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Lindsay Clancy sobbed in court Wednesday as her former nanny told the jury that her 8-month-old son was the “happiest, sweetest, easiest baby” — and testified she never worried about the safety of the three kids.
“Callan — he was the happiest, sweetest, easiest baby. He was just a love,” Elaine Rossi testified of Clancy’s baby.
Rossi told jurors in a Plymouth, Mass., courtroom that she was hired to care for Callan for a few hours a day, three days a week from September 2022 through December 2022 while Clancy’s other two children were at school.
During Rossi’s testimony, the 35-year-old Duxbury mother had her hand covering her face and her body shook as she cried. She also could be seen wiping her nose with a tissue at one point.
The jury was shown a video that lasted a few seconds of Callan drinking from a bottle. Rossi took the video on Sept. 9 2022, and sent it to Clancy.
The nanny described Clancy’s 5-year-old daughter Cora as a “girly girl” and her 3-year-old son Dawson as “full of energy, rambunctious, silly, funny.” She said the three kids called her “Lainey.”
Rossi said while she knew Clancy struggled with postpartum depression, had trouble sleeping and was on prescription medications, she never worried for the children’s safety.
“I observed a wonderful mom who loved her kids,” Rossi said. “She was very concerned with their safety. She was very concerned with Callan’s eating and sleeping. She was a wonderful mother.”
Rossi said that Clancy — a former labor and delivery nurse — gave her detailed instructions and information about Callan which she wrote in a notebook for Rossi. She would also text Rossi when needed, she testified.
Rossi was initially hired to care for Callan as Clancy returned to work on Thanksgiving 2022. But the family had Rossi begin a few months early so everyone could get used to the routine.
But then Clancy and her husband, Patrick Clancy, let Rossi go just after Thanksgiving, informing her that Clancy wouldn’t be returning to work after all, Rossi said.
Rossi said Clancy first shared with her “that she was suffering from postpartum” depression in early December 2022. She also told Rossi that “she was not going to nurse Callan anymore because she was starting a new medication.”
Clancy told Rossi she was having trouble sleeping and was spending nights in the basement for that reason, the nanny told the jury.
Rossi also testified that she saw Clancy’s prescription medication bottles in a kitchen cabinet.
On Monday, the jury was read excerpts from Clancy’s diary, laying out in heartbreaking detail her guilt over choosing to stop breastfeeding Callan and to start sleep training him. She also felt terrible that Callan was pulling her attention away from her older two children.
Clancy wrote in the journal that she had “horrible PTSD from sleep training Callan.”
“Hearing him cry for one plus hours and not intervening just about killed me. I even said the words, ‘I want to die’ to Pat while he was crying,” she wrote.
On Nov. 18, 2022, Clancy wrote: “It’s like I’m so desperate to get a mental break from taking care of everyone that my mind is trying to make something physically wrong with me.”
Clancy is accused of strangling the three kids with exercise bands on Jan. 24, 2023, and then cutting her wrists and neck and throwing herself out of the second-story window of her bedroom. She paralyzed herself in the fall and is now wheelchair bound.
The jury will be tasked with deciding Clancy’s mental state as prosecutors argue she was cold, calculating and in her right mind when she carried out the killings.
Meanwhile, Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, wants the jury to find her not guilty by reason of insanity on the grounds she was in the throes of severe postpartum psychosis caused in part by being misdiagnosed and overmedicated.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
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