Trial begins for Massachusetts mom who says postpartum issues led her to kill 3 children
Jury selection has begun for Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three children in 2023. The trial will focus on her insanity defense, which argues that she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings.
Why it matters
The case brings national attention to the legal and medical complexities surrounding postpartum mental health and criminal responsibility.
Jury selection begins Monday in the trial of a Massachusetts mother who strangled her three children while undergoing medical treatment for psychiatric problems that developed after she gave birth. Lindsay Clancy has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of her children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was 8 months old when the siblings were killed on Jan. 24, 2023. Clancy, now 36, threw herself out a window after killing the children and was paralyzed in the fall. She is being held at a state hospital. The trial is expected to explore the complicated and rare phenomenon of postpartum psychosis, which afflicts a very small percentage of women who develop delusions and sometimes hallucinations after giving birth. Clancy’s lawyers — and her husband — say she was not responsible for her actions.
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