Speaker 1: A trial that has captured America. The trial of Lindsay Clancy.
Speaker 2: The Massachusetts mother claims that postpartum psychosis led her to
Speaker 2: kill her three young children.
Speaker 3: She became very depressed and she was having a really
Speaker 3: hard time.
Speaker 4: The central question for jurors is if she was legally
Speaker 4: responsible at the time.
Speaker 3: This trial has gone global.
Speaker 5: I think you guys are judging the wrong person.
Speaker 6: She was aware that that was wrong or against the
Speaker 6: law and that she could be punished.
Speaker 2: She loved her children, all of them, very, very much.
Speaker 1: Is Lindsay Clancy criminally responsible for the deaths of her
Speaker 1: three young children? That's the question facing a jury in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts today. as the trial of the former nurse accused
Speaker 1: of strangling her children in January 2023 is underway. Lindsay
Speaker 1: Clancy doesn't dispute carrying out the killings of five-year-old Cora,
Speaker 1: three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan before she jumped out of
Speaker 1: a second window floor. Prosecutors say she acted deliberately, but
Speaker 1: she's pleaded not guilty to murder charges. Her defence team
Speaker 1: argues that she was suffering from a severe postpartum mental illness,
Speaker 1: including psychosis. and was unable to understand the consequences.
Speaker 7: Of her actions.
Speaker 1: Our reporter Anna Feige is following the trial.
Speaker 4: What happened on that January 2023 day was Lindsay Clancy's
Speaker 4: husband went to go run a few errands. He left
Speaker 4: her at home alone with the children, and that's when
Speaker 4: she killed the three of them and attempted to kill herself.
Speaker 4: The prosecution alleges that she made a calculated decision to
Speaker 4: intentionally kill her three children. They say she knew what
Speaker 4: she was doing. and they're arguing against the postpartum psychosis
Speaker 4: explanation that the defense has offered. What they need to
Speaker 4: prove is that she was criminally responsible and should be
Speaker 4: found guilty of those three first-degree murder charges that she faces.
Speaker 1: Lindsay Clancy is not expected to take the stand during
Speaker 1: the trial, but her defense team has argued that she
Speaker 1: was not criminally responsible for her actions. Here's Anna again
Speaker 1: with a closer look at the defense case.
Speaker 4: The argument defending Lindsay Clancy centers around her diagnosis of
Speaker 4: postpartum psychosis. Her lawyers are saying that she wasn't in
Speaker 4: her right mind when she killed her three children. Throughout
Speaker 4: the trial, we've heard from a number of family members
Speaker 4: of Lindsay Clancy's, including her mother and her mother-in-law. And
Speaker 4: they brought forward some of the most emotional testimony talking
Speaker 4: about how she was feeling at the time, how she
Speaker 4: wasn't really herself, how she was, as they say, begging
Speaker 4: for help.
Speaker 6: The beginning of December, it seemed like she very much decompensated.
Speaker 6: I do remember her saying at one point at the
Speaker 6: beginning of December, something along the lines of, I'm in
Speaker 6: a really tough spot. And knowing what she had shared
Speaker 6: with me previously about how her mental health had been struggling,
Speaker 6: I had this gut feeling that something was off and
Speaker 6: that she was really struggling, and I asked her if
Speaker 6: she was safe.
Speaker 2: What did she say?
Speaker 6: She said yes at that point.
Speaker 2: Lindsay was a very loving mother. She was dedicated to
Speaker 2: her children. She was a fun mother. She was always
Speaker 2: doing things for her kids. She always wanted to be
Speaker 2: a mother, have many children, and I felt it was
Speaker 2: the best thing that ever happened to her. And she
Speaker 2: would do anything for her children. She was just a
Speaker 2: loving mother.
Speaker 4: Very early on in the trial, we heard directly from
Speaker 4: Patrick Clancy, Lindsay Clancy's husband. They've since divorced, but he
Speaker 4: took to the stand, and he basically said that the
Speaker 4: person who killed his children was not who he knew
Speaker 4: his wife to be.
Speaker 3: She started to lose a lot of weight, and she
Speaker 3: became very depressed, and she was having a really hard time.
Speaker 7: And.
Speaker 4: Did she describe to you some thoughts or feelings that
Speaker 4: she was having at that time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, she started to say she was suicidal.
Speaker 1: Well, as we've just heard, a key element of the
Speaker 1: trial is the concept of postpartum psychosis. But what is
Speaker 1: it exactly? Here's Debra Becker, host at WBUR, the National
Speaker 1: Public Radio's affiliate in Boston, who's also been following the trial.
Speaker 8: It's one of the disorders that new mothers can experience
Speaker 8: in the months after giving birth. And it's described as
Speaker 8: having symptoms that can be misdiagnosed quite easily. Irritability, anxiety, insomnia,
Speaker 8: things that might happen to a sleep deprived person who
Speaker 8: is taking care of a new infant. And so I
Speaker 8: think it hasn't been getting the attention that it probably
Speaker 8: should be getting because it happens in about one to
Speaker 8: two of every 1,000 births. And what happens in that
Speaker 8: case is someone becomes detached from reality and can start
Speaker 8: being very delusional and having very extreme symptoms. And it
Speaker 8: can be a dangerous disorder. But what most experts say
Speaker 8: is it's temporary and it's treatable if it's diagnosed properly.
