LINDSAY CLANCY’S neighbors have revealed the horror which darkened their doors on the night she murdered her three young children.
Clancy, 36, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the 2023 murders of Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan – before the bombshell case ended in a mistrial on Friday.
The shocking killings destroyed her young family and set in motion a murder trial which has gripped a nation.
Now, neighbors who watched police descend on the normally quiet street have opened up about the unimaginable tragedy which has irreparably rocked their tight-knit community.
During a rollercoaster six-week trial, prosecutors allege Clancy knew what she was doing when she strangled her children with exercise bands at the family’s Duxbury home on January 24, 2023, before jumping from a second-floor window.
Clancy survived the fall but was left paralyzed.
Her defense argued she was suffering from severe mental illness and hearing voices at the time of the killings.
Ruth Hearson, 81, lives directly opposite Clancy’s former home.
She said the family largely kept to themselves and that she would occasionally see the former delivery nurse with her children.
“I saw four ambulances and I said, ‘Oh, it must be the CO2, carbon monoxide poisoning.’ That’s what I thought,” Hearson told The U.S. Sun.
“No one in their right mind kills their babies and jumps out a window on the second floor, thinking they’re gonna kill themselves. It’s not something you see every day.”
Hearson said she did not learn what had actually happened until a day or two after the killings.
She said the first responders who arrived at the home were deeply affected by what they encountered.
“The police, they were all traumatized. Coming down, seeing the babies, and some of them couldn’t go back to work,” she said.
“They were so bad.”
Asked how she felt about Clancy potentially facing life in prison is she receives a second trial and is found guilty, Hearson is sympathetic.
“I feel bad. When you’re like that, you’re not guilty. Because it wasn’t you doing it,” she said.
“They were her babies and she loved them. The devil was there. The devil did it.”
Clancy had reportedly struggled with her mental health before killing her children, although those living nearby didn’t suspect a thing.
Hearson said she had occasionally seen Clancy pushing her children in a stroller and assumed her family life behind closed doors was anything but the unimaginable nightmare it would become.
“Once in a while I’d see Patrick and I’d say, ‘Hey, hello.’ Or we saw a deer jump over my yard into their yard. They were across the street from me. It’s just so tragic. The babies were so cute,” she continued.
“I said to my pastor, I said, ‘I feel so bad there was nobody to welcome them into heaven because the grandparents are all here. They hadn’t died yet.’”
The terrifying case has dramatically shed light on postpartum psychosis and whether the healthcare system failed Clancy in her hour of need.
The 12-person jury, which consisted of nine women and three men, wrestled with her state of mind during lengthy deliberations this week before eventually telling the judge they could not reach a unanimous decision, sparking a mistrial.
Clancy was admittedly suffering from depression and was on numerous medications.
Jurors heard that she had been prescribed 13 psychiatric meds during the four months before the killings, including antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications and antipsychotics.
She complained about the effects of the drugs, at one point saying she felt “completely numb” and “like a zombie.”
A note on her phone, last modified the day before the killings, said medication had “stole[n] me from my own body.”
“If you’re in a psychotic state, that’s what’s in control of you. Not your regular mind,” Hearson said.
“And she had all those drugs in her, that’s what was controlling her. I really believe that.
“I’m heartbroken for her because she doesn’t have her babies.
“My mother, when she went into postpartum depression, they didn’t have pills. They had shock treatments. That’s what they did. Swear to God. 65 years ago.”
Other Duxbury residents have also questioned whether Clancy’s treatment contributed to her deterioration.
Another neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous and admitted she has tried to not talk about the murders with her own family, said the tragedy has been deeply stressful for the community.
“I want it to be over with. I don’t like seeing it every day [the trial coverage],” she told The U.S. Sun.
She remembered the night of the killings, when police descended on the neighborhood as the enormity of the tragedy began to sink in.
“I just knew it had to be something really big, all of the police cars, the whole area was blocked off. It was beginning to get dark,” she said.
“I saw them taking a stretcher out of the back, which looked like it had a woman on it.”
The woman said she was in “disbelief” when she later learned that Clancy’s children had died, and that their mother had jumped from a window.
“It’s stressful. Ever since it happened I think about it. I just want it over with. I don’t want to see her face anymore,” she continued.
“I don’t want any of that. For a long time people who live here were dropping off things at the house – teddy bears, flowers.”
She said signs were later put up around the property as feelings within the neighborhood changed.
“I don’t have good feelings about her, and what she did,” the local resident said. “But at the same time I don’t know too much about that mental illness.”
Eric McDonald told The U.S. Sun that he believes she should be hospitalized rather than imprisoned.
“I do think that she has some serious issues,” Duxbury resident McDonald said.
“I think she should be institutionalized at a mental health facility, where she could get the help she needs.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/16945850/lindsay-clancy-neighbors-murder-duxbury/
