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A Massachusetts mom wants her murder trial split into two parts so a jury can separately decide if she was insane and suffering from postpartum psychosis when she allegedly murdered her three kids.
Lindsay Clancy wants one trial for a jury to determine if she is responsible for fatally strangling kids Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan with an exercise band at their Duxbury, Mass. home on January 2023.
And she wants a second, separate phase of trial for jurors to decide if she was suffering from a “mental disease or defect” when she allegedly slayed her children, according to papers filed by her lawyer, Kevin Reddington Thursday.
The second phase of trial would presumably be moot if she was acquitted at the first phase.
Clancy is due later Friday to make an appearance at a courthouse in Plymouth.
Her lawyers have been fighting over logistics of getting Clancy, a paraplegic bound to a wheelchair, to court during trial, which is currently scheduled for July. She became paralyzed when she cut her neck and jumped from a window after slaying her children.
Reddington also filed papers requesting that Clancy’s upcoming mental evaluation by prosecutors’ expert be videotaped so the defense attorney can review it in lieu of being present for the exam.
Prosecutors last month asked that they be able to evaluate Clancy with their own expert after her lawyers announced her main defense would be that she was innocent of the crimes because she was having a mental break when she carried them out.
The mom has claimed in a lawsuit suit that a revolving door of doctors missed that she was suffering from bipolar disorder while loading her up with myriad drugs from October to December of 2022, like Zoloft, trazodone, Prozac, Ambien, Remeron, Klonopin, Seroquel, Ativan, Valium, and Lamictal.
And Clancy began to wonder if she was a “psychopath,” her suit claimed.
She was overtaken by a “force” with the voice of a man she began hearing since she started taking Seroquel, the day she killed her kids.
It wasn’t until over a year after her arrest that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder — a condition that antidepressants usually make worse, the suit said.
Her husband, Patrick Clancy, filed a separate lawsuit against her doctors claiming she was “overmedicated” at the time of the killings.
At a hearing in December, where Clancy appeared by video, her lawyer warned the judge of the logistical nightmare of getting her to court for trial everyday, as he requested an ambulance for her transportation.
Reddington also warned that she may try to kill herself during the course of trial.
Clancy has been on suicide watch at Tewksbury State Hospital since her arrest.
English (US)