Speaker 8: And of course, the defense in Lindsay Clancy's case is
Speaker 8: arguing that this is what she experienced that led her
Speaker 8: to kill her children.
Speaker 1: Well, let's hear now from a woman who's spoken about
Speaker 1: her own struggle with postpartum psychosis. Hayley Ashcombe has been
Speaker 1: sharing her experience with Chanel Call of CBS News.
Speaker 5: Good job!
Speaker 9: Haley Ashcom dreamed of having a big family.
Speaker 7: I had always wanted to be a mom.
Speaker 9: But in 2020, after giving birth to her first son, Kane,
Speaker 9: that dream turned into a nightmare.
Speaker 7: It first presented kind of as insomnia, difficulty sleeping, a
Speaker 7: lot of anxieties, but they continued to escalate. What I
Speaker 7: believe were intrusive thoughts. ended up turning into voices.
Speaker 9: Ashcom says she was diagnosed with postpartum depression and prescribed Zoloft,
Speaker 9: the same anti-anxiety medication Lindsay Clancy was first prescribed. But
Speaker 9: those voices, Ashcom says, got louder and turned violent.
Speaker 7: I've never in my life gone through a period where
Speaker 7: I thought it would be better not to be alive.
Speaker 7: And all of a sudden, it became the only option.
Speaker 9: Ashcom says she went straight to a hospital. And like Clancy,
Speaker 9: was prescribed a second anti-anxiety med.
Speaker 3: Did those voices go away?
Speaker 7: Unfortunately, they just continued to get worse.
Speaker 9: Ultimately, she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital, where she
Speaker 9: says she was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. How much did
Speaker 9: you know about postpartum psychosis?
Speaker 6: Nothing.
Speaker 7: I was so taken aback and thought that I was
Speaker 7: such a monster.
Speaker 1: This feels like a watershed moment.
Speaker 7: Dr.
Speaker 9: Catherine Berndorf treats women with this illness. Is this being underdiagnosed?
Speaker 3: I fear that it is.
Speaker 9: She says postpartum psychosis isn't listed in the standard handbook
Speaker 9: used by American mental health experts, which means many doctors
Speaker 9: often don't know what to look for. Are women falling
Speaker 9: through the cracks here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they are.
Speaker 7: It's A very lethal and dangerous illness that when left
Speaker 7: untreated has tragic outcomes.
Speaker 9: Ashcom is thankful she got the treatment she needed in
Speaker 9: time and went on to have three more children without
Speaker 9: experiencing psychosis again. Chanel Call, CBS News.
Speaker 1: Well, back to the trial now because the court proceedings
Speaker 1: have been streamed by millions of people online and have
Speaker 1: sparked intense debate.
Speaker 5: I think you guys are judging the wrong person.
Speaker 1: Social media has been flooded with commentary, claims about perceived
Speaker 1: inconsistencies in the evidence and a range of conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: Our social media investigations correspondent, Marianna Spring, has been looking
Speaker 1: into them.
Speaker 5: This case has absolutely taken over social media feeds. And
Speaker 5: what started as often legitimate concerns and questions that people
Speaker 5: had about the trial, people expressing support for Lindsay Clancy
Speaker 5: or concerns around the way that women are treated when
Speaker 5: they've had kids and are possibly experiencing mental health difficulties,
Speaker 5: has now snowballed into a whole range of unfounded conspiracy
Speaker 5: theories and at times quite harmful misinformation. Loads of other
Speaker 5: people related to the case are being targeted. The ex-husband
Speaker 5: of Lindsay Clancy has found himself one of the main
Speaker 5: focuses of a lot of the speculation and then misinformation online. Again, apart,
Speaker 5: you know, different from valid concerns that people have. And
Speaker 5: a lot of the people getting involved in this are
Speaker 5: what we might call sleuths, TikTok sleuths, people who pour
Speaker 5: over the case. They're watching the clips from the court
Speaker 5: or live stream feeds every single day and trying to
Speaker 5: make sense of what's going on from their bedrooms and
Speaker 5: from their homes. And while there's some valid commentary, a
Speaker 5: lot of this can get quite toxic. I mean, we've
Speaker 5: even seen people basically recreating videos the murder scene with
Speaker 5: Bratz dolls, it's what we would often call as sleuthing
Speaker 5: gone a bit wrong.
Speaker 1: Well, at the heart of this trial is a single question.
Speaker 1: Was Lindsay Clancy legally responsible for what she did? Let's
Speaker 1: take a look at the possible outcomes of the trial
Speaker 1: and what the future might look like for the accused.
Speaker 1: Back to our reporter, Anna Fagey.
Speaker 4: When the jury reaches their conclusion, if they find that
Speaker 4: Clancy is guilty of those first-degree murder charges, she'll face
Speaker 4: a mandatory conviction life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 4: And that's mandatory in the state of Massachusetts. If she's
Speaker 4: found not guilty, she'll have to undergo a mental evaluation
Speaker 4: and then she'll likely be committed to hospital.
Speaker 1: That is all you need to know about the Lindsay
Speaker 1: Clancy trial.