On the quiet Conn. street where Lindsay Clancy grew up, neighbors are heartbroken
WALLINGFORD — On the quiet street off Pond Hill Road that Lindsay Marie Musgrove Clancy grew up on, neighbors — some of whom have known her since she was a child — are heartbroken.
Three neighbors who spoke to Hearst Connecticut Media Group on Friday were all aware of what happened with Clancy, 32, the 2012 Quinnipiac University graduate and Duxbury, Mass., nurse who is suspected in the strangling deaths of her three children Tuesday night.
The third and youngest child, a 7-month baby boy, died Friday, New England Cable News and NBC10 in Boston reported.
The neighbors were all stunned by the news.
“It’s very unfortunate,” said Emily Ottens, 20, who lives across the street from Clancy’s parents, Paula and Mike
Musgrove, on Pogmore Drive. “Her parents are wonderful people. They’re very nice.”
The Musgroves did not answer several rings of their doorbell and knocks on their front door. A car was parked in their driveway.
Ottens, 20, said she is much younger than Clancy but recalled seeing Clancy and her family visiting on holidays and would occasionally see her out walking with her kids. She described the neighborhood as “very close.”
She said she was heartbroken, although at first, when she heard about what happened in Massachusetts on the news, “I never connected two and two — that it was our neighbor.”
Both Clancy and the 7month-old boy initially were treated in Boston hospitals. The boy was flown to Boston Children’s Hospital for treatment, but died Friday, authorities said.
Clancy jumped out of a window in an apparent suicide attempt after the killings Tuesday night, but survived the fall, police said.
She was hospitalized after being taken into custody. She is expected to face charges in connection with the deaths of her daughter, Cora Clancy, 5, and son, Dawson Clancy, 3, and the baby.
NBC10 reported that the 7-month-old died at 11:18 a.m. at Boston Children’s Hospital, according to the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office. He was identified as Callan Clancy.
According to Clancy’s Facebook page, she was a labor and delivery registered nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a former nursing assistant at South Shore Hospital in South Weymouth, Mass.
The Boston Globe reported that in July, Lindsay Clancy posted on Facebook about her past struggles with postpartum anxiety — although that post appeared not to be available Friday. Six weeks after the birth of her third child, Clancy posted that she was feeling “dialed in,” and that focusing on nutrition, mindset and exercise had “made all the difference,” the Globe reported.
Across the street from Ottens, her neighbor John Roarke held back Lola, his 14-year-old black Labrador retriever, as he answered the door to speak with a reporter.
“They’re good people,” said Roarke, who has lived next door to Clancy’s parents on Pogmore Drive for 26 years. He hasn’t seen much of Clancy in recent years but recalls seeing her and her children in the neighborhood on their occasional visits.
“They were all good kids,” he said, trying to understand what could have resulted in such a tragedy.
Roarke described the subdivision he lives in, which was completed in 1995, as a quiet neighborhood where for the most part he knows his neighbors. A neighbor a couple of doors down couldn’t believe any of it.
“I’m just so sick about it — I couldn’t sleep last night,” said the neighbor, a woman who did not want to be identified by name. “It’s too sad ... Sad as can be ...”
“We all live here. We all know each other,” the woman said, although she added that they are “not really that close.
“I can’t imagine the mom and dad” and what they must be going through, she said. “It just breaks my heart.”
The neighbor also said she had seen Clancy “walking her kids around here.”
The New York Post reported that Clancy carried out the attempted murder-suicide while her husband was out to pick up a takeout order, according to a friend.
The Post reported that
Clancy was on leave as a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital and attending “a very intensive fiveday-a-week program for (postpartum depression), trying to get help,” according to local radio host John DePetro.
Her husband, Patrick, “was working from home instead of going in to work to be able to try and support her daily,” the Post reported, attributing it to DePetro.
Clancy graduated from Quinnipiac University in Hamden in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in biology, according to a university spokesperson.
Clancy’s employer issued a statement about the allegations to the Associated Press.
“We are shocked and saddened to learn of this unthinkable tragedy,” the hospital said in the statement. “We extend our deepest sympathies to all those affected by these devastating events.”