In a Plymouth Superior Courtroom packed with tension that seemed to thicken the air itself, the treating psychiatrist for Lindsay Clancy sat under relentless cross-examination and admitted a detail that left the entire gallery motionless: she had never known her patient called a suicide H๏τline twice in the months before the January 24 2023 deaths of her three children. Dr. Jennifer Tufts, who conducted every single one of her fourteen sessions with Clancy exclusively through telehealth screens and never once met her in person, testified that the final virtual appointment on January 23 showed a woman reporting depression, lack of motivation and occasional heart-racing anxiety yet denying active suicidal or homicidal plans. Only twenty-four hours later the unthinkable occurred.

When defense attorney Kevin Reddington produced the Aspire H๏τline records showing Clancy had been turned away on December 4 and again around December 15 because she “did not have a plan,” Tufts’ face registered genuine surprise. She confirmed she had never specifically asked about crisis-line contacts and that the information never appeared in any chart she reviewed. The revelation forced the jury to confront a cascade of missed signals. Clancy had already been through a five-day voluntary stay at McLean Hospital in early January where staff diagnosed major depression without psycH๏τic features and discharged her on January 5 after she cited her children and mother as reasons she would not harm herself.

Subsequent short telehealth check-ins adjusted medications that Clancy later reported were worsening her insomnia and emotional numbness. Prosecution experts such as Dr. Kirk Heilbrun later argued the absence of reported command hallucinations before or after the incident made a psychosis claim highly unusual, while defense experts including Dr. Paul Zeizel and Dr. Phillip Resnick maintained that Clancy was in the grip of postpartum psychosis and lacked the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions. The H๏τline calls, invisible to the very clinician prescribing and monitoring her care, have become a central exhibit in the battle over whether the system that was supposed to catch a collapsing mind simply never saw the alarms flashing in plain sight. Jurors now must weigh whether those two rejected cries for help represent isolated administrative failures or the clearest proof that the official diagnosis never matched the storm gathering inside a mother the outside world still described as devoted and loving.

Source: https://nypost.com/2026/08/05/us-news/lindsay-clancy-sobs-as-nanny-describes-slain-son-callan-3-as-happiest-sweetest-easiest-baby/