Lindsay Clancy: Trial postponed once more as prosecutors seek medical records and reporter notes from The New Yorker
With an insanity defense on the horizon, both sides are accumulating evidence. One says she suffered postpartum psychosis when she murdered her kids, the other claims she pre-planned it all.
The trial for a mother accused of strangling her three children to death before trying to take her own life has been postponed once more amidst psychological evaluations, exchanging evidence, and the prosecution trying to obtain interview notes from a reporter.
Lindsay Clancy’s trial has already been delayed once when a judge moved the start date from December 2025 to January 2026 to avoid disruptions from the holidays. The Patriot Ledger reports that the trial will now start on February 9, 2026.
At a May 28, 2025 hearing, Clancy watched silently via Zoom from the Tewksbury Hospital, where she has been since her arrest on January 24, 2023, accused of strangling her three children to death while her husband, Patrick, was out of the house for 25 minutes running errands, prosecutors claim. After allegedly killing her kids, Lindsay tried slitting her wrists and jumped from the second story window of the home. Her resulting injuries have left her permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
The defense and prosecution spent the hearing debating key issues of the upcoming trial. The prosecution filed a motion to request the notes and recordings from The New Yorker reporter who interviewed Patrick regarding his wife’s mental health at the time of the alleged murders, according to Court TV.
From the start, Kevin Reddington, leading the defense team, has stated that Lindsay was over-medicated and suffering from postpartum depression at the time of the crime. He has voiced his intention to pursue an insanity defense for his client. He also doesn’t object to the prosecution’s motion to obtain material from The New Yorker.
“I embrace and adopt and welcome these statements that say nothing other than the fact that she was a wonderful person, an incredible mother, a lovely human being,” Reddington said.
Patrick Clancy has publicly stood by his wife and defended her, claiming that she was not in her right mind when she allegedly murdered their kids. In his interview with The New Yorker, he opened up about the ordeal.
“I wasn’t married to a monster—I was married to someone who got sick,” he said in the piece, which was published in October 2024.
He also relived some of his conversations with Lindsay in the months following the deaths of the children.
“I think one of the first things I asked was, ‘Did you plan this? Is that why you sent me out?’ She said, ‘No, it just was, like, a snap of the fingers.’ ”
He asked Lindsay why she had looked up online how long it would take Patrick to pick up the take-out dinner they ordered that night, to which Lindsay said she wanted to help him avoid rush-hour traffic.
“Then I said, ‘Did you Google “ways to kill”?’ And she said, ‘Yeah, for myself, because I was suicidal for two months,’ ” he continued.
The prosecution is interested in comments Lindsay allegedly made before and after the murders, Court TV notes. Lindsay has never spoken with law enforcement due to being hospitalized for her injuries, so prosecutors seek third-party interviews to provide insight into her mental state on January 24, 2023.
The New Yorker, on the other hand, is citing journalistic privilege and is fighting the motion. Condé Nast, who owns the publication, is contesting the subpoena, according to the Ledger. The matter is awaiting a ruling from a New York judge.
Court TV reports that the second key motion involved the prosecution’s request to obtain medical records which would be used by any defense experts. While he agreed to share materials, Reddington warned the court about overreach and that there are still limits.
The judge has set a deadline of June 27, 2025 to exchange all expert-related materials, upon which they will discuss evidentiary hearings and objections to expert testimony. There is bound to be plenty of experts on both sides, since Lindsay’s mental state at the time of the crime is central to the case.
Reddington previously said that Lindsay had been prescribed up to 12 different medications for her mental issues following the birth of her third child, and believes she had been suffering from postpartum psychosis. The over-medication, which he described as “horrific,” is what he believes contributed to Lindsay’s actions on the day of the murders.
Prosecutors have also voiced their wishes to interview Lindsay at the hospital and record it, the Ledger notes. The judge told both sides to reach an agreement on the matter, though it would require a formal motion to be filed.
The previous trial start date of Jan. 25, 2025 will now serve as a final pretrial conference.
More on this case here:
And for more on filicide, check out my series “Fatal Maternity”
My Substack is all free with paid subscriptions being optional. I also have a Ko-Fi for one-time donations. Any support goes towards creating more content and books and furthering my writing career. All support, financial or not, is appreciated!