In the ongoing murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Mᴀssachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children, jurors recently heard intimate excerpts from her personal journals. The writings, recovered from the family’s home in Duxbury, paint a portrait of a woman overwhelmed by exhaustion, anxiety, and a desperate longing for relief from the constant demands of motherhood.

Clancy, a 35-year-old former labor-and-delivery nurse at Mᴀssachusetts General Hospital, wrote in one entry dated November 18, 2022 — roughly two months before the January 24, 2023, killings — that she felt “so desperate to get a mental break from taking care of everyone that my mind is trying to make something physically wrong with me.” Other pᴀssages described her as “completely overwhelmed” while caring for her three children, feeling as though she was “drowning every day.” She documented severe insomnia, brain fog, intense guilt over sleep-training her infant son and stopping breastfeeding, and a persistent sense that something was deeply wrong with her. “I want help. I want to be well,” she wrote in another entry.

These journal pages were introduced during testimony by a Mᴀssachusetts State Police trooper who helped search the Clancy home. They form part of a larger body of evidence examining Clancy’s mental state in the months leading up to the tragedy.

Background and Mental Health Decline
Lindsay Clancy and her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, were raising three children: Cora (age 5), Dawson (age 3), and Callan (then 8 months old). After Callan’s birth in May 2022, Lindsay began experiencing escalating mental health symptoms. According to court testimony and civil lawsuits filed by both Lindsay and Patrick, she struggled with severe anxiety, depression, insomnia that sometimes left her without sleep for nearly 48 hours, and intrusive thoughts about harming herself or the children.

She actively sought help. Over several months she consulted multiple doctors, visited emergency rooms, contacted crisis lines, participated in a perinatal psychiatric program in Rhode Island, and was admitted for inpatient care at McLean Hospital in early January 2023. Records show she was prescribed more than a dozen psychiatric medications during this period, including antidepressants, antipsycH๏τics such as Seroquel, benzodiazepines, and other drugs. Dosages were frequently adjusted, and providers sometimes overlapped. Her defense later argued that this complex medication regimen, combined with an alleged failure to properly diagnose bipolar disorder with postpartum onset or postpartum psychosis, worsened her condition.

Patrick Clancy testified that his wife’s “big spiral” intensified after she began taking higher doses of certain medications in December 2022. He described her as a devoted mother who had previously been highly attentive to the children, yet her mental health continued to deteriorate despite treatment. She told him about suicidal feelings and intrusive thoughts, though he said she denied any plan to act on them and medical professionals did not instruct him to stop leaving the children in her care.

The Day of the Killings
On the evening of January 24, 2023, Lindsay asked Patrick to leave the house to pick up medication for one of the children and takeout food. While he was gone, she used elastic exercise resistance bands to strangle Cora, Dawson, and Callan in the basement of their home. She then cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story bedroom window in an apparent suicide attempt. The fall left her with a shattered spine; she is now paraplegic and appears in court in a wheelchair.

Patrick returned home to find the house unusually quiet. He discovered blood in the bedroom, an open window, and Lindsay injured on the ground below. When he asked about the children, she directed him to the basement. He found all three with the bands around their necks. His frantic 911 call, later played for the jury, captured the horror of the moment as he tried to revive them. Callan was initially revived but was later declared brain-ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and taken off life support a few days later. Cora and Dawson were pronounced ᴅᴇᴀᴅ at the scene or shortly after.

In a later conversation with Patrick, Lindsay reportedly said she had heard a man’s voice telling her that if she did not act then, she would “lose her chance.”

The Trial and Competing Narratives
Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder. Her attorney, Kevin Reddington, is pursuing a lack-of-criminal-responsibility (insanity) defense. He maintains that she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis — a rare but severe psychiatric emergency that can involve delusions, hallucinations, and a break from reality — exacerbated by overmedication and inadequate treatment. The defense emphasizes that she repeatedly sought help and did not want to harm her children.

Prosecutors argue that the killings were deliberate and calculated. They point to evidence suggesting planning (sending her husband out of the house on specific errands) and contend that Clancy remained capable of rational thought. Testimony from psychiatrists who evaluated her in the hospital after the incident has been used to support the claim that she did not display ongoing clear signs of psychosis in the immediate aftermath.

The trial began with jury selection in mid-to-late July 2026 in Plymouth Superior Court and has included emotional testimony from Patrick Clancy, first responders, medical personnel who tried to save the children, and investigators. Journals, medication logs, medical records, and the physical evidence from the scene have all been presented. Both Lindsay and Patrick have filed separate medical malpractice lawsuits against several of her former providers, alleging misdiagnosis, poor coordination of care, and harmful polypharmacy.

As of early August 2026, the trial remains ongoing. Jurors continue to hear testimony about Clancy’s mental health history, the night of the killings, and the complex clinical questions surrounding postpartum psychosis.

Broader Context
Postpartum psychosis is a rare condition, estimated to affect roughly 1 to 2 women per 1,000 births. It can develop suddenly and is considered a psychiatric emergency. Symptoms may include confusion, delusions, hallucinations, severe mood swings, and impaired judgment. Experts note that it exists on a spectrum and is distinct from the more common postpartum depression. The Clancy case has drawn national attention to gaps in perinatal mental health care, the risks of uncoordinated medication management, and the legal challenges of applying an insanity defense in cases involving the deaths of children.

The story remains one of profound tragedy — for the three children who lost their lives, for a mother now paralyzed and on trial, and for a family forever changed. The court is left to determine whether Lindsay Clancy’s actions were the product of a severe mental illness that removed her criminal responsibility or whether she retained the capacity to understand and control what she did that night.

Sources : https://nypost.com/2026/08/03/us-news/lindsay-clancy-revealed-she-was-desperate-to-get-mental-break-from-taking-care-of-everyone-2-months-before-killing-kids/