PLYMOUTH, Mass. (TNND) — A Massachusetts woman accused of strangling her three children to death and then trying to kill herself three years ago appeared in person inside a courtroom for the first time on Friday.
Lindsay Clancy previously appeared by video for pretrial hearings from a bed at Tewksbury State Hospital.
FILE – Lindsay Clancy remotely attends her arraignment from a hospital bed on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. (WJAR)
Citing court documents, the New York Post reported that Clancy’s attorney requested that jurors first determine whether Clancy committed the murders. A second phase would then address whether she was experiencing a “mental disease or defect” at the time of the killings.
The second phase would presumably only move forward if the jury finds her guilty in the initial phase.
The judge and attorneys scheduled a March 2 court date for oral arguments on several issues, including the request for a split trial, per the media outlet. They also reportedly discussed her upcoming April 10 mental health evaluation by an expert selected by prosecutors.
Clancy, who has been on suicide watch since her arrest, was charged with multiple counts of murder and strangulation. She pleaded not guilty and became a paraplegic after she jumped out of a second floor window following her children’s deaths.
FILE — Investigators say police found three unconscious children at this home on Summer Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. Police say the children were later pronounced dead. (WJAR)
The children were identified as 5-year-old Cora Clancy, 3-year-old Dawson Clancy, and 8-month-old Callan Clancy.
Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz previously said an emergency call came in on Jan. 24, 2023 shortly after 6 p.m. from a man who lived at a home in Duxbury. The man said a woman had attempted suicide.
Cruz said Clancy’s husband made the call.
Police responded to the home and discovered three children “unconscious with obvious signs of trauma,” said Cruz.
Cruz said the two older children were taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Plymouth, where they were pronounced dead. He added that the baby was flown to Boston Children’s Hospital, where he later died.
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“This is an unimaginable, senseless tragedy,” Cruz told previously told reporters.
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