The Massachusetts mom accused of strangling her three kids and then paralyzing herself in a suicide attempt could very well try to kill herself again when her trial gets underway this summer, her lawyer warned a judge.
Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, said because the accused killer is paralyzed from the waist down, the trial will be “a logistical nightmare” for her.
“She’s not a danger to others, but she’s surely a danger to herself,” Reddington said, according to a report by Boston25 News. “If this woman kills herself during this trial, which there is a very real probability that could happen, it’s on somebody, and it’s not on me.”
The paraplegic has “significant suicidal ideation” for which she’s under round-the-clock supervision at the Tewksbury State Hospital where she has been since her arrest, Reddington said.
Clancy appeared by video as her defense lawyer was in Plymouth County Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., Wednesday arguing against the state’s suggestion that she could simply be brought to and from court for trial — starting July 20 — via a van from the sheriff’s office, according to a report by Law&Crime.
Reddington said the sheriff’s office had downplayed just how immobile Clancy was and said she needed a medical transport to take her back and forth to the courthouse during the three-to-four week trial.
“This case is going to be a logistical nightmare,” Reddington said. “We have a person who is paralyzed, will be paralyzed for the rest of her life, and has lost any sensation and any motor control whatsoever.”
The defense attorney said the former nurse would need to be driven in a medical transport, that she needs a two-person female assist for “issues,” and she can’t even use the handicap stall in the bathroom.
“She has to have extra supplies available,” Reddington went on. “She has to have a nurse that’s not a veterinarian that knows what the medical condition of the individual is and can provide help — not just some random person from the sheriff’s department that’s going to sit in a jump seat in the sheriff’s van.”
Reddington argued for another hearing to continue working out the logistics.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for the sheriff’s office, Jessica Kenny, told the judge getting an ambulance for the whole trial would cost the county a lot of money.
“If she requires an ambulance,” Kenny said. “It’s a much bigger ask. We would have to contract with a private ambulance company to provide that because we do not have an ambulance and Tewksbury does not have an ambulance. So there would be certainly a cost associated with that.”
“There’s also some logistics … the scheduling of an ambulance obviously can sometimes be a difficult thing given the nature of what ambulances are,” Kenny continued.
Reddington said she didn’t necessarily need an ambulance per se but she needed a van that could transport her in a wheelchair.
Judge William F. Sullivan scheduled another hearing for Jan. 27 to hash out the issues.
Clancy pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and strangulation for allegedly using an exercise band to kill her daughter Cora, 5, son Dawson, 3, and baby Callan, who was 7 months old, on Jan. 24, 2023. Clancy then tried to take her own life by jumping from the second-floor window of her Duxbury home.
Her lawyers plan to argue at trial that she was suffering from severe post-partum depression and that she was on too many medications for the illness.
