PLYMOUTH — A week after Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children in the basement of their Duxbury home, she confided to a hospital chaplain that she believed she had saved them, according to testimony Thursday at her murder trial.
Sheila Cavanaugh, a chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told jurors that as she held Clancy’s hand on Jan. 31, 2023, to comfort her as she lay paralyzed in her hospital room, Clancy said, “I’m so glad that my children are safe.”
Cavanaugh said she responded “theologically,” telling Clancy, “Your children are safe. They are safe in heaven with God.” Then, Cavanaugh held Clancy’s hand as they prayed for her children.
Clancy confided that when she killed 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan on Jan. 24, 2023, she was hearing a male voice in her head that was “persistent” and “told her if she did not follow the command neither she nor her children would be safe,” Cavanaugh said.
The chaplain was the third witness to testify at Clancy’s trial in Plymouth Superior Court that she was told by Clancy, after the slayings, that a male voice in her head told her to kill the children.
Cavanaugh testified that Clancy alluded to the male voice several times during the 14 occasions she visited her at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Clancy’s former husband, Patrick, testified in July that she called him on his cellphone from her hospital bed after the slayings and said a voice in her head told her to do it. On Tuesday, a psychologist who was sent to the hospital by Clancy’s attorney to evaluate her competency, confirmed that he was listening on speaker when she used his cellphone to place that call to Patrick.
Clancy, 36, has admitted she strangled all three of her children with exercise bands on Jan. 24, 2023, after sending her husband out to pick up medication and takeout dinner. She then slashed her neck and wrists and jumped out a second-story window in a failed suicide attempt. She is paralyzed from the waist down and appears in court each day in a wheelchair.
Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, asserting that she should not be held criminally responsible because she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis and heard a male voice in her head telling her to kill herself and the children.
Prosecutors contend that the slayings were premeditated and committed with extreme atrocity and cruelty. They allege that Clancy wanted to kill herself because she was tired of her life, and decided to take the children with her because she didn’t trust anyone else to care for them as she did.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors have challenged Clancy’s claim that she heard a voice, focusing on evidence that she never told anyone she was hearing voices prior to the slayings, even though she sought help for postpartum depression and anxiety from numerous medical providers.
On Thursday, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague noted during cross-examination that Cavanaugh wrote detailed notes about her visits with Clancy, yet “you never once wrote that she told you she heard a voice or what that voice said.”
“Correct,” said Cavanaugh, adding that her notes were not verbatim transcripts of her visits. “I’m not there to evaluate the patient, I’m there to give witness to their suffering.”
Sprague noted that Cavanaugh had detailed other statements made by Clancy in February 2023, including fears of “how her inability to walk may make her vulnerable to others in the future” and that she felt “uplifted” and hopeful about her future.
Sprague asked Cavanaugh if Clancy told her that she “was working out with a yellow exercise band” during her rehabilitation regimen, a reference aimed at putting the focus on the young victims who were strangled with different colored exercise bands. One was yellow.
“I don’t recall,” Cavanaugh said.
During questioning from Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, Cavanaugh acknowledged that as a chaplain, she considers some of her conversations with patients confidential and would not include them in her notes.
Cavanaugh testified that she developed a bond with Clancy while she was at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and continued to visit her when she was moved to Spaulding Rehabilitation Center and Tewksbury Hospital, where she is currently held.
She said she visited Clancy on a weekly basis at Tewksbury Hospital, a total of about 200 times up until the beginning of her trial in July, because they “had built up a very comfortable, respectful rapport and I felt it was in her best interest to continue that as she healed.
She added that Clancy “talks frequently about her children. She loves them deeply. She carries immense grief.”
The trial drew a larger than usual crowd Thursday as more than 400 people dressed in pink gathered outside the courthouse well before the doors opened at 8:30 a.m. to show their support for Clancy with a “Stand in Peace for Lindsay” demonstration.
The line to get a seat in the courtroom was longer than it’s been since the start of trial and many of Clancy’s supporters made their way inside the packed courtroom.
The spectacle on a large swath of the courthouse lawn prompted the judge to briefly delay testimony in the case while he questioned jurors, who had to pass by the demonstration on their way to the parking lot. Judge William F. Sullivan called a sidebar, then summoned each of the 18 jurors up to the bench one-by-one. The two prosecutors and Clancy’s lawyer stood in a huddle as each juror was sworn in and questioned under oath by the judge about whether they had seen or heard anything that would impact their ability to remain impartial. All 18 said that they could fairly decide the case and remain on the jury. Six will be randomly selected to serve as alternates before the remaining 12 begin deliberations.
After 17 days of testimony, the trial is winding down. On Friday, the defense is planning to call one witness, a postpartum mental health expert, then rest its case. Prosecutors are expected to call several rebuttal witnesses. Closing arguments are expected early next week.
Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com. Follow her @shelleymurph. Camilo Fonseca can be reached at camilo.fonseca@globe.com. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.