Killer Mom Trial: Father’s Gutting 9-1-1 Call Forces Recess, Emotional Day In Court
The ex-husband of Lindsay Clancy finished an emotional 2 days on the stand where he recounted finding Lindsay badly injured after a suicide attempt and then, while on a 9-1-1 call, found his three young children strangled to death. The jury saw the exercise bands Lindsay Clancy used to kill her children and then heard the disturbing, 7 minute 9-1-1 call from Patrick Clancy. It was so emotional, the judge had to speak to jurors and then called for a brief recess. When Patrick was cross examined by the defense, despite the horror of finding his children, he told jurors that Lindsay was a good and loving mom even as she mentally deteriorated, suffering from postpartum illness.
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Speaker 1: Hey, there're folks. It is Thursday, July thirtieth, and such a difficult day in the court room in the triple murder trial of Lindsey Clancy that the judge actually needed to give the room a break at some points. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
00:00:22
Speaker 2: Ropes.
00:00:23
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember times I have seen something similar to this, But it got so so heavy in court yesterday, Robes said. The judge just said, hey, everybody, we need to take a beak before we start up on this again.
00:00:36
Speaker 3: Yes, and so much so that Patrick Clancy actually had a break between being questioned by the prosecution and cross examined then by the defense. They actually broke it up by having two smaller witnesses come forward just to give him an emotional beat as well as the jurors.
00:00:55
Speaker 1: I didn't see it was. I don't know if that was planned ahead of time or the judge did that on the fly. And I asked you when it was, I say, wait a minute, the defense is not going to question him. Actually, I don't remember. It doesn't happen that often. If it does, they just split it up to give him a breather before he had to answer more questions about what was the worst day of his life?
00:01:14
Speaker 2: That poor man.
00:01:15
Speaker 3: That's all I kept thinking as we were watching the trial take place, just the mere fact that he had to sit through, first of all, and relive, as you pointed out, the worst day of his life. First, he had to describe to jurors what he found when he came home from picking up that takeout food. That he first went through the house and it was empty, and he was like, what's going on? This is so strange, And he finds the locked door to his bedroom and he thought what could be happening, opens the door and describes blood everywhere, just the confusion of what am I looking at here? And then sees an open window, then sees his wife on the ground.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: Calls nine to one one.
00:01:57
Speaker 3: At this point, he still doesn't even know that his kids have been strangled to death in the basement. This is all even before the nine to one one call was played. Just he had to walk jurors through all of those unbelievable revelations he was making minute by minute.
00:02:15
Speaker 1: And of course Clancy Patrick Clancy, the now ex husband of Lindsay Clancy. This was twenty twenty three when she did strangle her five five year old, her three year old, and her eight month old kids, she said, and she's blaming psychosis, postpartum psychosis, heard a voice that was giving her command. She was clearly on a mental decline for several I mean somebody even say years, but certainly in the months leading up to this. So this takes us Robes. The trial testimony got underway officially this week and Patrick Clancy was the first up, so we knew this was coming. And this is probably Ropes. He's the key witness. I guess Ropes. He's the only witness who was actually there and saw the immediate aftermath. But we had to tell this whole story again, and part of telling the story, Robes, they had to play for the jury with the courtroom a nine to one to one call that we are not supposed to ever be able to hear.
00:03:13
Speaker 3: That's true because Patrick Clancy, before this trial started, through his attorneys, asked the court to not broadcast this nine one one call. It's about seven minutes long and it's excruciating, and yes, the jury needed to hear it, and the courtroom needed to hear it, and members of the media heard it, but it was not allowed to be broadcast, recorded, or transmitted in any way because it is just that gutting, and the jurors were visibly shaken, according to folks in the room. The judge again had to say and explain and walk the jury through what it's like to actually process something that emotional. He said, you have to separate evidentiary value you from the power of emotion. But man, how do you do that when you're hearing a man on a call to nine one one discover in real time that his kids have all been killed by his wife.
