LINDSAY CLANCY’S NEIGHBORS SPEAK OUT
LINDSAY CLANCY’S NEIGHBORS SPEAK OUT, WHAT THEY BELIEVE SHOULD HAPPEN TO THE MOM ACCUSED OF KI-LLING HER CHIL-DREN, AND WHAT THEY REVEALED ABOUT LIFE BEFORE THE TRAG-EDY IS DRAWING ATTENTION
ACCUSED murderer Lindsay Clancy was sometimes spotted on her quiet street, pushing her youngest child in a stroller as her older kids rode their bikes and played in the yard at the family home.
To neighbors, Clancy and her husband, Patrick, were a pleasant young couple raising three adorable children in the leafy Mᴀssachusetts town of Duxbury.
There was little indication of the horror that would eventually unfold and send shockwaves through the town.
More than three years later, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan are ᴅᴇᴀᴅ at the hands of their mother, and the same neighbors are now watching as a jury decides whether Clancy should be held criminally responsible for their murders.
The 36-year-old former nurse, who had struggled with her mental health for months, strangled the children with exercise bands before attempting to take her own life.
Clancy took pills and cut herself with a large kitchen knife before throwing herself from a second-floor bedroom window, leaving her paralyzed and reliant on a wheelchair.
She is now facing life behind bars, having been charged with three counts of murder.
As deliberations continue following her blockbuster five-week trial, residents have told The U.S. Sun what they remember about the family before the tragedy — and revealed how opinion remains divided over what should happen to Clancy.
Ruth Hearson, 81, lives directly opposite the Clancy family’s former home and remembers seeing the mom outside with her children.
“They mostly stayed to themselves,” she told The U.S. Sun.
“One time I saw her with the kids up and down with the little carriage.
“Then they had the backyard for the kids with the jungle gym.”
The U.S. Sun also heard the children would sometimes be seen out on their bicycles.
Ruth would occasionally see Patrick and recalled joking with him after a deer jumped from her yard into the Clancy home.
“Once in a while I’d see Patrick and I’d say, ‘Hey, hello,’” she said.
“Or we saw a deer jump over my yard into their yard, ‘Did you see the reindeer?’”
She added, “It’s just so tragic. The babies were so cute.”
Ruth is firmly on Clancy’s side and believes she should not be held criminally responsible.
“I feel bad. When you’re like that, you’re not guilty,” she said.
“Because it wasn’t you doing it. She just wasn’t in her right mind. I have no animosity toward her whatsoever.”
Mark Shortt, 62, has lived in Duxbury for 30 years and lives two doors down from the former Clancy home.
“Small community. Quiet. Nothing like this really happens,” he told The U.S. Sun.
“I tell people this might be the safest place in the world. It is.”
Mark said residents are split over what should happen to Clancy.
“Some people want to put [her] in prison forever because they look at the crime and other people say, well, she had problems,” he said.
“So it’s really split. I don’t think there’s any clear leader in opinion.”
But Mark believes Clancy should be sent to a secure treatment facility rather than prison.
“I think the only real difference of opinion is, again, whether you think she should go to jail,” he said.
“I think she should go to a secure treatment facility.”
But he said that does not take away from the horror of what happened to the children.
“They were so young… three kids who just never got to live their life, they were so, so young,” he said.
“Terrible. That’s horrific.
“And it doesn’t take away from the fact… it doesn’t make them any less ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”
Eric McDonald, another resident, said there are “split opinions” over whether Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis or knew what she was doing.
He has his own doubts about Clancy’s claim that she heard a voice telling her to kill the children.
During the trial, prosecution expert Dr. Gregory Saathoff said Clancy’s account was unusual because she claimed she had never heard voices before, then suddenly heard a man’s voice repeatedly ordering her to kill the children and herself.
Saathoff told jurors he had never seen that carrying out a command would make a hallucinated voice disappear.
Fellow prosecution expert Dr. Kirk Heilbrun described a hallucination lasting only for the roughly 18 minutes it took to kill the children as “very, very unusual.”
Resident Eric told The U.S. Sun, “I don’t believe she just all of a sudden had this episode, heard this voice and sprang into action.”
But despite his doubts, he still believes Clancy has severe mental health problems and should be treated in a psychiatric facility rather than spending the rest of her life behind bars.
“I do think that she has some serious issues,” he said.
“I think she should be insтιтutionalized at a mental health facility and where she could get help she needs.
“She’s not going to get that in prison. She’s just going to get worse.”
Valerie Franks, who lives in Duxbury part time, said residents have different views as they await the verdict.
“I think that everybody’s talking about it in some capacity or another,” she said.
“Everybody’s got a different opinion about things.”
Asked how she feels about the jury having to decide Lindsay’s fate, she said, “I wouldn’t want to be them. I’m glad I’m not.
“They’ve got a tough job. They’re deciding what’s going to happen to a woman who is not going to be okay [regardless].
“Personally, I think she’ll be better off in a hospital. The whole thing has just been sad, very sad.”
