Lindsay Clancy’s diary from the months before she strangled her three young kids revealed the dark thoughts and inner torment she struggled with — including once telling her husband, “I want to die” in response to hearing her baby’s cries during sleep training.
The 35-year-old former labor and delivery nurse detailed in the journal her postpartum depression, anxiety, insomnia and being wracked with guilt over how she was raising 8-month-old Callan.
She wrote in the diary that she had “horrible PTSD from sleep training Callan” and felt terrible that she had to stop breastfeeding him, according to excerpts of the journal read to a jury Monday at her murder trial.
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“Hearing [Callan] cry for one plus hours and not intervening just about killed me,” she wrote.
“I even said the words, ‘I want to die’ to Pat while [Callan] was crying,” Clancy wrote, referring to her then-husband, Patrick Clancy.
“After that, I became obsessed with his sleep and nap schedule, to the minute,” Clancy wrote.
She even worried the sleep training was “abusive” but later said it was the right decision.
Clancy felt “incredibly sad and guilty about not breastfeeding anymore,” but she noted the choice to stop nursing was for “my mental health.”
She also said she was “terrified of Callan getting sick” and added, “He’s a sick baby” who wasn’t “really hitting his milestones.”
Clancy made entries from Oct. 13, 2022 through Jan. 18, 2023 — five days before she strangled Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan with exercise bands in their Duxbury, Mass., home.
Clancy then slit her wrists and neck and threw herself from her upstairs bedroom window. She is now partially paralyzed and appears in court in a wheelchair.
The excerpts were read out during the testimony of Massachusetts State Trooper Cory Melo, who collected and reviewed the diary, along with other journals, from Clancy’s home.
“I’m completely overwhelmed taking care of the three kids. I feel like I’m drowning,” she wrote in the same journal.
“It’s like I’m so desperate to get a mental break from taking care of everyone that my mind is trying to make something physically wrong with me,” she wrote on Nov. 18, 2022.
She said she had “horrible insomnia and anxiety” and wanted to go back to work but didn’t “know how I’m going to function,” noting her “brain fog.”
“I feel disconnected with myself,” one passage read.
“My mind never shuts off,” she said.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I want to get help. I want to be well,” the journal read.
She also felt guilt over her relationship with Patrick and about spending more money than they were making.
Clancy’s trial will rise and fall on what the jury believes about her mental state at the time of the killings. Prosecutors claim she was in her right mind and carefully planned and executed out the murders because she was tired of taking care of the kids.
But Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, wants the jury to find her not guilty by reason of insanity, on the grounds she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis. He also claims Clancy heard a voice telling her to carry out the heinous acts.
Clancy and Patrick — who has since remarried — filed separate lawsuits against the doctors who treated her in the months before the slayings, claiming they misdiagnosed and overmedicated her.
The jury has heard testimony that Clancy saw five different doctors in the four months prior to the killings and had been prescribed 15 different psychiatric medications during that time, with six in her system at the time of the murders.
She also had two stints in the hospital for suicidal thoughts and had told Patrick and her mother she had thoughts about harming the kids, in the months before, according to testimony.
The jury was also shown entries of another journal Clancy kept, meticulously detailing the medications she took each day and her mood and side effects.
“Horrible intrusive thoughts,” she wrote in an entry from Dec. 9, 2022, after noting she took 5 mg of anti-anxiety medication Valium and 100 mg of antipsychotic medication Seroquel.
The jury has heard from several toxicologists that testified Clancy had two antidepressants, two anti-psychotics and two anti-anxiety medications in her system after the killings.
The trial is currently in its second week and jurors have heard from 45 witnesses so far, including gutting testimony from first responders who discovered the children’s lifeless bodies and the doctors who desperately tried to revive the kids.
Patrick also testified for two days and Clancy wept when the jury heard a recording of his 911 call, screaming in anguish, “She killed the kids!”
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
