New updates: Defense attorney retains psychological experts to evaluate Lindsay’s mental health, and reveals the GoFundMe isn’t funding her legal fees
A 32-year-old mother’s future appears grim and dire after her defense attorney revealed she is permanently paralyzed from the waist down in the aftermath of allegedly murdering her three children, then attempting suicide, the Boston Globe reports.
Lindsay Clancy remains in hospital following Jan. 24, 2023, when within the 25 minutes her husband had left the house, she allegedly strangled their three kids before slitting her throat and jumping from the top story of the home, CBS previously reported.
Patrick Clancy had gone to pick up prescriptions for the kids, then grab takeout food to bring home for his family. He returned to a silent house, then found his wife in the backyard, CBS reported.
The five-year-old girl, Cora, and three-year-old boy, Dawson, died the same day after being taken to hospital, CBS adds. Seven-month-old son Callen clung to life until the morning of Jan. 27, when he succumbed to the traumatic injuries.
Since January, Lindsay has been in three different hospitals, according to NBC. From her hospital bed at Brigham and Women's Hospital in February, she pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder, three counts of strangulation or suffocation, and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
On March 23, NBC says, she was transferred to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, then recently moved to Tewksbury Hospital. CT Insider previously reported that her trauma surgeon called her chances of recovering from her injuries “grim.”
Now, her defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, confirms that Lindsay is paralyzed from the waist down, permanently, as a result of her suicide attempt, the Globe reports.
“She will be forever,” he told the Globe upon citing discussions with her doctors and his client’s medical records.
Lindsay remains in the care of the state Department of Mental Health after clinicians decided she is in need of long-term psychiatric and medical care, Reddington told the Globe.
Reddington also revealed to the Globe that the defense team has retained Phillip Resnick, a psychiatry professor at Case Western Reserve University, considered to be a national expert on women who murder their children. Resnick has conducted several studies dating back to 1969 on this form of homicide, called filicide.
Psychologist Paul Zeizel has also been retained to give his expert opinion on Lindsay’s mental health, the Globe reports. Reddington said he is trying to establish a defense of diminished capability for Lindsay.
Reddington requested for the experts, for which District Court Judge John A. Canavan III authorized the attorney to spend up to $17,500 to cover Resnick and Zeizel’s fees, the Globe says.
Despite the GoFundMe posted shortly after the deaths of the children, Reddington says that Lindsay’s parents have been financing their daughter’s lawyer fees, the Globe says. Reddington added that Lindsay may have to dip into public funds to assist, as her parents are of modest means.
“They’re pretty much depleting everything they have to try and help her out,” Reddington told the Globe.
While he declined to comment about Patrick, Reddington remarked that “every nickel that’s been spent on her defense has come from her parents.”
The GoFundMe currently sits with over $1 million in donations. Patrick’s only public statement came in the form of an update on the page, when he asked people to forgive Lindsay for her actions.
“I want to ask all of you that you find it deep within yourselves to forgive Lindsay, as I have. The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring towards everyone - me, our kids, family, friends, and her patients. The very fibers of her soul are loving. All I wish for her now is that she can somehow find peace,” Patrick wrote on Jan. 28.
Reddington confirmed to the Globe that the GoFundMe is “Patrick’s money. Her parents are paying for her defense.”
From the start, Lindsay’s defense has asserted that she suffered from postpartum depression or psychosis when she allegedly murdered her children, Fox News reports. Patrick apparently told friends in the weeks leading up to the incident that he was concerned about the amount of medications his wife was prescribed for her mental health problems.
Reddington says Lindsay “was a beautiful person who was thoroughly destroyed by these medications,” according to People. He added that her postpartum psychosis has been “pretty much ignored.” CBS previously reported that Lindsay was taking up to 12 different medications to treat her mental issues.
“This family was on the road to hell and unfortunately is not coming back,” Reddington said at the Feb. 3 hearing.
MEAWW reported that Reddington claimed the medications were turning his client “into a zombie.”
Prosecutors accuse her of intentionally sending Patrick on the errand knowing what she was going to do, saying she acted with “deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty,” People Magazine says.
“The defendant did not take advantage of the situation when her husband left the home that night. She created the situation, and she used Apple Maps to make sure she would have enough time to strangle each child before her husband returned from where she had sent him,” the prosecution said at the February arraignment hearing.
Lindsay’s next case status hearing has been rescheduled to July 25, and a change of venue request has been approved for her May 10 commitment hearing, WCVB reports.
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