Lindsay Clancy’s final text messages with her then-husband on the day she allegedly killed their three young children were revealed in court Thursday.
The unnervingly mundane exchange between the now 36-year-old mom and Patrick Clancy began just over an hour before she allegedly strangled Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan inside their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home while Patrick was running errands.
“Any chance you want to do take out from ThreeV,” Clancy texted Patrick about a local restaurant at 4:53 p.m. on Jan. 24, 2023. “I didn’t cook anything. It’s been a long day.”
AP Photo/Josh Reynolds
“Yeah,” Patrick replied.
“Okie doke,” Clancy said. “Check the menu when you can.”
“What are you getting?” Patrick asked Clancy about her takeout order.
He went on to ask her if their baby boy, Callan, had woken up, and she responded, “It was just a short nap.”
“Oh, okay,” Patrick replied.
Just minutes later, Clancy texted him her food order and he responded with his.
“Mediterranean Power bowl,” Clancy wrote at 5:07 p.m.
“Okay, I’ll do scallops and pork belly risotto,” he quickly replied at 5:08 p.m.
Patrick went to a nearby CVS to get medicine for their daughter before stopping by the food joint to pick up the order, returning home just after 6 p.m. to a horrifying scene — finding a lifeless Cora and Dawson, and Callan barely clinging to life.
But first, Patrick saw Clancy lying on her back in their backyard after she tried to kill herself by jumping out of the window of their second-story bedroom. She slit her wrists and neck before partially paralyzing herself in the fall, according to testimony.
The text messages were read during the testimony of State Trooper Timothy Chiappini, who analyzed Clancy’s cellphone.
Clancy and Patrick also texted earlier that day when Clancy was filling him in on how Cora’s physical appointment went that morning.
“Her urine looked good so nothing going wrong with her kidneys, phew,” Clancy texted Patrick some time after 8:42 a.m.
“Oh wow. You’re a good momma,” he gushed in response.
Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, wants the jury to find her not guilty by reason of insanity based on the claim that she was in the throes of severe postpartum psychosis and heard voices telling her to carry out the horrific acts.
But prosecutors claim Clancy carefully planned the murders because she wanted a break from raising the kids.