Livestream: Lindsay Clancy murder trial resumes after jurors hear her emotional journal entries
Crime
“I’m completely overwhelmed trying to take care of the three kids. I feel like I’m drowning every day,” Clancy allegedly wrote in her journal.
updated on August 4, 2026 | 9:53 AM
2 minutes to read
Livestream via NBC 10 WJAR.
On the stand: Cristina Carpio, general surgeon at South Shore Hospital
Lindsay Clancy is back in court Tuesday following a marathon day of testimony from police who searched her family’s home in Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023, as well as medical staff who treated Clancy and her children that fateful night.
Now 35 years old, Clancy is charged with first-degree murder for strangling 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan Clancy. While she doesn’t deny killing her children, she has pleaded not guilty under what’s commonly known as an insanity defense.
Clancy argues she can’t be held criminally responsible because she was in the throes of postpartum mental illness and heard a voice in her head instructing her to kill, but prosecutors maintain she acted “deliberately and meticulously.” They allege she strangled her children before attempting suicide because she had grown tired of her life as a mother.
Jurors on Monday heard a series of excerpts from Clancy’s journals, which police seized from her home following the killings.
“I’m completely overwhelmed trying to take care of the three kids. I feel like I’m drowning every day,” Clancy allegedly wrote in one entry. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I want help. I want to be well.”
In other excerpts, Clancy wrote about having “horrible insomnia and anxiety” and “going through the motions every day,” expressed guilt about not contributing to her family’s finances after giving birth, and said she felt “incredibly sad and guilty” over switching from breastfeeding to formula so she could focus on her mental health.
“It’s like I’m so desperate to get a mental break from taking care of everyone that my mind is trying to make something physically wrong with me,” she allegedly wrote on Nov. 18, 2022. “My mind never shuts off. It’s constantly thinking of the next thing someone needs. I can’t shut it off. I desperately want to go back to work, but now I don’t know how I’m going to function, and it worries me.”
Jurors also heard early testimony about postpartum psychosis — a condition Clancy says she was experiencing at the time of the killings — via two psychiatrists who treated her while she was hospitalized at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Dr. Jhilam Biswas, a forensic psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said Clancy was still intubated on Jan. 26, 2023, when she told her via pen and paper that she felt “horrified.”
According to Biswas, Clancy asked if she had an attorney and inquired about her family’s whereabouts and her ability to have visitors. She also allegedly wrote, “Is my body broken? Are my legs straight?”
Dr. Kelly McDonough, an emergency physician who initially treated Clancy at South Shore Hospital on Jan. 24, testified that the young mother had a “thoracic spine injury” to her mid-back — an injury that ultimately left her paralyzed.
Lindsay Clancy listens to medical testimony from doctors who treated her children. Greg Derr / The Patriot Ledger, Pool
Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between. She has been covering the Lindsay Clancy murder case since January 2023.
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