Lindsay Clancy rejects the internet conspiracy theories accusing her ex-husband of killing their three children in 2023 and believes he has been unfairly targeted by online sleuths since her murder trial, her defense attorney Kevin Reddington told NBC News on Wednesday in a wide-ranging interview.
“She knows, and it’s readily apparent that Patrick has been set upon and his life has been turned upside down into a nightmare that he doesn’t deserve. Period. Full stop,” attorney Kevin Reddington said Wednesday.
Patrick Clancy’s lawyers released a statement Tuesday responding to the online allegations and slamming the true-crime creators behind the theories. The statement called the theories and online storylines a “campaign of misinformation” that was “publishing what they know to be outright falsehoods that Patrick was somehow involved in the death of his young children and other vile claims.”
His lawyer added that “every appropriate measure will be pursued to hold them accountable, including legally,” and that “law enforcement has been notified.”
Reddington told NBC News that Clancy is aware of how the case has taken off on social media as online sleuths pushed conspiracy theories and broke down testimony about the broadcast trial and as conversation around postpartum psychosis captured the nation. She also disagrees with the theories.
On Friday, Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial at Plymouth Superior Court after the jury deliberating whether Clancy was criminally responsible for the strangulation deaths of her three children said it was deadlocked three times. Reddington sought a last-minute emergency stay to send the jurors back to deliberations, but a justice at Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court swiftly denied it.
Since then, Clancy is “not very good” and remains “suicidal” after her high-profile murder trial, Reddington said.
“She’s strong. She has incredible family support,” he added of his client. “But she is suicidal. I mean, she’s on 24/7, one-on-one suicide watch. I worry about her every day.”
Despite the dramatic end to the trial that leaves Clancy’s legal case in limbo, Reddington says his client does not hold any anger toward prosecutors, jurors or even witnesses who testified against her.
“She was hurt by the way they would talk about her and the way they would attack her. She was hurt, but she never once expressed anger towards anybody in the system,” he said. “She doesn’t have it in her DNA to be angry with anyone.”
Instead, he added, she talks about her children and often repeats one phrase constantly: “I want my babies.”
The sentiment is a stark contrast to the prosecution’s case throughout the trial, which argued Clancy was aware of her actions and planned the killings ahead of time. Reddington argued that she was compelled to act on auditory hallucinations that told her to carry out the murders, a symptom of the postpartum psychosis he said she was experiencing.
Both parties admit she killed the children: Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months old.
“That was not the Lindsay that is now living amongst us,” Reddington said Wednesday. “The person that committed this atrocious act was as a result of postpartum psychosis combined with the medications that she was provided.”
Postpartum psychosis is a rare but serious condition that can affect new mothers. More severe than postpartum depression, it can cause hallucinations and other intense psychological symptoms.
To prove their argument that Clancy was not actually experiencing psychosis at the time of the killings, prosecutors repeatedly pointed to the fact that she never told anyone she was hearing voices before that night and that she hasn’t heard any since — something said to be exceedingly rare for someone experiencing psychosis.
Reddington, however, said Wednesday that Clancy told her struggles to “anyone who would listen,” including Patrick Clancy and her mother. He conceded Wednesday, though, that “she should have” told more people about the voices.
The lawyer also challenged the notion that Clancy lied about how she was feeling and that she repeated a list of symptoms to doctors that she found online.
“If she was so smart, and Googling things like psychosis, why would she not have had exactly the symptomology that you can Google about psychosis, about postpartum psychosis, [including] the voices?” he said. “What are you supposed to say? How are you supposed to say it?”
He added: “If she was faking, she would have hit it on every single cylinder. She was telling the truth. She did the best that she could. She was failed by these doctors.”
A lone holdout
After 38 hours of deliberations, the jury on Friday said it could not reach a unanimous decision, remaining deadlocked 11-1. Jurors had the option to convict Clancy of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter or acquit her owing to lack of criminal responsibility.
Had she been found not guilty by reason of insanity, she would have been sentenced to time in a state mental health facility.
Three jurors, including the foreperson, told NBC Boston on Tuesday that the majority favored finding Clancy not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility, while one holdout wanted to convict. But that juror expressed reasonable doubt, they said, and still wouldn’t agree with the remainder of the jury.
Reddington, however, defended the juror’s right to his opinion Wednesday, saying it “doesn’t matter” what was going through his head.
“He’s got every right to do that, and I would defend that right, but not to refuse to apply the law,” Reddington said. “This is where you draw the line.”
Now, prosecutors must decide whether to retry Clancy. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Sept. 29.
Despite telling reporters multiple times last week that he was ready to retry Clancy’s case as soon as this week, Reddington said that is not the outcome he wants and that he will file a motion to dismiss charges. He also said he would be open to plea iscussions, but would not take a deal that landed his client in jail for even a day.
Reddington on Tuesday called on President Donald Trump to offer his client a pardon, even though Clancy was tried on state charges and the president can only pardon federal charges.
He explained Wednesday that he made the suggestion because Trump “felt compelled to comment on the case” and thought that maybe Trump could reach out to colleagues in the Justice Department to influence Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz to drop the charges. Or, he theorized, Trump might even reach out to Cruz directly on the issue.
Despite such strong attention toward the case, Reddington said, he felt that there was some fundamental misunderstanding about Clancy’s situation.
“They feel that if you determine that Lindsay was and is not guilty of this crime because of lack of criminal responsibility, that in some fashion you are ignoring the loss of these three children,” he explained. “That is as far from the truth as possible.”
Reddington added that Clancy, who is in a wheelchair and has been on suicide watch since the night of the murders, is “living in hell.”
“I look back over the years, and the people that I’ve represented — been able to help, not so much help — but yes, this is the one that really has moved me,” Reddington said, agreeing it was one of the hardest of his career.
