Law&Crime Sidebar - Top 6 Disturbing Pieces of Evidence Against Lindsay Clancy

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

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Wonderly Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. On offense, zero zero two on the charge of murder, how do you plead, guilty or not guilty? A mother is accused of strangling all three of her young children to death and then jumping out of a window, allegedly trying to kill herself. As she appears for a new arraignment, we're going over the newly unsealed warrants with expert Jules Epstein

to see what the most damning evidence against her is so far. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. All right, let's talk about these revealing new documents in what is just absolutely a horrifying case. It is of Lindsay Clancy. She is the 32-year-old woman accused of killing her three young kids. So a Massachusetts court has now released nearly 300 pages of documents this week, including 11 search warrants.

And what they do is they give us a glimpse into what police unfortunately saw the day they responded to the Duxbury home in January of this year. By the way, just for geography, Duxbury is on the coast. It's about an hour south of Boston. So according to investigators, Clancy sent her husband Patrick to go get food from a restaurant and medication from one of the children at CVS. and while he was gone, she allegedly strangled all three of her children with exercise bans. Five-year-old daughter, Cora, three-year-old son Dawson, eight-month-old son Callan. She then apparently jumped out of a second-story window of the house in an effort to try to kill herself. She didn't die.

First responders, they noted cuts on her wrists and neck that were likely self-inflicted. This is according to the court documents. But Clancy's attorney says that his client, who was a labor and delivery nurse herself, had postpartum psychosis and was overly medicated. Clancy was ordered to remain committed to a state hospital for months. And according to her attorney, she suffered spinal injuries that have left her paralyzed. And on Thursday, the state took the courtroom to Clancy, reigning her in what looks like a meeting room at the hospital. The defendant wrote a note on our phone on October 25, 2022, stating, I think I sort of present my other children because they prevent me from treating cattle like my first baby.

She also wrote, I want to feel love and connection with all of my kids. This would indicate that she did not feel love or connection with, at least some of her kids. She then wrote, she wants to have more kids eventually. Four days prior to killing her children, the defendant did an internet search on her phone, and it was, quote, can you treat a sociopath? She obviously had no reason to kill those three beautiful children. you have to ask yourself why why and when you ask yourself why and you consider all of these factors it's readily apparent that suggest that this woman was a troubled soul so with all of that in mind it's time to go over some of what was revealed in these newly released or unsealed documents and to do

that i want to bring in a fan favorite here at sidebar evidence expert and famed law professor jules Epstein from Temple University, Easley School of Law. Professor Epstein, Jules, great to see you. I wish it was under better circumstances because this case is really just one of the worst that we've covered in quite some time. I'd like to start with what law enforcement collected. So from the warrants, we learned that this list includes exercise bans, medications, phones, computers, notebooks, cameras, a bloody knife, pajamas. What do you make of what was collected in the home? What I make first is that this is an incredibly thorough and well-organized investigation. The next thing is in Massachusetts, if there's a severe mental health issue and what is called a claim of lack of criminal responsibility is raised, the government, the prosecution has to prove she was sane beyond a reason.

doubt. And so everything here, A, just goes to prove who did it. But B, really importantly, focuses on what we call in the law mental state. Hey, there everybody. So Palm Pepper Spray is a very proud partner of us here at Long Crime. And we're super excited about it. Because if you follow our stories, you know protecting yourself, those you love. It is so important. And honestly, I'll tell you what, since we got some of these units in the office, I can't tell you how many of our people have just been grabbing them off my desk. They should have really asked. It's fine.

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And it's offering a special 15% off of your order. You can learn more at Palmpeper spray.com. and use code takeover 15 for a special 15% off. The second aspect was it wasn't just collecting these items. They found that the notebooks and the phone contain documentation of her meds, her mental state, what she thought of the kids, her thoughts on suicide, and apparently researching ways to kill. That says a lot, right?

It says an awful lot and actually could be evidence both for, insanity and insanity. And let me explain where I'm going with that. From the prosecution side, everything that shows planning, deliberateness, getting other people out of the way is an argument that this person was proceeding rationally, even if they are mentally ill. From the defense side, it's, of course, there's some planning. Even if someone is extremely mentally ill, it can be the delusion.

It can be the crazed belief that makes them then sit down and go through this horrible, horrible planning. In other words, let me be clear. There can be an insanity defense, even if someone looked at, into an escape route or plan to keep people out of the way if all of that is generated, my word, by a severe delusion. But certainly, the more it seems normal, none of this is normal, but normal in the sense of, oh, that's how I would do it. If I were trying to get away with it, then That helps the prosecution. There's one last thing, if I may.

And that is the immediate suicide attempt afterwards. Again, I think each side can play that. It's this was all part of a plan. I can't stand my life. I can't stand the children. This is too much. I'm taking them out. I'm taking myself out.

Or this is psychotic. psychotic break, do some horrible things. Oh, my God, look at what I've done when the psychotic break, if you will, diminishes. And then immediate regret. That's an interesting line there, because we always assume that if somebody knows what they're doing is illegal and they're trying to escape responsibility, how on earth could they be insane? But if they're motivated by that illusion Then I think it's really important, as you said, they could still be in the planning, which leads me to another, for me at least, I didn't know this. This is from the court documents, that she allegedly used Apple Maps on her phone to, quote, determine the time it would take someone to travel from her home to 3V in Plymouth. 3V is the restaurant that she sent her husband to to get food.

So it seems she was trying to figure out how long that would be because in that time frame she could kill the kids. but that still, you believe, is something that could be used by both sides. The defense has no choice. There are lots and lots of facts of planning. And when you have that, they're there. Then the question is, is there credible psychiatric testimony that says, yes, that's exactly right. but it's all the product of some delusional belief system or some severe, severe mental illness that prevented her from knowing the difference between right and wrong.

