was a phone call that Lindsay
Speaker 8: actually pulled Patrick back. So you know, if the defense
Speaker 8: is arguing that she was in the state of psychosis,
Speaker 8: they're going to have to say when that was was
Speaker 8: it the entire time? Yeah, And at previous hearings the
Speaker 8: prosecutors had kind of insinuated that maybe the suicide attempt was,
Speaker 8: you know, feeble at best, which is something that the
Speaker 8: defense attorney really dug into in his opening statement fighting
Speaker 8: back against that allegation.
Speaker 1: Christina Rex WBZTV. You stated that a phone call was made.
Speaker 1: What is the significance of the phone call? When was
Speaker 1: the moment the call was made.
Speaker 8: So we always knew that there was a fourteen second
Speaker 8: phone call between Lindsay and Patrick at the point where
Speaker 8: Patrick was away from the house and when Lindsay was
Speaker 8: home alone with the kids that night. We didn't know
Speaker 8: specifically when the phone call happened. But in the prosecutor's
Speaker 8: opening statement, she claimed that the phone call happened in
Speaker 8: between the time when Lindsay had already killed the children
Speaker 8: in the basement and before she went upstairs to try
Speaker 8: to take her own life. So the claim was that
Speaker 8: Lindsay had a miss call on her phone from Patrick
Speaker 8: because he was at the pharmacy getting some medicine for
Speaker 8: their oldest daughter, and she called him back and had
Speaker 8: a fourteen second conversation with him, and she was on
Speaker 8: the first floor at the time then before she went
Speaker 8: upstairs to attempt to take her own life. So she
Speaker 8: spoke to him on the phone, and he had told
Speaker 8: investigators that she seemed normal, nothing seemed like it was.
Speaker 1: All Oh my stars, Now I see one of the
Speaker 1: prosecutors bringing it.
Speaker 8: Up, right, that's what the prosecutors are claiming happened there,
Speaker 8: and Patrick had told investigators early on that the only
Speaker 8: thing that seemed different on the phone call was that
Speaker 8: she seemed like she was distracted by something.
Speaker 1: The three bodies in the basement possibly. What can you
Speaker 1: tell me about her Internet searches?
Speaker 8: So prosecutors say that over the course of some time,
Speaker 8: I don't know the specific amount of time, but not
Speaker 8: just that day. On the family laptop, which only Lindsay
Speaker 8: and Patrick had access to, there were searches for suicidal ideations,
Speaker 8: ways to commit suicide, ways to kill. And Patrick has
Speaker 8: testified that he didn't make those searches. So then the
Speaker 8: takeaway is that Lindsay is the one who made those searches.
Speaker 1: Where did we learn about her writings? I guess it
Speaker 1: was in her journal that she resented the older two children.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Lindsay kept a diary, and this is part of
Speaker 8: the indictment, so you know, when the prosecutors indicted her,
Speaker 8: there's a whole statement of the case where they really
Speaker 8: lay out why they're charging her with first degree murder,
Speaker 8: and they claim that she kept a diary where she
Speaker 8: wrote kind of daily logs and sometimes feelings, and that
Speaker 8: she wrote at one point that she was and did
Speaker 8: her two older children because they put her in a
Speaker 8: position where she didn't feel like she could treat her
Speaker 8: youngest Kllen, like her first baby. And actually, Patrick testified
Speaker 8: that there were often times, you know, once Callen was born,
Speaker 8: where Lindsay would take care of the baby. They would often,
Speaker 8: he said, divide and conker, so Lindsay would take care
Speaker 8: of the baby Callen and Patrick would take care of
Speaker 8: the two older children.
Speaker 3: Bllymouth County, Massachusetts grand jury and diet of Lindsay Clancy
Speaker 3: and the killings of her three children, Cora five, Dawson three,
Speaker 3: and eight month old Kallen. The thirty three year old
Speaker 3: faces three counts each of murder and strangulation. CT Insider
Speaker 3: reports after allegedly killing her children, Clancy attempted to commit
Speaker 3: suicide by cutting her wrists and jumping out the second
Speaker 3: story window of her home. Clancy's attorney says she's paralyzed
Speaker 3: from the waist down, suffering from spinal injuries, and likely
Speaker 3: will never walk again.
Speaker 12: They were strangled, deliberately and meticulously killed by this defind
Speaker 12: on January twenty fourth, One by one, she wrapped exercise
Speaker 12: vans around each one of the kids necks and pulled
Speaker 12: until the little bodies were limp and lifeless, first Dawson,
Speaker 12: then Cora, and finally Calling. She goes to the second
Speaker 12: floor mastered bedroom, locks the door, crashes up some pills,
Speaker 12: and attempts to take her own knife. She uses the
Speaker 12: knife she got in the kitchen to slash her wrists
Speaker 12: and her neck. She moves the bed away from the wall,
Speaker 12: away from the window. She opens that window and goes out.
