The story

Opening statements began Monday in Plymouth Superior Court for Lindsay Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital charged with three counts of first degree murder. Clancy, 35, has pleaded not guilty but admits to strangling her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, with exercise bands at their Duxbury, Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023. She then tried to kill herself, jumping from a second story window in an attempt that left her paralyzed. Eighteen jurors, 12 women and six men, will hear the case, which is expected to take several weeks.

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington told jurors Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was overmedicated for postpartum mental health issues when she killed her children. He said she repeatedly sought treatment from multiple healthcare providers who prescribed her multiple psychiatric medications that did not help. "These children were loved, nurtured and cared for," he said. "She loved those children right up to the time of their death." Patrick Clancy, her ex-husband who divorced her after the murders but has defended her, testified Monday that she had anxiety about returning to work after each birth. He is expected to be the first of 200 witnesses.

Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham argued Clancy "acted intentionally, rationally and swiftly" and sent her husband out to pick up a food order after mapping on her phone the time it would take for him to return home. "This was not a woman in the throes of psychosis," Buckingham said. "This is not a public debate about women's mental health and how the medical system treats women. This case is about this defendant, Lindsay Clancy." Patrick Clancy this year filed a lawsuit against the psychiatrist who treated his wife, arguing that clinicians failed to monitor her reactions to medications or attend to her worsening psychiatric condition.