Drugs left mom a ‘zombie’
Attorney targets treatment; arraignment Tuesday
The meds Duxbury mom Lindsay Clancy was taking were “absolutely staggering” giving her homicidal and suicidal “ideations” turning the labor nurse into a “zombie,” her defense lawyer told the Herald.
Kevin Reddington, no stranger to big cases, said he’s defending the South Shore 32-year-old who is accused of killing her three little kids — yet, he says, she was “an incredible mother” caught in a “living hell.”
Clancy, 32, will be arraigned on Tuesday at 2 p.m. in Plymouth District Court, Reddington said. She will appear via Zoom.
She is accused of strangling her children — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 7 months — sometime before 6:11 on the evening of Jan. 24, when her husband, Patrick, called police to report that she had attempted suicide.
But Reddington said the mom was prescribed an “unbelievable” amount of medication that a toxicologist has already examined for him.
“It’s absolutely staggering. She had homicidal and suicidal ideations” that she couldn’t control, Reddington said. “She was in a living hell and the husband did the best he could.”
When the dad went out for take-out food that nightmare evening, Lindsay reportedly killed the kids in that short time and then jumped out a second-floor window.
Reddington said the family went to doctors saying the medications she was on — in her already “fragile and emotional state” — “were turning her into a zombie.”
He said Lindsay is in a hospital, he did not divulge where. The Duxbury police chief has said she is “improving,” a statement later questioned.
The outpouring of support, Reddington added, has been amazing in such a tragic case that has shocked so many locally, nationally and worldwide bringing to the fore the crippling grip postpartum psychosis can have on new moms.
“She was a very sweet, loving mother,” Reddington said, adding he’s been to the couple’s Duxbury house where all the kids’ rooms were sweetly decorated as only a mother can. “There is no doubt she was an incredible mother … she was so loved with all the nurses she worked with at MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) who said she always talked about her kids.”
She was a labor and delivery nurse at the top Boston hospital.
Her future moving forward will be difficult to say the least, with Reddington saying authorities “will probably hold her without bail and she’ll be sent to Framingham.”
MCI-Framingham is the state’s drafty-and-brick women’s prison, but there are plans to build a new one in Norfolk. A moratorium has been backed by the state Legislature as various proposals are pitched to expand or start over on how to best incarcerate women in the Bay State.
Reddington said he’s still in the “beginning stages” of gathering all the evidence he can to defend Lindsay Clancy and he’s “investigating all avenues” for her defense.
Husband and dad Patrick Clancy penned a poignant letter to supporters last weekend where he asked for prayers and understanding for his wife’s struggles after giving birth.
“I want to ask all of you that you find it deep within yourselves to forgive Lindsay, as I have,” he wrote on a GoFundMe page that has soared past $1 million as of yesterday. It has been set up to help pay for the defense of his wife. More than 15,000 people have pledged to help, so far.
“The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring towards everyone — me, our kids, family, friends, and her patients,” Patrick Clancy added in his essay. “All I wish for her now is that she can somehow find peace.”
The three children were buried Friday around the time a 23-hour silent prayer service had started in Duxbury at the Holy Family Church. It ends today at 8 a.m.
A Plymouth county judge also granted Reddington permission for the mom to be examined by a forensic psychologist for evidence of postpartum symptoms.