Lindsay Clancy returns to Tewksbury Hospital after mistrial, a facility with a history of violent incidents
After a mistrial was declared in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial, she returned to Tewksbury Hospital, the psychiatric facility where she has been held for the last three years. Clancy is likely to face a retrial for killing her three children, though prosecutors said Friday they will officially decide at a later date.
Tewksbury Hospital, run by the Department of Public Health, is where some of the most dangerous and mentally ill patients in the state are treated. Lindsay Clancy has been at Tewksbury Hospital since February 2023, about a month after she killed her three children in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
What to know about Tewksbury Hospital
Tewksbury Hospital is more than 60 miles from Plymouth Superior Court, and Clancy has been driven back and forth for each day of the trial.
The 370-bed hospital "provides comprehensive treatment, care, and comfort to adults with medical and/or mental illness," according to its website.
"Tewksbury Hospital offers a broad range of services including a physician on site at all times, around-the-clock nursing care, rehabilitation services including physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, psychology services, social services, nutritional services, and an on-site dialysis clinic," the website says.
During the trial, prosecution psychiatrist Dr. Avram Mack testified that Clancy appeared to have negative feelings about being at Tewksbury Hospital when he interviewed her there in April of this year.
"She said she wasn't very interested in the physical therapy that she was getting there. She wasn't interested in the food there," Mack said. "She described having visitors at a not-infrequent basis and that sometimes she was able to eat food or drinks that were brought in by them."
Tewksbury Hospital violent incidents
WBZ-TV's I-Team has reported on security concerns at Tewksbury Hospital since 2021, when a patient nearly strangled a nurse to death. The hospital has its own campus police, though Tewksbury police also have responded to thousands of calls there over the years. A stabbing on the grounds of the hospital in 2024 led to a manhunt in the neighborhood.
There was a string of violent attacks at Tewksbury Hospital in 2026. A pregnant staff member was attacked by a patient with a chair in April, police said. In the same month, another mental health worker was "violently assaulted in an unprovoked attack inside the hospital," the Tewksbury police chief said.
The reported attacks came as the state took away nonlethal tools like handcuffs, pepper gel and batons from security officers at the hospital. DPH cited "approaches that work best in health care" in making its decision.
The state reversed course in May, however, after some nurses protested the decision.