Speaker 12: She lands on the cold, hard ground. Patrick tells the
Speaker 12: first responders, I need to find my kids. He had
Speaker 12: asked the defendant where the kids were, and she told
Speaker 12: them they were in the basement, So when he went
Speaker 12: in the house, that's the first place he went down
Speaker 12: into the basement. He's still on the phone with nine
Speaker 12: to one one when he finds each child with an
Speaker 12: exercise fan still wrapped around their necks. He screams for
Speaker 12: help and he says he failed the kids.
Speaker 1: You are hearing the felony prosecutor in this case, Shannon Buckingham,
Speaker 1: giving her opening to the jury. That's why our friends
Speaker 1: at East Idaho News straight out now to veteran trial lawyer,
Speaker 1: criminal defense attorney Eric Fattus, founder the law offices of
Speaker 1: Eric Fattus. Okay, Eric, hit it, what's your best your
Speaker 1: best shot.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure I've seen a stronger mental health case
Speaker 6: in this case.
Speaker 1: The jury's got to decide.
Speaker 6: Is Lindsey Clancy a bloodthirsty monster who delights in the
Speaker 6: death of her own children? Or is she someone who
Speaker 6: was severely deranged hearing hallucinations of boys telling her to
Speaker 6: kill her children on teen drug cocktail and the person
Speaker 6: who the father of those children described as very, very
Speaker 6: sick at trial?
Speaker 1: Which one is she?
Speaker 6: I think everybody can look at the case, the historical record,
Speaker 6: things leading up to what happened, and determined that that
Speaker 6: it's the latter, that she had suffered a psychotic break,
Speaker 6: not only postpartum psychosis, but also bipolar disorder, contending with
Speaker 6: multiple diseases or defects, aligned with the defense statute in
Speaker 6: terms of a lack of criminal responsibility, a very strong
Speaker 6: mental health defense here.
Speaker 1: Christina rax WBZTV. Had she been in mental health therapy
Speaker 1: pre children? I know she had best part of depression,
Speaker 1: but before that, had she had treatment for schizophrenia or
Speaker 1: any other mental illness?
Speaker 8: So no, at least what her ex husband Patrick hastified
Speaker 8: to was that her mental health issues. You know, she
Speaker 8: struggled and had maybe seen a therapist briefly after her
Speaker 8: first or second child, but really when she got into
Speaker 8: mental health treatment, numerous different kinds of treatment. Was starting
Speaker 8: in September of twenty twenty two, which was just four
Speaker 8: or five months before she killed the kids.
Speaker 1: So prior to this, there had been no extend in
Speaker 1: mental health treatment. She was not under medications. Let's just
Speaker 1: say four hallucinations for suicidal ideation, for psychosis, for schizophrenia,
Speaker 1: even for depression. Nothing.
Speaker 8: Okay, that's correct.
Speaker 1: That's significant because the state's going to argue, so she
Speaker 1: suddenly went crazy now and killed her children. And back
Speaker 1: to you, Fattus, why are you saying either she is
Speaker 1: a quote your words, not mine, a bloodthirsty monster or
Speaker 1: a woman that had been over prescribed serious drugs. Those
Speaker 1: aren't my only two choices, and I don't really accept
Speaker 1: either one of them.
Speaker 6: I think the prosecutor has got to convince this jury
Speaker 6: that that Lindsey Clancy was of reasonably sound mind and
Speaker 6: did this in a calculated and knowing fashion, that this
Speaker 6: was deliberate, that she wanted to just off her kids.
Speaker 6: But there really just isn't any significant evidence of her
Speaker 6: motive to do that, of a reason to do that,
Speaker 6: of some kind of payoff.
Speaker 1: Instead, according to Patrick, did you just motive? WHOA? Let
Speaker 1: me send you back in the time machine to criminal
Speaker 1: law one l first year. The state doesn't have to
Speaker 1: prove motive. I don't have to get in her head
Speaker 1: and bang around like as Granny's attic and figure out
Speaker 1: what the motive is. We don't have to prove motive.
Speaker 1: So you don't erase Jurassic erase. Okay, try again, faddus.
