Forgiveness: ‘My wife killed our three beautiful children, I want people to forgive her like I have’

Patrick Clancy’s three children were aged just five, three and eight months old when they were killed by their mother, Lindsay. He had popped out to grab medicine and a takeaway when he returned to unimaginable horror.....Read Full Article>>

Lindsay lay semi-conscious in the back yard having cut her neck and wrists and thrown herself 20ft from their bedroom window. Little Cora, Dawson and Callan had been left strangled with exercise bands in the basement of their home in Duxbury in January 2023.

In a heartrenching interview with The New Yorker, Patrick explains how he publically forgave his wife four days after the tragedy stating: “I wasn’t married to a monster, I was married to someone who got sick.”

Lindsay, 32 was a labour and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital but had sought advice online after struggling with postpartum anxiety and depression in the lead up to the incident.

When state prosecutors announced they were pursuing murder charges against her, a group of fellow nurses rallied to Lindsay’s defence and set up LAOL – Lindsay’s Army of Love.

Almost 100 women even wrote to the judge vowing to stand by her “in her darkest hour.”

Patrick himself even appealed to the public on a GoFundMe page set up to cover medical bills and funeral expenses. He wrote: “The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring.

“All I wish for her now is that she can somehow find peace.”

Within days, the fundraiser raked in over one million dollars.
Lindsey’s colleagues said she was ‘born to be a mother’ View pictures in App save up to 80% data.
Lindsey’s colleagues said she was ‘born to be a mother’

In February, 2023, Lindsay’s arraignment was broadcast live from court with Lindsay attending virtually from a hospital bed in Boston after being left paralysed from the waist down.

The prosecution argued her lucidy on that fateful day – having taken her daughter to an appointment and sent her husband out to get dinner, looking up on Apple Maps how long it would take him.

But the defense argued she’d been suffering from severe postpartum depression and “possibly” postpartum psychosis – a rare disorder that affects one in 2,000 new mothers with some cases leading to infanticide.

However, she was never diagnosed with either condition.
Cora, Dawson and Callan were strangled View pictures in App save up to 80% data.
Cora, Dawson and Callan were strangled

Lindsay’s colleagues stressed how they knew her as “a ray of sunshine” and a “positive light,” and said she often joked about wanting enough children to fill a “baseball team.”

She was “born to be a mother,” one pal had said.

But after having her third baby, she worried how she would balance family life when she returned to work.

With Patrick’s support, she postponed her return date and had planned to go take an antidepressant safe for breast feeding mothers after being diagnosed with a generalised anxiety disorder.

But it caused insomnia and she was prescribed additional drugs to help her sleep. She was concerned about the drugs being addictive but admitted in a Facebook group called I Am Not Alone: Postpartum Depression/Anxiety & Rage that: “It makes me feel like myself again.”
Patrick says he forgives his wife View pictures in App save up to 80% data.
Patrick says he forgives his wife

As her ordeal continued, she was eventually prescribed more than a dozen drugs over four months in what her defence team called a “horrific overmedication,” with side effects such as suicidal ideation.

She told her husband: “I have thoughts of wanting to die and I feel numb to them.”

According to police records, Patrick said she’d also confessed to having unwanted thoughts about harming the children.

She was admitted to McLean psychiatric hospital but was discharged after five days with more medicaiton. Patrick said none of her mental health providers warned him about the condition of postpartum psychosis.

Weeks later, she had seemed to be doing better and Patrick left her while he picked up some medicine for their daughter’s stomach ache and grabbed a takeaway.
Lindsay appeared in court via video link from hospital View pictures in App save up to 80% data.
Lindsay appeared in court via video link from hospital

He said the day “seemed like a really good one.” He’d even called her to double check what medicine to get, noting she sounded like herself but seemed to be in the middle of something.

But when he returned, he opened the door to his worst nightmare. “If I could go back in time, I’d have called McLean and said, ‘Take her away, lock the door. Keep her in there for a year if you have to,” he told The New Yorker.

Lindsay later told him that she’d heard a voice commanding her to kill the children, and then herself, because it was her “last chance.”

Lindsay remains at a psychiatric hospital awaiting a third degree murder trial.

Jamie Belsito, the founder of the Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance, who had her own battle with postpartum depression, says the tragedy shows that there are still gaps in health care for new mums.

She says screening for mental health issues and education are vital.

Patrick added: “She misses her kids, which I know sounds crazy to some people. But that’s the reality.”