00:04:14
Speaker 1: We've heard anybody, right, You've heard nine to one one calls before, played in news, played in true crime shows. We've probably heard more than most Robes, just given our line of work. This was Robes. I can only imagine being in the courtroom because you they at least were taken, Like you said, in real time. It's almost like you're with him. You're with him when he discovers, when he goes through this horror, you're hearing step by step he's discovering it and he's reacting to it in real time. And Robes, this is one of those bizarre come along with me on a right. This is people take you along for things, and this felt like that kind of narrative for the courtroom. When he saw blood, you could picture it when he sees the window, when he describes going downstairs, when they then hear him, I think the screaming robes on his behalf that's been described about this nine to one one call is probably even though we don't hear it, we can only imagine it. Bro I cannot I've never reacted this way to a nine to one one call.
00:05:24
Speaker 3: I ain't never heard, you know what, That's a really good way to put it, because I'm looking. I have a little bit of a transcript here that some of the court reporters put together. But there's this moment where that you can hear the sirens in the distance, and he's there with Lindsay, his wife, who obviously is potentially mortally wounded after she's slid her throat and jumped out the window. But he says to the nine one one operators, I need to go check on my kids. And so you hear footsteps, and you hear him going downstairs, and you hear him say, oh no yelling, oh no yelling. He screams, wake up. Then he's screaming, screaming. Then I won one operator says, what is he screaming about? Then there's just more crying, screaming, gasping, Oh my god, screaming, screaming, Oh my god, I mean, this is it goes on the transcript, and then eventually he just says, she killed the kids, Oh my god. And then just the amount of times in the transcript it just says screaming, screaming, screaming.
00:06:25
Speaker 2: I cannot.
00:06:26
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, you get emotional and choked up imagining listening to that, and the jury listened to that for seven minutes.
00:06:36
Speaker 1: Well, judge had to he I mean that was Look the stuff we here describe just the horror of this crime is one thing. Again crime, But is she criminally responsible? We are they're determining that. But ros and I think that I have right, I mean, imagine this is the other part of it. Had anyone arrived before he went to look for the kids nine, had any of the others they.
00:07:01
Speaker 3: Were getting there when he decided to go into the basement.
00:07:05
Speaker 1: I didn't know if he had, So it was someone tending to his wife. I was picturing or imagining, you're looking at the love of your life here. You don't know if she's alive or not. Rose, you have to leave her because something else is panicking you Rose. That moment right there, that decision he had to make to leave his wife, who is bleeding, can't speak, just jumped out a window. I need to go do something else, Robes. That is a that moment right there is terrifying to have to make that decision. To know he knew something, Rose.
00:07:39
Speaker 3: That he probably thought though, because obviously he knew she was mentally deteriorating. He knew that she had suicidal ideations. So I bet you he's just thinking. He said, where are the kids? And she said the basement, because he had already looked through the house when he came in. He said it was eerily quiet. He said he even called down, Hey, guys, down to the basement. Answered So when she said they're in the basement. I wonder in that moment if he thought, oh my god, has she done something, or if he just thought they're downstairs, they're okay. She just wanted to protect them from seeing me try to kill myself.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: Even if he thought the worst. I bet he didn't think that.
00:08:16
Speaker 2: I bet that. I bet that either.
00:08:18
Speaker 1: He might have thought they're not being tended to. She left them alone. I hope, well, I don't know where his.
00:08:23
Speaker 2: Mind would have It wouldn't have gone there.
00:08:25
Speaker 1: Worst case scenario, it wouldn't have.
00:08:27
Speaker 3: And in fact, you can hear him on the nine one one call tell whoever came up, because you hear footsteps about maybe the EMT coming in. I need you to stay so I can go check on my kids. So he knew he needed to get to his kids, but he was with his wife, yes, putting pressure on the cut, asking Lindsay to say her name or say his name, trying to keep her awake, trying to make sure she was going to be okay, and had no idea what he was about to walk into.
00:08:54
Speaker 1: And the I know which day it was, It might have been yesterday where they were describing what he saw in which one he saw first. I think he saw Korra first and laying on like they laying on the stomach like the cow. The kids were laid out and the bands laying next to them. This guy, this is the guy, folks, who is for the past for two days, has had to sit on that stand look at pictures of the kids all over again. They had to see happy moments from the family all over again, and then he had to walk everybody through this day. This dude is going through it and robes he's gotten I don't know, you can say emotional, but he hasn't out really been overly emotional. He has kept it together really well up there.