Speaker 6: Even though motive is not an element of the press
Speaker 6: has to prove. Don't you think a jury wants to
Speaker 6: be given a reason why she would do this? The
Speaker 6: reason they have is that she voiced some frustration about
Speaker 6: some of her kids at some point. Haven't all parents
Speaker 6: done that? Does that equate to a motive to strangle
Speaker 6: three of your children to death?
Speaker 1: I don't think it does. Against common pectivity, don't need
Speaker 1: to show a motive. Why does any parent? You know
Speaker 1: what I've got an expert. Brian Bennett is joining us
Speaker 1: along with doctor Catherine Bendor. Brian Bennett, former state law
Speaker 1: enforcement officer over twenty five years, Senior Instructor in Advanced
Speaker 1: Behavioral Science at the State Police Academy in South Carolina
Speaker 1: sixteen years and he specializes in strangulation, assaults, domestic violence,
Speaker 1: and elder abuse. Brian, is there a motive to kill
Speaker 1: a child? Is there a good reason? Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard a good reason why the child has to die?
Speaker 1: I haven't.
Speaker 2: No, I mean never a good reason for me. Some
Speaker 2: of the offenders that we've arrested in the past, they
Speaker 2: formulate a reason that seems to make them feel better
Speaker 2: or justify their actions. With respect to this case, and
Speaker 2: one thing that I immediately thought of is something I
Speaker 2: say all the time, and that's patterns always exist before
Speaker 2: the time of discovery. What really matters is what do
Speaker 2: those patterns tell us. Certainly we have patterns of searching
Speaker 2: the internet, patterns of you know, sending the husband out,
Speaker 2: but we also see patterns of mental health treatment, patterns
Speaker 2: of going to doctors and getting medication. So the combination
Speaker 2: of patterns and what those mean are going to be
Speaker 2: really important to both the prosecution and defense and what
Speaker 2: the jury determines what has the most weight in their
Speaker 2: final decision.
Speaker 11: Dodger Katherine Burndorth, if it's medically determined that she had
Speaker 11: postpartum sat kosis. The symptoms of it are, you know,
Speaker 11: having delusions, hallucinations, confusions, beliefs that are out of touch
Speaker 11: with reality, and that can exist in a very circumscribed
Speaker 11: way inside what appears to be very normal behaviors, so
Speaker 11: you won't always see it. It comes and goes, it
Speaker 11: waxes and wanes, and that is why there's confusion. It's
Speaker 11: a tricky illness and we don't have enough education around
Speaker 11: it or training for it at places like the Motherhood
Speaker 11: Center or through PSI. We don't have enough discussion about
Speaker 11: it so that healthcare professionals can recognize it and swiftly
Speaker 11: and get people to the care they need. It's a
Speaker 11: very tricky illness. So it comes and goes, and it
Speaker 11: may appear that someone is doing okay, and simultaneously there
Speaker 11: is this almost let's say, absess within the brain that
Speaker 11: is psychiatric that is includes command auditory hallucinations, delusions, fixed
Speaker 11: false beliefs that what they are doing is right and
Speaker 11: has to happen for various non reality based reasons. So again,
Speaker 11: if it's medically determined that that Lindsay Clancy had postpartum psychosis,
Speaker 11: then her behavior is consistent with this illness.
Speaker 1: At this hour, Lindsay Clancy is in the fight of
Speaker 1: her life. She is in a court of law. She's
Speaker 1: being tried for the murders of her three children. Her
Speaker 1: husband was listed as both a defense witness and the
Speaker 1: state's witness. He was witness number one for the state.
Speaker 1: He has moved, remarried, and started a new life trying
Speaker 1: to get beyond the murders of his three children. And
Speaker 1: let me remind everyone that this defendant, Lindsay Clancy, and
Speaker 1: all defendants are innocent until proven guilty. Proven guilty with
Speaker 1: evidence that pierces the presumption of innocence and proves beyond
Speaker 1: a reasonable doubt, the defendant is in fact guilty. So
Speaker 1: as we go to air tonight, Lindsey Clancy is presumed innocent.
Speaker 1: If you know or think you know anything about this
Speaker 1: case dial seven eight one nine three four five six
Speaker 1: five six seven eight one nine three four five six
Speaker 1: five six. We remember an American hero to take of
Speaker 1: Scott McKenna, NYCPD passed away in the line of duty,
Speaker 1: leaving behind a grieving wife, Danielle and son. Sean American
Speaker 1: hero detake of Scott McKenna. Thank you to all of
Speaker 1: our guests. I only wish I had more time to
Speaker 1: explore this with them, but thank you especially to you
Speaker 1: for being with us tonight. An'tsy grace signing off for tonight,
Speaker 1: but I'll see you tomorrow night, and until then, good
Speaker 1: night friend,