By Nate Raymond
Aug 17 (Reuters) – A Massachusetts jury heard evidence on Monday about how Lindsay Clancy conducted online searches concerning depression, suicidal ideation and “symptoms of postpartum psychosis” in the days before she killed her three young children in 2023 as prosecutors rested their case.
Clancy, 36, admits she killed her children in January 2023 while her then-husband was on an errand away from their home in the Boston suburb of Duxbury. Her attorney argues she was driven by postpartum mental illness and is urging jurors to reject the prosecution’s claims she intentionally murdered the children.
During a trial now in its fourth week, jurors in Plymouth, Massachusetts, have heard from dozens of witnesses ranging from Clancy’s ex-husband to first responders to the psychiatrists who treated her before the killings.
For its final witness, the prosecution called Ian Whiffin, a digital forensic expert from the company Cellebrite, who had been tasked with examining Clancy’s cellphone to look at her search history, calls, text messages and health data.
His testimony focused in part on data that recorded that after 5 p.m. on January 24, 2023, she had climbed two flights of stairs and spoken by phone with her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, who was at a pharmacy and going to pick up takeout food for dinner.
Jurors had already learned through prior testimony that while her husband was gone from the house, she killed her children, Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and 8-month-old Callan in their basement by strangling them with exercise bands before jumping out of a window on the second floor of their home.
Whiffin’s testimony detailed how in the days before the killings Clancy had searched online for “how quickly does wellbutrin work for depression” and “ketamine for suicidal ideation.” On January 19, she searched “symptoms of postpartum psychosis” and “psychosis symptoms.”
DEFENSE ARGUES MENTAL ILLNESS
Her lawyer, Kevin Reddington, has argued that Clancy had been struggling for months with postpartum mental health issues following Callan’s birth and had been suffering from psychosis when she committed the killings.
After prosecutors rested their case, he unsuccessfully sought to convince Judge William Sullivan to rule in Clancy’s favor before the case could go to the jury, saying the evidence “is overwhelming that this young woman was clearly and unequivocally suffering from a mental disease or defect.”
Patrick Clancy testified early in the trial that about a week after the killings, his wife, who was paralyzed after jumping from the window, called him from a hospital and told him she “heard a man’s voice telling her that if she didn’t do it now, she would lose her chance or something like that.”
Lindsay Clancy faces life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder. If found not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility, or by reason of insanity, she would be committed to a state psychiatric hospital for evaluation.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston)
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