00:09:38
Speaker 3: I have been so amazed by and impressed with his ability to keep a level head, to keep a steady voice, to stay in the moment, to be able to describe what no one else in the courtroom actually was able to fully process without feeling that emotion, and for him to just stay Deddy. I was so blown away at his ability. Meantime, the cameras had also been pinned on Lindsay Clancy during all of this, and she was sobbing uncontrollably in the courtroom during the nine one one call, And just before that call, the prosecutor also showed and put into evidence the very exercise bands that she used to strangle her kids. They're in bright colors, you know those. It's just I don't know why that added to just the horror of the murder weapons so to say.
00:10:33
Speaker 1: I want to see that. I know she's got to do what she got to do, but there was a presentation kind of made and showed them and I know she's just doing her job, and this is part of it. I hated man. We every murder trial, they usually show you the murder weapon. Man.
00:10:48
Speaker 3: For some reason, just the brightly colored elect exercise bands were awful, to the point where they also showed Lindsay Clancy. She had her head turned completely as far away from those exercise bands as she could.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: She would not look at them.
00:11:03
Speaker 3: She could not look at them, and yet the jury had to look at them, and Patrick Clancy had to look at them. That was a tough moment as well.
00:11:13
Speaker 1: She didn't see her face much actually yesterday, but you could tell her body was shaking because she was crying uncontrollably, is how it was often described. It was a tough day in the robes so everybody.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: It certainly was.
00:11:28
Speaker 3: And so as we mentioned, they let Patrick off of the stand for a bit. They got two other witnesses on two quick ones. One of them was from the restaurant that he picked up the food from and the other one was from the CBS manager where he was grabbing medicine for Cora and the restaurant hostess who took the order from Lindsay, and this was to point out from the prosecutors that Lindsay was not acting crazy. She didn't seem unhinged when she took the time to place this takeout order. The hostess said it was an ordinary, calm call where she just ordered food and there was nothing strange or different about her voice or her delivery. And the CVS manager said the same thing, it was very normal interactions because she saw Patrick on the phone with Lindsay. And just so they're trying to establish that she wasn't in some manic, crazed state, that she was able to operate normally. But when we come back, we will tell you what happened when Patrick got back on this stand and was cross examined by the defense. And welcome back everyone as we talk about one of the most difficult days we have ever seen in a courtroom in our professional lives. And that was all taking place in Massachusetts as Lindsay Clancy is now being prosecuted for first degree murder for the deaths of her three young children, who she fully admits she killed, but she claims she isn't responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis. So after Patrick has to go through and relive this awful day, the nine one one call is heard, the bands are entered into evidence. Now he's being asked what kind of a mother was lindsay, yeah, Stellar.
00:13:26
Speaker 1: I haven't heard a complain about her motherhood from either side anybody. No one has got on that stand and said anything, not even negative robes glowing. This woman was wrapped up in her kids in such a way that is admirable, you can actually say, And they've shown picture picture, time up to time and story after story that it flies in the face of a woman who wanted to get out or get away or didn't want to be a mom anymore. Just doesn't make sense.
00:13:57
Speaker 3: And it doesn't make sense. And I'm just thinking about Patrick being up there and telling the truth and having to relay after just telling jurors the unthinkable that he then had to give her and.
00:14:10
Speaker 2: Not had to.
00:14:11
Speaker 3: But I just think that's just such a difficult place in a headspace to try to reconcile those two very different versions of the same woman.
00:14:20
Speaker 2: But he said that, I mean, he got into details.
00:14:22
Speaker 3: He talked about her reading them books from the time they were three months old, making up songs for them, making green eggs and ham for Cora because it was one of her favorite Doctor Seuss books, bringing them to music classes, taking hundreds and hundreds of pictures with them, And yeah, that was tough to have her lawyer just bring up he had enlarged all of her Instagram pictures where she pretty much on her Instagram page, Lindsay had nothing but photos of her children, Her with her children, laughing, smiling heads next to each other, family outings and Christmas lists from Cora.
00:14:56
Speaker 2: Like, he had to sit there and explain each.
00:14:59
Speaker 3: Photo and who was in the photo, and that just had to be gutting.
00:15:03
Speaker 1: He's holding the photo. The lawyer has them on these big poster board kind of things, have them printed out. He's holding the damn thing inches from Patrick's head on the stand so he can see them, and we're all seeing them in the courtroom and seeing them on the video. Right. He's staring at these oversized images of a life he once had with the kids and the family that were happy by all.
