Lindsay Clancy’s defense rests at trial over whether postpartum psychosis drove her to kill her kids

PLYMOUTH — Lindsay Clancy rested her case Friday morning after jurors heard from an expert well-versed in high-profile criminal trials, who testified his evaluation showed Clancy was “clearly psychotic” when she killed her three children in January 2023. BOSTON (AP) — The defense rested its case Friday in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial after eliciting several days of testimony about her mental state before and after she strangled her three young children.Prosecutors then began calling rebuttal witnesses in the trial, which is likely entering its final days. Closing arguments are expected next week.Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of her children 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. Clancy jumped from a second-story window after strangling the children and remains paralyzed from the waist down.Prosecutors argue that Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, planned the killings.___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’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, hasn’t disputed that she killed the children but says she should not be held criminally responsible because she had postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.He sought to bolster that defense by having the jury hear from more of Clancy’s family members, who detailed her worsening mental health and attempts to fix it through psychiatric treatment and medications before the January 2023 killings. The jury also heard from a psychologist and hospital chaplain who met with Clancy after the killings.For his final witness on Friday, Reddington called Dr. Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist and expert in filicide, or the killing of a child by a parent.Resnick testified that Clancy was “clearly psychotic” on the day she killed her children and was not in control of her actions.“It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings,” said Resnick, who testified for the defense in the 2006 trial of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children in 2001.Resnick said he spent hours interviewing Clancy four months after the killings and believed she tended to minimize rather than exaggerate her symptoms.

He said she suffered from severe depression, showed evidence consistent with bipolar disorder and reported hearing a voice commanding her …