TIMELINE OF THE DUXBURY TRAGEDY
The Clancy family of Duxbury was destroyed the evening of Jan. 24.
Patrick Clancy, the father of three young children, left that day to pick up some takeout food for he and his wife, Lindsay Clancy. He would come back less than an hour later to find she had attempted suicide. In the basement, a more grim discovery: all three of their children were unconscious and blue, with exercise resistance bands around their throats.
Cora, 5, and Dawson, 3, would be pronounced dead that night. Callan would turn 8 months old before he died three days later.
Their 32-year-old mother was formally charged in Plymouth District Court Tuesday afternoon with their murders.
She appeared via a video feed from her room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston where she is being treated for broken ribs and a broken back — leaving her paraplegic, her attorney Kevin Reddington said.
Here is the timeline of that family tragedy, as uncovered in the police statement of probable cause, Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague’s statement of the case and the arguments given by Sprague and Reddington at the arraignment:
September 2022
Lindsay said she “was beginning to get anxious” about returning to her work as a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital.
She began seeing psychiatrists and was prescribed medicines including the antidepressants Zoloft, Trazodone and Prozac; the anxiety-targeting benzodiazepine drugs Valium, Ativan and Klonopin; and Seroquel, an antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder. Patrick said she would take up to four pills
a day.
Oct. 25, 2022
Lindsay writes a note on her phone, “I think I sort of resent my other children because they prevent me from treating Cal like my first baby. And I know that’s not fair to them. … I know it (rubs) off on them so we had a pretty rough evening. I want to feel love and connection with all of my kids.”
Dec. 20, 2022
Lindsay is evaluated at the Women & Infants Hospital Center for Women’s Behavioral Health in Providence where she is told that she did not have postpartum depression.
Jan. 1—5
After telling Patrick that she had suicidal thoughts, Lindsay self-admitted herself to McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, on these dates.
Jan. 22
Patrick and Lindsay Clancy go to a family friend’s house for dinner. The friend, who hadn’t seen Lindsay in months, notes that he didn’t expect her to be there due to her depression, but that she “seemed fairly normal,” if quiet. This same weekend, members of Lindsay’s family came for a visit.
Jan. 24
Morning: Lindsay takes Cora to a pediatrician appointment. Sprague says, “there were apparently no issues with the defendant’s demeanor or behavior.”
Lindsay would later text Patrick and her mother photos of Cora and Dawson playing in the snow and building a snowman.
4:02 p.m.: Lindsay searched “kids Miralax,” which is a laxative, on her phone. She would call the area CVS and speak with the manager, who said they didn’t have the product in stock but had similar medications.
4:13 p.m.: Lindsay searches “take out 3v,” apparently a shortened form of ThreeV, a Plymouth restaurant, and then uses Apple Maps to see how long it would take to travel there from the Clancy home.
4:53 p.m.: Lindsay texted her husband, who was working in his basement office, “Any chance you want to do takeout from 3V … I didn’t cook anything … It’s been a long day.”
5:10 p.m.: Lindsay calls the restaurant to order a Mediterranean power bowl for herself and a scallop and pork risotto for Patrick.
5:15 p.m.: Lindsay texted “Pedialax liquid stool softener” to Patrick. Then she sends him to pick up the food and the medicine.
5:32 p.m.: Patrick enters the CVS at 189 Summer St. in Kingston, which is a little more than 2 miles away. He goes straight to the children’s medication aisle.
5:33 p.m.: Patrick calls Lindsay, who doesn’t pick up. She calls back a minute later to confirm the medication. Patrick would tell police that the call seemed normal but that she sounded like “she was in the middle of something.”
5:37 p.m.: Patrick Clancy leaves the CVS.
5:54 p.m.: Patrick enters ThreeV. He picks up and pays for the order a minute later.
6:09 p.m.: Patrick arrives at his now-silent home. He finds blood on the floor of their upstairs bedroom.
6:11 p.m.: Patrick calls 911 to report that Lindsay had attempted suicide. Over the phone Lindsay can be heard saying, “I tried to kill myself and jumped out the window.” Police find her outside on the ground at left side of the house. She appears to have cut her wrists and neck and had jumped out of the bedroom window.
Inside the home, police — including a daytime school resource officer who had picked up an overtime shift — follow the sound of Patrick’s “extremely loud screaming” to the basement and find the three children there.
7:28 p.m.: Both Cora and Dawson are pronounced dead at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Plymouth.
Jan. 25
Plymouth DA Timothy Cruz issues an arrest warrant for Lindsay. The warrant lists two charges of murder and three charges each of strangulation and assault and battery with a deadly weapon. By this time, Lindsay is a patient at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Jan. 27
11:18 a.m.: Callan is pronounced dead at Boston Children’s Hospital. This same day, at an unknown time, Clancy, while still partially intubated at Brigham and Women’s uses an erasable whiteboard to ask, “Do I need an attorney?”
Feb. 7
2 p.m.: Lindsay is arraigned in Plymouth District Court for the murder of her children. Judge John Canavan orders no bail while she remains under inpatient treatment.