Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide and the death of children, which some readers may find distressing.

Lindsay Clancy believed she was sending her children ‘to god’, according to documents filed in a civil lawsuit against several medical practitioners.

The 36-year-old mother is currently on trial in the US over the deaths of her three young children – Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan – who were found strangled in the basement of the family home in January 2023.

She then tried to take her own life, which led to her becoming paralysed from the waist down.

Clancy’s legal defence does not dispute that she killed the children, but argues that she was struggling with postpartum psychosis alongside severe mental illness and therefore cannot be held criminally responsible for their deaths.

Separately from the ongoing criminal trial, both Clancy and her ex-husband Patrick have both filed civil lawsuits against medical practitioners who treated Clancy in the run-up to the children’s deaths.

The lawsuits, which have both been contested by the mental health professionals named, allege medical malpractice and failures in psychiatric support following the birth of Callan in 2022.

According to documents obtained by CourtTV earlier this year, Clancy was suffering from auditory hallucinations on the day of 24 January 2023, which instructed her to end her children’s lives.

“My body started acting without any control on my part. I was just following commands, ‘all action.’ This voice demanded action,” Clancy claimed.

A separate report from The Sun claims the mother-of-three claimed she entered a ‘dream-like state’, with a male voice telling her it was the ‘last chance’ to kill the children and herself.

As she strangled the children, Clancy says that she uttered the words, “Go to God, baby.”

Clancy’s mental health has played a major part in her ongoing trial, with the prosecution alleging that she had orchestrated a plan to send Patrick out on errands so she could kill the children.

Clancy believed prescribed medication was making her symptoms ‘worse’
Prior to her children’s deaths, Clancy had been prescribed numerous different antidepressants and antipsychotics, including medications such as Zoloft, Remeron, Trazodone, Amitriptyline and Ativan by mental health professionals.

However, Clancy had feared the medication was making her symptoms worse. She told the court that she was experiencing suicidal ideation, with data recovered from her phone and laptop showing searches for depression and suicidal ideation as well as various queries for medication side effects and interactions.

If found guilty of murdering her children, Clancy faces the prospect of life in prison without parole, while a not guilty verdict would see her placed in a psychiatric hospital.

The trial continues.

Witnesses who have testified at Lindsay Clancy’s trial

After the jury heard the opening statements on 27 July, Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, was the first person to take to the stand.

Patrick testified that Clancy struggled after the birth of their third child, Callan, and that in the months before the January 2023 killings, she told him she was having thoughts of suicide and of harming their children.

He claimed that December 2022 ‘was really where her big spiral started’.

Patrick told the court: “She started to lose a lot of weight, and she became very depressed, and she was having a really hard time.”

After Clancy spent some time in a locked-ward facility, Patrick said he was ‘hopeful’ as ‘she seemed much better’.

He later recalled the day of the killings, testifying that Clancy initially ‘seemed in a good mood’ and ‘was having one of her best days’.

But on returning home to find his children dead, he said he ‘saw blood everywhere’.

Around a week later, Clancy called her then-husband from hospital, Patrick said.

“She didn’t talk about our kids, she talked about what she went through,” he testified. “She said she heard a man’s voice telling her that if she didn’t do it now, she would lose her chance – or something like that.”

Elaine Rossi, who worked as the Clancy family’s nanny from September to December 2022, testified that Clancy was a ‘wonderful mum who loved her kids’.

“She was concerned about their safety, and Callan eating and sleeping. She was a wonderful mother,” she told the court.

Rossi recalled seeing prescription medicine bottles in the house, and that Clancy ‘shared with me she had postpartum and couldn’t sleep’.

The nanny also testified that she noticed the mum had lost a significant amount of weight, but she said she never feared for the children’s safety.