Lindsay Clancy may testify in Patrick Clancy’s wrongful death lawsuit, attorney says
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Jamy Pombo Sesselman, WCVB
BOSTON (WCVB) — Attorneys for Patrick Clancy, the husband of Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury, Massachusetts, mother accused of killing her three children, appeared in court for a hearing Wednesday to decide if his wrongful death lawsuit can proceed.
Patrick Clancy is suing his wife’s medical providers, claiming they overmedicated her while she was suffering from postpartum depression.
His attorneys said Lindsay Clancy could take the stand to say she told the health providers she had homicidal ideation.
“We believe that Lindsay Clancy, once her Fifth Amendment issues are resolved one way or the other, will testify that she told these defendants explicitly that she had homicidal ideation,” attorney Howard Cooper said.
However, Lindsay Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington said his client “never indicated that she intended to testify in Mr. Clancy’s lawsuit. Mr. Clancy’s counsel does not speak for Lindsay Clancy.”
On Wednesday, the healthcare professionals being sued asked the judge to dismiss the case.
Lawyers for those professionals said Lindsay never communicated an explicit threat to kill or injure her children, so it’s unfair to hold those doctors accountable.
No immediate decision on the motion was made on Wednesday. Patrick Clancy did not appear in court.
Lindsay Clancy was indicted on three counts each of murder and strangulation in the 2023 deaths of her 5-year-old daughter Cora, 3-year-old son Dawson and 7-month-old son Callan.
Clancy, 36, admitted to killing her three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — at their Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023. Her defense argued she was not criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings.
A mistrial was declared Sept. 4 after jurors told the judge they were hopelessly deadlocked, with an 11-1 split in favor of acquittal after seven days of deliberations. Patrick Clancy was the first witness to testify in her trial.
Patrick Clancy’s lawsuit against Dr. Jennifer A. Tufts, nurse Rebecca H. Jollotta, Aster Mental Health Inc. and South Shore Health System, Inc. alleges their negligent treatment of Lindsay Clancy “resulted in tragedy, namely, allegations that Lindsay took the lives of her children.”
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants failed to properly monitor and treat Lindsay Clancy’s mental health condition and said they failed to coordinate care between multiple treating clinicians, regularly meeting with Lindsay Clancy over video conference rather than in person and having some appointments that were only 17 minutes long.
Plymouth County prosecutors filed a 30-page motion Wednesday asking a judge to throw out Lindsay Clancy attorney’s request to dismiss the charges. Attorney Kevin Reddington argued a retrial would amount to double jeopardy, due to a lone holdout juror.
In a separate lawsuit, Lindsay Clancy’s attorneys have continued to pursue a civil case against her doctors and the hospitals that treated her.
Her lawsuit, which was filed in January, alleges a “catastrophic failure” of multiple medical providers in diagnosing and treating her psychiatric condition.
Two of the defendants named in Clancy’s lawsuit, Dr. Jennifer Tufts and Nurse Practitioner Rebecca Jollotta, both testified during the criminal trial.
According to Lindsay Clancy’s lawsuit, the medical professionals failed to diagnose her properly with bipolar disorder and instead prescribed treatments that “exacerbated her condition and precipitated a severe psychotic break.”
The lawsuit alleges that the medications contributed to a state of psychosis in which Lindsay Clancy hallucinated that she was hearing commands from a man’s voice and could only observe her body’s actions.