MA v. Lindsay Clancy

Lindsay Clancy is on trial in Plymouth County Superior Court in Brockton, Massachusetts, charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three children: Cora, age 5, Dawson, age 3, and Callan, 8 months old. The children died in the family home in Duxbury in January 2023. She has pleaded not guilty. She is presumed innocent, and the case will be decided by a jury before Judge William F. Sullivan.

This is not a case about whether the acts happened. The defense has signaled that it will not contest that Clancy caused her children's deaths. What it will contest is criminal responsibility. Her lawyers argue that Clancy was in the grip of severe postpartum psychosis, and that a cascade of psychiatric medications prescribed to her in the weeks before left her unable to know right from wrong under the law. Under Massachusetts law, a defendant who lacked criminal responsibility because of mental disease or defect is not guilty by reason of that condition.

The Commonwealth's burden is to prove that this defense does not hold. Prosecutors are expected to argue that Clancy's actions in the hours around the children's deaths show planning and awareness, not a mind that could not tell right from wrong. Between those two accounts sits the hardest question this trial asks: was this a mother the medical system failed, or an act the law must still hold her responsible for? The trial is estimated to run four to six weeks or more, with a witness list reported to exceed two hundred names.

We approach this case with care. Three young children are gone, and nothing on this page will treat that as anything other than the loss it is. We are not here to tell you what to feel about Lindsay Clancy. We are here to follow the evidence, day by day, and to watch whether the Commonwealth can meet its burden against a defense that turns entirely on the state of one mother's mind. Start with the background report below, then follow every day of trial with us.

Coverage begins the day proceedings do. Jury selection is set to begin July 20, 2026. Start with the background report above, then check back here as the trial unfolds.