Lindsay Clancy will testify during civil trial about thoughts of killing kids, ex-husband's lawyer says
Lindsay Clancy did not testify during her first murder trial, but that may not be the case during civil proceedings involving the deaths of her three children.
Patrick Clancy, her ex-husband, was the plaintiff in a civil case that had its first hearing in Norfolk County Superior Court in Dedham on Wednesday.
Both Patrick and Lindsay Clancy filed separate lawsuits earlier this year against Lindsay's former mental health providers, claiming they didn't take her cries for help seriously and therefore contributed to the deaths of her three children - Cora, Dawson, and Callan.
The lawsuits say Clancy strangled the three children in the basement of the family's Duxbury home during a mental health crisis exacerbated by poor medical treatment and prescription mismanagement.
Lawyers for the healthcare providers and hospitals asked a judge to dismiss the case, claiming their clients are immune under Massachusetts law. They say Lindsay Clancy never told her providers she had homicidal thoughts.
"Nowhere in that 86-paragraph complaint did the plaintiff ever allege that Mrs. Clancy ever communicated to these defendants that she had thoughts or an intention, much less an explicit threat to harm or to kill the children in any way," lawyer Tim Sweetland told the court.
But Patrick Clancy's lawyer Howard Cooper said he expects that Lindsay Clancy will testify otherwise in the civil case.
"We believe that Lindsay Clancy, once her Fifth Amendment issues are resolved one way or the other, will testify that she told these defendants explicitly that she had homicidal ideation, that she was worried about something awful happening to her kids," he told the court.
The judge took the matter under advisement, meaning he'll make a decision at a later date.
When asked how Patrick Clancy is doing, Cooper told reporters, "It's been incredibly hard for him. There have been voices at the fringe of the internet – or maybe even not that far from the fringe – who have made outrageous, false, and defamatory comments about Patrick, a father who lost his three children, lost his life, is doing everything he can to put it back together again."
When asked if he plans to pursue defamation claims on behalf of Patrick, Cooper would not comment.
Lindsay Clancy may still face a second criminal trial after her first trial ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury.
