Massachusetts Clancy killings: Mothers’ murders ‘unlike any other type of homicide,’ Andrea Yates’ lawyer says
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One week since Lindsay Clancy allegedly strangled her three young children before jumping from a window of her family’s Massachusetts home, the former labor and delivery nurse remained hospitalized as of late Monday.
The 32-year-old Duxbury woman is recovering from an alleged attempt to take her own life as she faces at least eight criminal counts – two for murder, three for assault and battery with a deadly weapon, and three more for strangulation – as questions about the Jan. 24 incident linger.
“Our marriage was wonderful and diametrically grew stronger as her condition rapidly worsened.”
On Saturday, Patrick Clancy issued a statement via a GoFundMe page created to support him. He not only wrote about how his family “was the best thing that ever happened” to him, but he also shared kind words about each of his children.
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“I took so much pride in being Lindsay’s husband and a dad to Cora, Dawson, and Callan. I always reminded myself that each day with them was a new gift,” he wrote. “They gave me purpose and I never took it for granted. There is now a massive void where that purpose once was.”
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Clancy further described how his marriage with Lindsay was “wonderful and diametrically grew stronger as her condition rapidly worsened.”
“I took as much pride in being her husband as I did in being a father and felt persistently lucky to have her in my life,” he said. “We mutually understood the reality that people can have bad days, but we stuck to the rule that when one of us got lost, the other was always there to bring them home, always. She loved being a nurse, but nothing matched her intense love for our kids and dedication to being a mother. It was all she ever wanted.”
He asked the public to forgive Lindsay as he had, he wrote.
“The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring towards 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.”
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Lindsay Clancy appeared to have a picture-perfect life on social media, where she frequently shared photographs of her smiling family – Patrick, her husband, and their three children, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 7-month-old Callan.
“So unbelievably thankful for this family and life,” she captioned a photo illustration shared in November 2020. “I feel like the luckiest mama in the whole wide world,” she wrote just days before Christmas in 2019.
But in other posts, not publicly available on Clancy’s Facebook page as of Monday, she described her battle with postpartum anxiety and her efforts to overcome the mental struggle, the Boston Globe reported.
Patrick Clancy called police around 6:10 p.m. on Jan. 24, after his wife jumped from the window of the family’s Summer Street home in Duxbury, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said.
Rescuers arrived to find the three children inside the home “unconscious with obvious signs of trauma,” officials have said. Dawson and Cora were pronounced dead. Callan, the youngest of the three kids, was rushed to a local hospital but ultimately could not be saved.
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A spokesperson for the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office said Monday the charges against Clancy remained the same, though it was not immediately clear if she would soon be facing an additional count for murder. An arraignment date had not been scheduled as of Monday, the spokesperson said.
Officials would not comment last week when asked about a motive for the murders, and documents related to Clancy’s criminal charges are under seal.
NOAH, JOHN, PAUL, LUKE & MARY
Already the case, though only in its infancy, bears a resemblance to Andrea Yates’ slayings from decades earlier.
Yates confessed to killing her five kids in 2001, when investigators said she drowned them in a bathtub inside their Houston home. A jury in 2006 found her not guilty by reason of insanity.
“Twenty-years plus, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of Andrea.”
Yates’ lead attorney, George Parnham, told Fox News Digital on Monday that mothers who are experiencing psychotic episodes, much like in his client’s case, can make decisions at that moment for any range of reasons.
“I put nothing past the minds of mothers who engage in this type of activity,” he said by phone.
He called such instances of homicide “totally unlike any other type of homicide.”
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“It’s not a barroom brawl gone bad or a drug deal gone bad. This is the very essence of our own existence. And when I see situations of this fashion,” he said, “it’s an overwhelming experience for a mother to do that.”
Clancy has not yet had the opportunity to appear before a judge and has not yet entered a plea related to the charges. It was not immediately clear if she had retained an attorney.
Parnham said he is not involved in the Clancy case.
Yates said she had drowned each of her five kids, including her 6-month-old daughter, one by one, on June 20, 2001. The children – Mary, 6 months old; Luke, 2; Paul, 3; John, 5; and Noah, 7 – did not survive.
She then called 911 and allegedly told an officer: “I just killed my kids.”
The officer recalled entering the home to find two pairs of wet footprints, which he said he believed meant that one of the kids had gotten away from the tub before Yates was able to catch them, according to reports.
A different officer reportedly described how after the killings “she seemed normal to me.”
Yates’ legal team argued that the mom was experiencing severe post-partum depression. Much like in the case of Lindsay Clancy, Yates’ ex-husband, Rusty, forgave her. He reportedly described her as a “loving mother who just fell to this disease.”
Speaking to Fox News Digital on Monday, Parnham said the Yates case “laid a blueprint on motherhood and mental health of women.”
But he noted that evidence related to such mental health struggles has a varying impact on a case, depending on the state where the case is being handled.
“It’s so subjective, not only on the part of the person charged but also on the part of the judge and the prosecutors,” he said. “If you can get a prosecutor who’s aware of the reality of this type of situation, it may well impact how that prosecution moves forward on the case. And that’s going to be up to the defense lawyers to be able to weigh up on those issues.”
Parnham said he still speaks to Yates “every couple of weeks” and visits her “once every couple of months” at the Kerrville mental facility where she is housed. She is eligible for review for possible release from the facility every year, but Parnham said Yates waives the opportunity every time.
“Twenty-years plus, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of Andrea,” he said.
Parnham regularly visits the children’s gravesite in Forest Part East Cemetery in Webster, Texas, and leaves flowers for them when he does. He said he makes a point of stopping by the cemetery’s offices when their gravesite isn’t properly cared for.
“The kids’ legacy is so important,” he said. “It’s one of those matters that can never go away.”
Fox News Digital’s Chris Eberhart contributed to this report.
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