The judge presiding over the triple murder trial of Lindsay Clancy on Tuesday laid out the parameters for the jury’s upcoming view of the Duxbury home where she allegedly strangled her children in 2023.
In a brief order, Plymouth Superior Court Judge William F. Sullivan said that access to the home at 47 Summer St. will be limited to lawyers on both sides, court staff, and the 18-person jury, six of whom will be designated as alternates when deliberations start.
Sullivan also ordered that Duxbury and State Police will be responsible for securing the area before jurors arrive, and for keeping unauthorized “third parties” off the premises during the view.
He also said jurors will be allowed “to visually inspect the outside of the property as well as . . . the basement, all rooms on the first floor, and all rooms on the second floor of the premises.”
They won’t be permitted to “open closet doors, touch any items within the premises, or disturb items,” Sullivan wrote.
It’s not clear when the visit will occur.
Clancy, 35, a former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny that she strangled her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson 3, and 8-month-old Callan, with exercise bands in the basement before cutting herself and jumping from a second-story window in a failed attempt to end her life.
She has pleaded not guilty to three murder counts, and her lawyer, Kevin J. Reddington, is mounting what’s commonly known as an insanity defense, arguing his client was overmedicated as she struggled with postpartum psychosis and unable to conform her behavior to the law at the time of the slayings.
In his opening statement Monday, Reddington told jurors that Clancy reported hearing a voice at that time urging her to carry out the unthinkable act.
Prosecutors contend that Clancy planned the killings by sending her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, to get takeout at a Plymouth restaurant and to a CVS to pick up medication for one of the kids so she’d have enough time to commit the slayings.
Prosecutors maintain that even if Lindsay Clancy was suffering from mental illness, she still understood the wrongfulness of her actions, noting that she never reported hearing the voice before or after the killings.
Should jurors acquit her, she would not go free but would instead be sent to a state psychiatric facility where she would come up for periodic reviews to determine whether she can live safely in the community.
Patrick Clancy, who has since remarried, is scheduled to return to the witness stand on Wednesday to continue his direct examination from prosecutors, before Reddington launches his cross examination. The trial was not in session on Tuesday.
During often wrenching testimony Monday, Patrick Clancy, the government’s first witness, told jurors that Lindsay was suffering from postpartum depression and anxiety and confided in December 2022 that she was having “intrusive thoughts” about harming the children or of something bad happening to them.
But, he said, she sought help from numerous doctors, received in-patient psychiatric care, and “was having one of her best days” when she sent him to pick up takeout for dinner on Jan. 24, 2023. He said he had no inkling anything was wrong.
He took deep breaths to collect himself and, for a moment, raised his reddened eyes to the ceiling when asked to describe his children.
Cora loved princesses and had a lot of friends, he said. Dawson was into trucks and the kids show “Paw Patrol.” Callan was a happy, thriving baby.
He testified for more than two hours, walking the jury through the months leading up to the killings, and, with prompting from Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague, talked about his children.
During the first hour Patrick Clancy was on the stand, the prosecution sought to undermine the notion that Lindsay Clancy was overmedicated.
Patrick Clancy said his wife’s mental health seemed to decline in the time she was taking Zoloft and other medications.
“It wasn’t working — she was only getting worse,” he said.
But, the prosecutor pressed, she only took seven pills in total of Zoloft, which the defense has held up as an inappropriately prescribed drug for her diagnoses.
The case was similar for other drugs, Sprague said. “There were a lot of pills prescribed, but not a lot of pills taken, correct?” the prosecutor said. Patrick Clancy acknowledged that might have been the case.
Patrick Clancy said his wife talked about killing herself multiple times in late 2022. One night, she talked about harming the children, he said. But he said he did not think the children were in danger because she said she found the thought disturbing and did not have a plan to hurt them.
In early January 2023, she spent time in McLean Hospital, which specializes in mental health treatment, before asking to be released. When she got out, she seemed better, Patrick Clancy said. He said they felt “hopeful.”
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.