Lindsay Clancy defense to rest Friday after final witness
Lindsay Clancy's defense attorney plans to rest their case on Friday after calling one final witness to testify about the effects of postpartum psychosis.
Prosecutors plan to call three additional witnesses as part of a brief rebuttal case, and closing arguments could happen as early as Monday.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington said Thursday that his final witness will be forensic psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, a professor of psychiatry who has researched postpartum psychosis and testified as a key witness in the trial of Andrea Yates, a Texas mother accused of drowning her five children in a bathtub in 2001.
Resnick also served as a consultant on the cases of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Oklahoma City bombing culprit Timothy McVeigh, "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski, and the high profile murder cases of Scott Peterson and Casey Anthony, according to his biography.
Clancy is facing three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of her 5-year-old daughter Cora, 3-year-old son Dawson, and infant son Callan at her family's home in the Boston suburb of Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023. She has pleaded not guilty.
Reddington has argued that Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she strangled her three children and attempted to take her own life.
Defense lawyers do not contest that Clancy was responsible for the deaths of her three children. Instead, they argue she should not be held criminally responsible for their deaths because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time.
Jurors are set to hear closing arguments and begin deliberating early next week, after both sides rest their cases.
On Thursday, jurors heard from a hospital chaplain who testified that she met with Clancy more than 200 times in the past three years since she killed her three children.
Sheila Cavanaugh, a board-certified chaplain at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, testified that Clancy had told her she heard a "persistent" male voice ordering her to kill her children and herself in the months before she strangled them and attempted to take her own life.
Cavanaugh's testimony came after jurors heard from defense witness Paul Zeizel earlier in the week, who also testified about Clancy's claim she heard a voice telling her to kill her children.
Prosecutors have attempted to cast doubt on Clancy's claim that she heard a male voice in her head telling her to kill her children and take her own life prior to the killings. According to Reddington, prosecutors have also suggested that Zeizel planted the idea Clancy heard a voice telling her to kill her children during their first meeting, two days before she made a similar comment to her husband over the phone.
Reddington has pushed back on that allegation, and an officer who stood guard outside Clancy's hospital room testified previously that there was no evidence Zeizel planted the idea.
As the case nears its end, thousands have come to Clancy's support online, and hundreds of supporters dressed in pink rallied outside the courthouse and the state hospital where Clancy is being held on Thursday.
A fundraiser for Clancy's parents had raised $996,000 as of Friday morning.
