As Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial continues, many observers have noted her presence in a wheelchair.
The 36-year-old is paralysed from the chest down after jumping approximately 20ft from a second-story window of her Duxbury, Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023.
The fall resulted in total severing of her thoracic spine near the vertebrae of T5 and T6, leaving her permanently paralysed.
The tragedy happened on the same night that she brutally strangled her three children, Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months old, in their basement. It is said that she deliberately murdered her children and then attempted suicide.
After jumping off the roof, Clancy was operated on urgently as well as medically treated for her spine injury. She is still confined to a wheelchair as a result and is being transported to her murder trial at Plymouth Superior Court in a wheelchair because she is incapable of moving below her sternum.
In the latest hearing, Lindsay Clancy’s mother-in-law, Susan Clancy, testified, describing that she was “begging for help” in the months before she killed her three children.
She described her as “a wonderful mother” and “very nurturing, very loving” and told Plymouth Superior Court that the family was deeply concerned about Lindsay’s deteriorating mental state before the January 2023 killings.
“Lindsay was struggling, we were all concerned,” Susan Clancy testified.
Text messages shown to the jury revealed Lindsay showcasing fears about medication dependence. She texted on November 30, 2022: “I’m not okay and I’m terrified of taking meds tonight.”
The case, which is now in its fourth week, is about whether Clancy suffered from postpartum psychosis when she murdered her children. Postpartum psychosis is a very rare mental disorder caused by hormonal changes and lack of sleep after birth.
According to the testimony of Dr Paul Zeisel, a clinical psychologist who saw Clancy in the hospital, Clancy told him that she heard the voice of a man asking her to kill her children and herself. She did not fake any symptoms during psychological tests.
2026-08-19 20:38:00
