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Trial begins for Massachusetts mom who says postpartum issues led her to kill 3 children

Trial begins for Massachusetts mom who says postpartum issues led her to kill 3 children


Trial begins for Massachusetts mom who says postpartum issues led her to kill 3 children

Jury selection began Monday in the trial of a Massachusetts mother who strangled her three children while undergoing medical treatment for psychiatric problems that developed after she gave birth.

The trial of Lindsay Clancy, which could take several weeks, is expected to explore the complicated and rare phenomenon of postpartum psychosis, which afflicts a very small percentage of women who develop delusions and sometimes hallucinations after childbirth.

Clancy's lawyers — and her husband — say she was not responsible for her actions. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington doesn’t dispute that she killed the children, but plans to raise an insanity defense.

“This whole case is an extreme tragedy,” he said.

Prosecutors say the killings were intentional and well planned, not the work of someone who had lost control.

Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of her children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, when they were killed on Jan. 24, 2023.