The deaths were horrific. Three small children strangled by their mother with exercise bands inside the family home. Lindsay Clancy had a sudden outburst in court when she was confronted with the reality of what she had done.
Clancy admits to killing her three kids, but she argues that post-partum psychosis and over medication caused her actions. Thus, she wants to be sent to a mental institution instead of a prison. Clancy has sat silently in court as numerous witnesses took the stand, including her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, who has since remarried.
But one moment got to be too much for her: When the children’s injuries were detailed in autopsy reports that were discussed in court.
Lindsay Clancy Started Sobbing in Court

(Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
According to ABC News, Lindsay started sobbing in court and put her head in her hands. “She reportedly began crying?” as the medical examiner described her daughter Cora’s injuries, “and she was removed from the courtroom in her wheelchair a few minutes later during a recess.”
She “was seen hunched over the defense table with a box of tissues,” ABC News reported. Lindsay is in a wheelchair after being partially paralyzed from a fall outside one of the home’s windows.
According to WJAR, jurors “saw autopsy photos from the two older children, and the judge called multiple recesses to give Clancy time to compose herself.”
‘I Can’t Do This,’ Lindsay Clancy Sobbed
Clancy uttered four words in court, according to WJAR.
“I can’t do this.”
Some of the jurors also had an emotional reaction to seeing the autopsy photos of the two older children, with two of them also crying, the television station reported.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington “hugged Clancy into his side as she sobbed into her hands” when the doctor described the injuries to the baby, WJAR noted. The judge then ordered a recess int he trial.
Prosecutors are arguing that Clancy intentionally killed her children and should be held criminally responsible for her actions. Some people walked out of the gallery because they were too emotional to continue hearing the autopsy testimony, the television station reported. According to CBS News, Clancy had two emotional outbursts during the testimony, causing the jurors to leave the room.
The children who died were 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan. Clancy’s father was in the courtroom and also started crying during the graphic testimony, CBS News reported.
“Members of the jury, I just kind of want to revisit an instruction I’ve given you a few times, I think, during the course of this trial. It’s important to understand, remember sometimes as evidence is presented in the trial that creates an emotional reaction, but as jurors who have taken an oath to follow the law, I’m instructing you that the law says you must separate any emotional reaction on your part from the informational value and weight that the evidence produces,” the judge said, according to CBS.
“Your verdict in this case is going to have to be based solely on the evidence and it cannot be based on sympathy, or anger, or passion or prejudice. So you’ve got to keep that in mind.”
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