Jurors Walked Through the Duxbury House Where Three Children Died, Then Heard From the Doctors Who Tried to Save Them

Jurors in the first-degree murder trial of Lindsay Clancy were taken to the Duxbury, Massachusetts, house where her three children died, then returned to Plymouth Superior Court to hear from the emergency physicians who received them.

Clancy is charged in the January 24, 2023, deaths of her three children: Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months. The case has drawn national attention because of what her defense is arguing — that she was in the grip of severe postpartum psychosis, a rare and acute psychiatric emergency distinct from postpartum depression, in which a new mother loses contact with reality. Prosecutors contend the killings were calculated rather than psychotic.

Day four, on July 31, opened with the jury view of the home and moved to medical testimony. Dr. Mark Tenerowicz, an emergency room physician at Beth Israel Plymouth, described the condition of the children when they arrived. Of Dawson, he told the court, "It did not look like his heart would ever start again." Dr. Benjamin Kaufman, who also worked at Beth Israel Plymouth that night, testified as well. Callan, the infant, was flown to Boston Children's Hospital.

The prosecution has spent the early days of the trial reconstructing the timeline of that evening in granular detail — where Patrick Clancy, Lindsay's ex-husband, was and for how long. He testified for two days about an errand run that took him to ThreeV Restaurant in Plymouth to pick up food and to a CVS in Kingston to buy medicine for Cora. The window matters: the state's theory depends on establishing what happened while he was out of the house.

Clancy was initially treated at South Shore Hospital, where Duxbury Police Sergeant Marcanthony Maffeo observed her, and was later transferred to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Officer Richard Lippard watched over her at the hospital and accompanied her on the helicopter transfer. Both officers are part of the state's chain of witnesses documenting her condition and statements in the hours immediately after.

Judge William Sullivan is presiding. Kevin Reddington is leading the defense, which is not disputing the deaths but is contesting criminal responsibility — a distinction that will eventually put the case in the hands of competing psychiatric experts. WBZ legal analyst Jennifer Roman has noted that the jury view and the medical testimony serve the prosecution's aim of grounding the case in physical sequence before the psychiatric fight begins.

The trial is expected to run for several more weeks.