A jury of 12 women and six men, with six alternates, has been seated in the Lindsay Clancy trial, clearing the way for opening statements and testimony to begin Monday in Plymouth Superior Court. The case is expected to last six weeks.
That makes Monday the first real test of a prosecution that says Lindsay Clancy premeditated the killings of her three children and a defense that says she was in the throes of severe postpartum mental illness. Clancy, the Duxbury mother accused of killing 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan, has pleaded not guilty to three first-degree murder charges, even as she admits she killed them.
The move toward trial follows a week of arguments over what jurors should be allowed to hear and see. On Thursday in Plymouth Superior Court, the defense and prosecution were still battling over graphic evidence and how many witnesses would be allowed to testify, a fight that reached into the handling of autopsy photos and a recording of the 911 call Patrick Clancy made after finding his injured wife outside the home and his children's bodies in the basement.
Kevin Reddington tried to narrow the case by agreeing to stipulate to some facts in an unsuccessful effort to persuade prosecutors to limit the number of first responders who will testify about the slayings. He said he supported Patrick Clancy's request to keep some evidence from being released publicly, and warned that the government was trying to put a circus in front of the jury. Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague pushed back hard, saying the defense was trying to whitewash the gruesome facts of the case and that the Commonwealth did not choose the number of victims, the defendant did.
Sprague has said the killings were brutal and deliberate, alleging that Lindsay Clancy sent her then-husband out to pick up takeout far enough away to give her time to kill the children. Prosecutors also plan to play Patrick Clancy's 911 call after he returned home on Jan. 24, 2023, found his wife injured after she had cut her neck and wrists and jumped from a second-story window, and then found the children dead in the basement.
Patrick Clancy, 38, is expected to be the first witness on Monday, and his account will likely anchor the first hours of testimony. For the jury, the trial now turns from legal sparring to the evidence itself: whether the facts that led to the children's deaths in Duxbury are heard as proof of premeditation, or through the lens the defense will press that Clancy's actions were driven by severe postpartum mental illness. The ruling Judge William F. Sulliva was expected to issue on the disputed evidence and witness limits before trial would help determine how much of that story the jury hears first.
