Maternal Mental Health and Crime

Defense lawyers for Massachusetts nurse Lindsay Clancy, accused of strangling her three young children in Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023, have filed a new motion offering a formal written admission that she killed them in an effort to shift the trial’s focus entirely to her mental condition. The move comes a week after a judge rejected her bid to split the trial into separate phases on the acts and her sanity, and asks the court to reconsider by arguing that guilt on the conduct would no longer be in dispute. Prosecutors, who say Clancy used exercise bands to kill 5‑year‑old Cora, 3‑year‑old Dawson and 8‑month‑old Callan before jumping from a second‑story window in an apparent suicide attempt that left her paraplegic, have not agreed to the proposal and previously argued a bifurcated trial would be redundant. If she is ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity or otherwise deemed mentally unfit, Massachusetts law could allow commitment to a secure psychiatric facility instead of state prison, a prospect already stirring public debate over postpartum mental illness, accountability and public safety. Newly unsealed records cited in the case show she carried out a series of apparently routine tasks the day of the killings — taking a child to the pediatrician, contacting a pharmacy, ordering takeout and checking Apple Maps — before allegedly sending her husband to pick up food and medication, leaving her alone with the children.