PLYMOUTH, Mass. (Court TV) — Lindsay Clancy‘s mother testified about desperate texts her daughter sent her seeking help with her declining mental health as the defense began presenting its case to the jury on Monday.
Lindsay Clancy sits in court on Aug. 17, 2026. (Gregory Derr/The Patriot Ledger/POOL)
Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder in the deaths of her children. She has admitted to killing Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, with exercise bands in the basement of their family’s Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2022, but maintains that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time.
The prosecution rested its case against Clancy on Monday after presenting 14 days of evidence and testimony to the jury. In the final stretch, prosecutors homed in on digital evidence in the case; their last witness was Ian Whiffin, a forensic examiner who previously testified at Karen Read’s criminal trial.
Whiffin’s testimony focused on the minutes surrounding the kids’ deaths, when Clancy’s husband was picking up dinner from a restaurant and a medication from CVS. Clancy’s heart rate was 57 the last time her Apple Watch recorded it at 5:23 p.m.; the last movement recorded was a trip up the stairs, ending at 5:38 p.m. Clancy was found on the ground outside the family’s house after slicing her wrists and neck and throwing herself from a second-story window.
Clancy’s defense began its presentation of evidence with testimony from her family describing the decline of her mental health in 2022. Allison Ozga, Clancy’s sister, said that when she saw the defendant at Thanksgiving, “her mood did not look good.” By December, “it seemed like she very much decompensated.”
Paula Musgrove testifies at her daughter’s trial on Aug. 17, 2026. (Court TV)
Paula Musgrove, Clancy’s mother, said she noticed a change in her daughter in the second week of October 2022. By Oct. 20, Clancy sent her mother a message saying, “Mom, will you please come up and stay with me for a bit? I’m really sick. Something is wrong. I had horrible insomnia all night, and I just don’t know how I’m going to get through the day.” Musgrove went to stay with her daughter for a week. Both Musgrove and her husband were still working. Musgrove said that when she did come to the Clancy home, her daughter was “afraid to be alone and she actually asked if she could sleep with me.”
Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, has suggested that his client was overmedicated by the psychiatrists she turned to for help with her postpartum symptoms. Musgrove said that her daughter struggled with the medications as her mental health declined. “Lindsay had lost a lot of weight … She would mention that this isn’t her mind,” Musgrove testified. “She said that she couldn’t remember anything. The medication was pretty much destroying her mind and it wasn’t her. She said that, ‘This isn’t me. I just want to feel better and enjoy my kids again.'”
Those sentiments were echoed in a note found on Clancy’s iPhone that read, “Medication stole my motherhood and my life … prescription medication stole me from my own body.”
Musgrove said she watched her daughter continue to struggle and recounted an incident in December 2022 when she was in the kitchen with her daughter and son-in-law. “I remember her being very nervous. I remember her saying, ‘I just have to tell you guys something,'” Musgrove said. “She told us that she had thoughts of harming the children.”
