Funeral mourns children allegedly killed by former state resident

A funeral was held Friday for Lindsay Clancy’s three children who police say were killed by the former Connecticut resident inside their Massachusetts home last month.

Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan were strangled in the apparent murder-suicide attempt on Jan. 24. Police said Lindsay Clancy survived a suicide attempt after jumping out of a window of the home.

The funeral on Friday was held at St. Mary of the Nativity in Scituate, Mass., a coastal town north of the family’s home in Duxbury and about 40 minutes south of Boston.

The eulogy was delivered by Rev. Bob Deehan, of Holy Family Church in Duxbury, according to WCVB, a Hearst TV station in Boston.

“It was a beautiful funeral Mass, but it’s very, very difficult,” he said.

The eulogy Deehan read was written by the children’s father, Patrick Clancy. Deehan said the eulogy showed “the beautiful relationship he had with each child and brought out their personality and the dynamic between himself and the child, and it was beautiful.”

“Beautiful and a privilege for me to read it for him, but not easy at the same time,” Deehan said.

Lindsay Clancy is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Plymouth District Court on murder charges from her Boston hospital bed.

Clancy, a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, grew up in Wallingford, and graduated from Lyman Hall High School and Quinnipiac University.

Her defense attorney, Kevin J. Reddington, said his client was “overmedicated” at the time of the children’s deaths, which he said occurred in a 20minute window when her husband was out picking up dinner and medication.

“In general, there’s no doubt that she was overmedicated with serious drugs,” Reddington said. He said the defense plans to argue his client was not criminally responsible for the children’s deaths because she was intoxicated at the time.

Medical experts have said Clancy was likely suffering from postpartum psychosis — an intense mental illness — when she allegedly strangled her three children to death before attempting suicide.

During an emergency hearing Friday in Plymouth District Court, a judge granted Reddington’s request to have a psychologist examine Clancy in the hospital.