'She called for help twice': Crisis hotline turned Lindsay Clancy away weeks before children’s deaths

PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS: A crisis hotline turned Lindsay Clancy away weeks before she allegedly killed her three children, a defense psychologist testified Wednesday, August 19 offering jurors a disturbing account of the mental deterioration that preceded the deaths.

Dr. Paul Zeizel testified that Clancy contacted a crisis line on December 4, 2022, but was told she did not meet the standard of care because she did not have a specific plan to harm herself.

He said she called again several days later but again did not receive help.

The testimony came as Zeizel described a progression from paranoia and depression to frightening experiences involving voices in the weeks before January 24, 2023, when Clancy allegedly strangled her children before attempting to take her own life.

Crisis hotline turned Clancy away

Zeizel’s testimony placed Clancy’s attempts to seek help in the middle of the defense’s argument that her mental health had already deteriorated severely before the killings.

He said Clancy called the crisis line on December 4, weeks before the deaths, but was turned away because she had no specific plan to harm herself.

According to Zeizel, she called again days later and again did not receive help. The psychologist said Clancy’s condition was already worsening during that period.

In December 2022, she was becoming more depressed and displaying what Zeizel described as paranoid symptoms of psychosis.

As January approached, he said, those symptoms intensified.

One particularly unusual belief was that her thoughts had become so intense that other people could hear them.

That belief was connected to another fear: Clancy thought that if people understood what was happening in her mind, authorities could take her children away.

Zeizel said she was terrified of losing them and never seeing them again. The voices also told Lindsay to kill herself.

The defense is using those details to argue that Clancy was experiencing far more than ordinary depression or intrusive thoughts.

Lindsay's chilling phone call to Patrick

Another striking portion of Zeizel’s testimony concerned a conversation between Clancy and her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, after the deaths.

Zeizel said Clancy was hospitalized following the incident and was handcuffed to a hospital bed when he allowed her to use his cellphone.

She attempted to reach Patrick on February 4, 2023, but he did not answer.

Two days later, according to Zeizel, Patrick answered a second call. The conversation took place on speakerphone.

Clancy told him she loved him and then described what she said had happened inside her mind.

According to Zeizel, she told Patrick that a male voice had instructed her to kill the children and then herself and that she believed she had no choice.

That account is now one of the most consequential pieces of testimony supporting the defense’s psychosis argument.