Defense presents mental-health testimony in Lindsay Clancy murder trial

The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother who admitted to killing her three young children, has entered the defense phase, with her attorneys presenting extensive testimony about her severe mental health struggles in the months before the tragedy. The central question for the jury is not whether Clancy committed the killings, but whether she can be held criminally responsible for them.

Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan, at their Duxbury home on January 24, 2023. She has acknowledged strangling the children with exercise bands and then attempting suicide by jumping from a second-story window, an act that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Prosecutors argue the killings were deliberate and premeditated. They point to internet searches Clancy made in the months prior about suicide methods and whether a sociopath can be treated, as well as evidence that she sent her husband out to run errands before committing the crimes.

The defense, however, contends Clancy was in the grip of acute postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder, and is not criminally...