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Jury selection got underway Monday in the case of a Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three young children while in the grip of a severe psychiatric crisis that emerged after childbirth — a case that has forced the legal system to grapple with a condition few Americans have ever heard of, let alone understood.

The Lindsay Clancy trial begins what could stretch into several weeks of testimony, with the proceedings expected to dive deep into postpartum psychosis, a rare and devastating condition that strikes only a small fraction of new mothers, sometimes triggering delusions and hallucinations in the weeks after giving birth.

Defense Doesn't Dispute The Act — Only The Intent

Clancy's legal team, backed publicly by her own husband, argues she should not be held criminally responsible for what happened. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington isn't contesting that she killed the children — instead, he plans to mount an insanity defense, arguing her mind, not her will, was behind the tragedy.

"This whole case is an extreme tragedy," Reddington said, a description that undersells almost nothing about what unfolded.

Prosecution Paints A Different Picture

Where the defense sees a woman lost inside her own mind, prosecutors see calculation. They allege the killings were deliberate and methodically planned — not the actions of someone who had lost touch with reality, but of someone who knew exactly what she was doing.

A Former Nurse Now Facing Murder Charges

Clancy, once a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges stemming from the deaths of her children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan — on Jan. 24, 2023.

According to court records, Clancy, now 36, sent her husband, Patrick, out of the house that day on errands: picking up takeout food and stopping at a pharmacy. In his absence, she strangled the three children using exercise bands, then attempted to take her own life through multiple methods. She survived a fall from the home's second-story window but was left paralyzed, and she remains held at a state hospital as the case proceeds.

Husband Straddles Both Sides Of The Case

In an unusual twist, Patrick Clancy appears on the witness list for both the prosecution and the defense — a rare position that reflects just how tangled the emotional and legal threads of this case have become. He has said publicly in interviews that he forgives his wife.

Selecting A Jury Near The Family's Hometown

Eighteen jurors, including six alternates, are expected to be seated over the course of several days in Plymouth, a courthouse not far from the family's home in Duxbury — an upscale coastal suburb roughly 30 miles south of Boston that once knew the Clancys simply as neighbors, not headlines.

Lawsuits Allege Medical System Failed Her

Beyond the criminal case, Clancy and her husband filed civil lawsuits earlier this year accusing her medical providers of failing to properly diagnose, treat, and monitor what they describe as a "severe postpartum psychiatric condition." Court records show she had spent several days in a psychiatric hospital just weeks before the killings — treatment that, according to the lawsuit, ultimately fell short.

A Mother Who Sought Help Again And Again

The civil lawsuit lays out, in granular detail, a woman who was struggling with depression, sleeplessness, and disturbing intrusive voices urging her to harm herself and her children.

"Lindsay Clancy did everything a mother in her situation could do," the lawsuit states. "She recognized something was wrong with her. She sought medical treatment. She went to emergency rooms. She called crisis hotlines. She admitted herself to hospitals. She took the medication prescribed to her. She communicated her worsening symptoms to her providers. She told them the medications were making her worse."

On the day of the killings, the lawsuit alleges Clancy heard a voice telling her, "This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself," warning her that her children would suffer if she were gone — a haunting detail drawn from medical records cited in her husband's filing.

A Husband's Plea For Compassion

Just days after the killings, Patrick Clancy turned to a GoFundMe post to process the unimaginable, writing that the "shock and pain is excruciating and relentless." Even so, he asked the public to remember the woman he knew before that day.

"The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring toward everyone — me, our kids, family, friends, and her patients," he wrote. "The very fibers of her soul are loving. All I wish for her now is that she can somehow find peace."

As the Lindsay Clancy trial begins in earnest, it stands to test not just one woman's culpability, but the broader question of how the justice system should weigh a mind unraveled by an illness medicine still struggles to fully explain.