Let's amplify that because the documents also say that she was acting normal before all of this happened. There was testimony from people who said they didn't notice anything that strange. However, Patrick, her husband, had told law enforcement that Clancy had seen psychiatrist that she was prescribed medications like Zoloft, Valium, Prozac. There was evidence that she might have been suffering from withdrawals from benzodiazepines. That's something, again, in the documents that Patrick may have told a third party about what Lindsay was going through. What are your thoughts on that information?

One is just, we all need to know that insanity is not a 24-7 condition. In the law, actually, we hear people talk about insanity and temporary insanity. But there is no such thing as non-temporary insanity. Insanity is at the time of the commission of the crime. So that somebody can be, quote, normal, calm, rational, and then have that psychological break, psychotic break and be in a period of insanity or it can be this isn't insanity it's terrible she just got so depressed she was able to carry on day to day until she couldn't anymore

and then took action we know that in that state i think it was only a few months ago. I don't believe it's been passed, but there's an effort to try to pass legislation that postpartum depression can be a legal defense. The same way, insanity could be a defense. In other words, that a jury could find her not guilty based on that postpartum depression and she would be seeking medical mental health treatment as opposed to going to prison. What are your thoughts on that? And if, let's say that becomes the law, would this kind of case classify as she should be found not guilty be based on postpartum depression? over medication as her attorney claims.

So there are really two parts to that, if I may. One is even if they make that a defense, she would still have to prove that this was actually post-partum depression at the level of whatever the statute defines it as. The second is a spin on that, and that's the medication thing. certain states have what's called an involuntary intoxication concept where if I'm taking medication that my doctor ordered right I'm not going out and buying heroin and drugs on the street corner and the medication through no fault of my own creates that psychotic state that may be a defense

I'm sorry, I didn't get to research that for Massachusetts law. But postpartum depression, the answer is, what's this state's definition medically? And we prove that it fits her. I'm not going to hold you that because you read basically all 300 pages of these affidavit. So you did your homework. You did your homework, Jules. And speaking of that, another detail that we learned is that investigators took blood and urine samples. from Lindsay Clancy.

They also took swabs underneath her fingernails. Why did they do that? Okay, let's work backwards. The swabs are easy. If I am strangling somebody, maybe there will be under my fingernails something from those exercise cords or my kid's DNA.

In terms of the medication, I think that's incredibly important and probably important of both sides. Depending on how complete a, what we call tox, toxicology screen is done, it will reveal what meds she was on, whether she took the prescribed amount or too little or too much, and possibly the interactions among those medications.

And then doctors can say, Well, actually, on those meds in that amount, she shouldn't have been psychotic. Or, oh, my goodness, on those meds in that amount, she was not able to deal properly because the meds triggered something. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. And I think that's going to be crucial in this kind of case to try to understand what happened. I talk about what happened. we also learned in these documents the injuries to the kids and I mean I'll tell you right now I don't like talking about this when it comes to injuries to children when it talks about death of children it's very tough for me to get into it but I will give everybody a sampling of what we've seen here so apparently from the autopsy when we talk about Cora Dawson there was patiki eye there was small bruising on the right arm small bruising on both sides of both legs heavy

lungs, obviously ligatures around the neck, but no evidence of blunt force trauma, brain bloods, and or skull fractures, no soft tissue damage in the back. What do you make of that? And there's more, but they kind of give you a sample of some of the injuries that are sustained by these kids. So, Patiki, if I understand it correctly, is a common sign following some sort of strangulation. So, I'm probably going to describe this wrong, but as we're constricting the flow of blood, there are little marks that show up in the eyes. The bruises, we're going to have to see where they line up, if they line up with a child being held down or grabbed.

I mean, it's get bruises. but these ones we'd have to say what do they match up with i have no idea and i don't want to have to think about it or ask your listeners to have to think about it how she did this to three children i mean one was an infant right but the other two were older um how she did this without tons of struggling and scratching by the kids and things like that. I don't know. And again, maybe too horrific to imagine. What we're going to really need there is a really good forensic pathologist who can look at those bruises and say they're consistent with scenario A or scenario B.

Yeah. And there was also the accounts of the responding officers. And, I mean, that was just so chilling where they're talking about responding to the scene. They're screaming. Patrick's coming in and out of the house. One of the officers grabs one of the child's rushes to the ambulance. I mean, it just even on paper reading it was very difficult and it kind of transports you to that scene. There's so much more we could talk about in these warrants, Jules. I mean, one other thing that I think if we wanted to end on was people would look at this and say what was Patrick, you know,

he was not there. Well, law enforcement, the way that I saw it, they corroborated his story. They found surveillance footage of the CVS where he was. He was not in that home, and there was no evidence that he was even a part of this and was just literally sprung by surprise about that his wife had jumped out of the window and that she had killed the three children, but I thought it was really interesting that law enforcement took the time to corroborate that account of where he was as well. We can leave on there.

And the answer is, this is intrafamilial harm. Yeah. And you have to check everybody. Jules Epstein, so great seeing you. Thank you so much for taking the time to go through this evidence. And I didn't know if there was any other last point. I mean, you read the documents, anything that we didn't hit, anything that you, you know, our viewers, our listeners should know about this.

Just that mental. illness is an incredible challenge. We all know that. Lord knows what really happened there. This will become a battle of the experts. And at the end of the day, I wish I knew what was right to do with the person in this situation. Frankly, I don't. We'll learn more information and we'll see what happens. Jules Epstein. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, sir. Thank you. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us.

Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.