Defense lawyer takes aim at psychiatrist’s care before Lindsay Clancy killed her 3 kids

Lindsay Clancy ’s lawyer probed her psychiatrist’s expertise, prescribing decisions and overall treatment as the defense sought Monday to suggest that the mental healthcare system overlooked and even accelerated the Massachusetts mother’s decline in the months before she killed her three young children. Jennifer Tufts, defense lawyer Kevin Reddington spotlighted her use of 25-minute video appointments with limited time for talk therapy, the computerized forms that documented her observations, and the series of pharmaceuticals she recommended as Clancy reported various side effects, symptoms and concerns about taking medications. Reddington portrayed Clancy’s care not as common practice in U.S.

mental healthcare, but rather as inadequate and indifferent treatment, at one point implying that the doctor was a box-checking “robot.” “What did you do? You had a woman who was telling you she felt hopeless,” he asked as they discussed an appointment about two months before the killings. “I told her that this was something we could address, that there was hope, that there are treatments, that there are different types of programs,” Tufts said, “so she knew that she still had options and a reason to hope.” “Did you ever suggest to her that ‘maybe you should come in and see me, rather than on the computer?’” Reddington asked.

“Talking to her over the video didn’t seem like an issue. It didn’t seem like there was something I was missing,” Tufts replied. ___ EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide.

If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. ___ Clancy, 35, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged from 8 months to 5 years old.

They were found in the basement of the family’s home in coastal Duxbury, Massachusetts, and their mother was found lying in the yard. She had jumped out a second-story window and remains paralyzed from the waist down. Prosecutors argue that the former labor and delivery nurse was an intentional killer who connived to get her husband out of the house by sending him out on errands, then strangled the children with exercise bands on Jan.

In an opening statement last month, prosecutor Shannan Buckingham urged jurors not to view the trial as “a public debate abo… It didn’t seem like there was something I was missing,” Tufts replied.___EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. is available by calling or texting 988.___Clancy, 35, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged from 8 months to 5 years old.