A KEY detail from the night Lindsay Clancy killed her three children has emerged as evidence that the deaths may have been planned.
The detail has also cut through wild conspiracy theories that have dragged husband Patrick into the case.
Clancy strangled five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan at the family’s Duxbury home on January 24, 2023.
Her defense has argued she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible for the killings.
Prosecutors have rejected that defense, arguing Clancy knew right from wrong and deliberately planned the children’s deaths.
They have pointed to her actions before the killings as evidence of premeditation, while her lawyers maintain her severe mental illness had taken over.
Now residents of Duxbury, Mᴀssachusetts, are speaking out about what they believe really happened inside the family home.
One resident Eric McDonald believes Lindsay deliberately sent her husband Patrick out of the house before the killings, a move he says points to premeditation.
The comments came as residents of the quiet Mᴀssachusetts town broke their silence to The U.S. Sun about the case and the online speculation that has followed it.
McDonald, who lives near the Kingsbury Club where Lindsay took her children, said Patrick’s absence that night stood out to him.
“Well, he wasn’t even around. He was sent to a restaurant an extra half hour away from the house the night that the murders occurred,” he said.
“Which also leads me to think, well, that shows premeditation, that she got him out of the way long enough so she could kill her kids herself.
“She already knew she was going to do it.”
McDonald said he does not believe Lindsay suddenly heard a voice and immediately carried out the killings.
“I don’t believe she just all of a sudden had this episode, heard this voice and sprang into action,” he said.
But he said he feels deeply for Patrick, who lost all three of his children.
“My heart breaks for her husband,” McDonald said.
“You know, he lost his three young kids. And I think, you know, human nature, that he’s probably putting himself through the wringer.
“What could I have done differently? And holding himself partially responsible for the deaths of the three children.”
Patrick has become the subject of baseless online conspiracy theories despite Lindsay admitting that she killed the children.
Longtime neighbor Mark Shortt, who has lived two doors from the Clancy home, said he has even received messages from people around the country asking about theories surrounding the case.
“I get texts from people that I know asking about the trial from around the country,” he told The U.S. Sun.
Shortt said some of the claims have little connection to what people in Duxbury understand happened.
“There’s like a conspiracy… she didn’t really do it,” he said.
“I don’t want to say she did it, I’m not the jury, but I think she admitted to doing it.”
He said people have even asked him whether Patrick could have been responsible.
“People ask, you know, do you think he did it? Do you think there’s something else?” Shortt said.
“I said, no, she did it.”
Shortt dismissed the conspiracy chatter as having taken on a life of its own outside the town.
“I think that’s part of the, you know, the shock entertainment value of us,” he said.
“I think it just has its own life that’s purely entertainment.”
For Shortt, the central question was never whether Lindsay was responsible for the deaths, but what should happen to her because of her mental health.
“The trial was to see whether she goes to a hospital or not, or whether she goes to prison,” he said.
“I believe that she needs to go to a hospital. She had problems.”
He pointed to Lindsay’s documented treatment and previous admission to a locked mental health facility as evidence that her struggles had been serious.
“People in the know knew there was something wrong,” Shortt said.
“And so I don’t think there’s any debate.”
McDonald also said the case has divided people between those who see a planned killing and those who believe Lindsay was too mentally ill to understand what she was doing.
“I think that from what I’ve heard in the trial, there are two different definite sets of opinion,” he said.
He described them as “the premeditated murder of three young children or a woman who is so mentally ill.”
Despite his belief that Patrick being sent away points toward planning, McDonald said he still believes Lindsay should be treated in a mental health facility rather than prison.
“I do think that she has some serious issues,” he said.
“She has for a while… she was being treated for them unsuccessfully, unfortunately.”
“I think she should be insтιтutionalized at a mental health facility and where she could get help she needs, he added.
“She’s not going to get that in prison. She’s just going to get worse.”
Another local, Valerie Franks, said there was no dispute in her mind over who killed the children, but said Lindsay’s mental state remained the crucial question.
“Did she kill her kids? Yeah. She’s not denying it,” Franks said.
“They want to paint her as a cold-blooded killer… but what was her state of mind when she did that?
“That’s a question. And that’s what the jury’s going to have to wrestle with.”