00:15:26
Speaker 3: Accounts, his entire life. He lost his entire family in twenty minutes while he was going to get takeout. I don't know how you ever move on. I don't know how you ever get past something like that, but then to have.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: To relive it in front of the world like that.
00:15:47
Speaker 3: My god, I just don't know how one person can take that much pain.
00:15:53
Speaker 1: Again, I'm always blown away and how people move on after they lose a child something like this. It's not an accident, it's not one kid got to run over by a car. This is all that pain is excruciating, But I just this is something else. So but still we look at this and I don't feel anger towards her.
00:16:16
Speaker 2: It doesn't appear that he does either.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: Oh' We talked about it once before and shared part of it. He had a long, long letter he wrote publicly, he wrote and sent out to everybody to please reserve judgment and please forgive her. I have he said this was not my wife Robes. He stood by that, And there is no point that we've seen him testify that you feel like he has an agenda, like he's there to help the prosecution or the defense, there to help Lindsay avoid being guilty or not.
00:16:46
Speaker 2: That's such a good point.
00:16:47
Speaker 1: He's just playing and telling it how he doesn't want to be here, he doesn't want to have to relive this. But he is not advocating for anything Robes. He's telling his story. He needs to be there. He's getting it done, he's doing his responsibility. But he has been supportive of her robes and forgave her and publicly asked folks to do that not too long. This was right.
00:17:07
Speaker 3: It was like within days of his children's death. And look, I think that's the only way you can reconcile what happened is just to fully acknowledge that this was not the woman that you fell in love with. This is not the woman who you slept in bed with every night, This is not the woman who you saw take loving care of your children every day. I do think it was interesting one of the and maybe the point will be in the defense and pokeholes in this just saying she was still in this psychotic state. But the one thing that I thought was difficult to understand when he testified to the phone call that he had with his wife when she was in the hospital recovering after the day, a few days after the kids were murdered, he said, she didn't talk about our kids. She talked about what she went through. He did acknowledge that, yes, she reiterated to him that she heard a voice telling her to do it now, but he said she never mentioned psychosis during the call. I do think that the prosecution did make some inroads there. That's tough to hear from a jury's perspective, that when after all of.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: This happened, she never once mentioned the kids.
00:18:15
Speaker 3: She didn't ask about the kids, she didn't talk about the kids.
00:18:19
Speaker 2: That was difficult to hear.
00:18:22
Speaker 1: I you know, in that state and wherever state she was in, I'm not applying any reasonable standard to her behavior, so I didn't think much of it. I guess the prosecution might think they made some point there, but as a juror, a potential juror, I am not holding that against her.
00:18:40
Speaker 3: And I do think the defense did do a very good job at not only establishing again just what a loving mother she was, but even the fact that they had Patrick go through all of her medications, all of the hospital stays, and frankly point out the fact that she didn't receive stellar care, that the doctors didn't really seem to take it that seriously, and they just had her playing with Clay and not really getting the psychiatric help that she needed. And they went over her journal where she would say I slept well, still have horrible thoughts. So she was documenting the horrible thoughts she had. She had a book that said good moms have scary thoughts. She wasn't hiding this. She was talking about it. She was telling her husband about it, she was telling doctors about it, she was telling family and friends about it. She was admitting and was afraid of the thoughts she was having about doing harm to herself and doing harm to her kids. All of that bolsters the defense saying, yeah, she was suffering from a mental illness that took over her body, her mind, her soul, everything. It does seem like they have already and they haven't even put on their defense. But just through the cross examination of Patrick, I feel like they have done a pretty decent job of establishing that she was suffering.
00:20:02
Speaker 1: She wasn't well. That's well documented. The jury's going to have a tough one because somebody's got to explain to them in jury instructions when it crosses a line into her being criminally responsible or not. Those are going to be a Hella jury instructions. Bro.
00:20:17
Speaker 3: Yes, So testimony does continue today. We will continue to monitor what happens. This is a trial that's expected to take they're saying five to six weeks, so we will stay on top of it for all of you, but we always appreciate.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: You listening to us. I'm Amy Robot alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.
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