Paralyzed Mom Who Strangled Kids To Death Heard Man's Voice In Her Head

A Massachusetts woman said she heard a man's voice telling her to kill her three young children before she strangled them to death using exercise ropes last month, prosecutors alleged during her arraignment Tuesday.

Now-paralyzed 32-year-old mother Lindsay Clancy appeared in Plymouth District Court through Zoom from her hospital bed, the New York Post reported.

Lindsay, a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, was on leave from work when she allegedly strangled to death her three children — Cora Clancy, 5, Dawson Clancy, 3, and Callan Clancy, 8 months — at their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home on Jan. 24.

The mother then attempted suicide by jumping from a second-floor window in the moments after the murders.

Her defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, alleged that Lindsay was a victim of a healthcare system that fails women with "postpartum depression – and even postpartum psychosis." He also described Lindsay as a paraplegic at risk of suicide.

The lawyer added that his client was prescribed drugs – including Prozac and Seroquel – whose side effects included homicidal ideation.

"[Clancy] was ... a beautiful person who was destroyed by this medication," Reddington told the court while holding up the "wish vase" of notes full of hope for both herself and her children that was discovered near Lindsay's bed.

Reddington said that Lindsay suffered spinal cord injuries and is currently paralyzed from the waist down after leaping out of the window. He added that Lindsay is also emotionally unwell.

Lindsay told a psychologist she heard a "male voice" telling her to kill the children and herself before the incident, Reddington explained.

Meanwhile, prosecutors alleged that Lindsay was "lucid" before the killings.

Prosecutors alleged that Lindsay planned the murders and waited until her husband, Patrick Clancy, was out of their house for about 20 minutes on an errand, which left her enough time to execute the murder, Law&Crime reported.

When Patrick came back home, he noticed the "silence." He found blood and an open window in the couple's upstairs bedroom before discovering his injured wife on the lawn, Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said. Patrick found his children in the finished basement, each of them with exercise bands wrapped around their "little necks."

Patrick's screams "seemed to grow louder and louder" on the phone while talking to the 911 dispatchers, the prosecutor said. When first responders arrived at the scene, he allegedly yelled, "She killed the kids!"

Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead later that night, while Callan died three days later at Boston Children's Hospital.

Prosecutors reviewed "meticulous" notes in Lindsay's journals, which seemed to be a documentation of her children's lives as well as her mental health journey.

Based on the journals, the state's attorney alleged that she was never diagnosed with postpartum depression, though she wrote on her phone the day prior to the killings that she was experiencing a "'touch of postpartum anxiety.'"

Lindsay faces first-degree murder charges in addition to three counts of strangulation and suffocation and three counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

The judge declined to set a cash bail amount and agreed to permit her to remain in her current hospital pending a potential transfer to a residential rehabilitation facility.

Lindsay is prohibited to leave the hospital or rehab without express permission from the court. If the time comes she is discharged from rehab prior to trial, the judge ruled, another hearing will be scheduled to determine her custody status.

Lindsay's husband earlier issued a plea for the public to forgive his wife. "I want to ask all of you that you find it deep within yourselves to forgive Lindsay, as I have," the grieving father wrote in an update to the GoFundMe page started by the couple's friend.

"The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring towards everyone — me, our kids, family, friends, and her patients. The very fibers of her soul are loving. All I wish for her now is that she can somehow find peace," Patrick added.

The funeral for all three Clancy children was held Friday at St. Mary of the Nativity in Scituate.