Add The New York Post on Google Lindsay Clancy will remain at a Massachusetts psychiatric hospital until further notice as she awaits the fate of her triple-murder case after a stunning mistrial on Friday.
Clancy, 36, will return to Tewksbury Hospital, the state-run facility where she was previously being held, her defense lawyer Kevin Reddington confirmed on Friday after his last-ditch appeal to stave off a mistrial was denied by the state’s Supreme Court.
The jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision — due to one male holdout juror — about whether Clancy was criminally responsible for strangling her three kids, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in the basement of their Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023.
Clancy, who claims she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis and overprescribed a cocktail of psychiatric meds, then slit her wrists and throat and threw herself from the second story of the home, leaving her partially paralyzed.
Dr. Avram Mack, who formerly worked at Nemours Children’s Health in Delaware, painted a picture of Clancy’s dreary routine at the psychiatric facility in Tewksbury when he took the stand at her trial on Aug. 21.
“Mostly, she described, she stays in bed or on her own,” Mack told the courtroom, referencing interviews with Clancy at the hospital.
“I don’t think she described interacting with patients very much. There were a couple of ways in which she did interact with staff, at least. There was a therapist that she described working with,” the shrink said.
Clancy, who has to use a wheelchair after her suicide attempt, also worked with a physical therapist at the hospital, but “wasn’t very interested” in the physical therapy.
“She wasn’t interested in the food there,” Mack continued.
She described having visitors “on a not infrequent basis, and that sometimes, she was able to eat food or drinks that were brought in by them.”
Clancy also described “that she wasn’t very interested in her own hygiene or grooming,” he added.
“Showering is embarrassing. It requires staff to help her, and that’s one way in which she would rather not,” Mack said. “It may also be that she described a lack of interest … so, it’s both components.”
“She described feeling depressed, which she termed situational depression,” the psychiatrist said. “She described feeling—I’m not sure the exact term she used—but feeling miserable, not wanting to be alive.”
Mack, who got into a fiery exchange with Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer while testifying in the case, resigned from Nemours Children’s Health on the same day he testified.
Clancy will remain at the facility under the same murder charges as prosecutors weigh their next steps on whether or not to try her again with a new jury.
Her attorneys could petition for bail, though it is likely she will remain in Tewksbury Hospital under the same bail conditions while she awaits the fate of a new trial, Brad Bailey, a Boston defense attorney and former prosecutor, told The Post.
Bailey, who is not involved in the case, believes Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz will push to retry Clancy following the mistrial to push for justice in the killings of little Cora, Dawson, and Callan.
“I do anticipate that Tim Cruz will choose to retry the case, not only because, in his opinion, he has to stand up for the three deceased children, but also because the case hasn’t been resolved,” Bailey said.
Prosecutors may offer Clancy a plea deal for a lesser charge, such as second-degree murder or manslaughter rather than first-degree murder, according to Bailey.
“I can’t imagine Kevin Reddington would accept that or take it,” Bailey added of a plea deal.
Bailey said he believes that at a new trial, the prosecution will focus on finding stronger experts, specifically ones that have experience with treating postpartum psychosis.
The defense will also likely try to do a better job helping the jury understand that patients can come in and out of psychosis and have periods of lucidity, the attorney added.
Unless Cruz confidently determines that it is not worth retrying Clancy, given that 11-to-1 jurors are seeking to acquit her, he is unlikely to seek a dismissal.
“If the state decides it doesn’t want to retry, it would do what we call a nolle prosequi in the case, which is a move to dismiss the indictments on their own,” Bailey said.
“I think we’re gonna be looking at a trial down the line, which is gonna be Murder One, and much of the process and proceedings are gonna be the same,” he continued.
“And I would be surprised if he gets any different result, and certainly it’s potentially possible that the defense could get the result they’re looking for.”
