The original, unearthly scream echoed through the packed courtroom.
It was an anguished, guttural sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.
For several excruciating seconds, Patrick Clancy continued to scream inaudibly. The only discernible words were cries of “Oh my God!”
Then came the four gruesome words that exposed the unspeakable scene the father of three had just walked into.
“She killed the children!”
Inside the Plymouth County Superior Court Massachusettsthe deeply disturbing 911 call on the evening of January 24, 2023 visibly took its toll on everyone in the crowded courtroom.
Lindsay Clancy trembled and sobbed quietly, hunched over in her wheelchair as she was forced to listen to the sound of the defense table.
As soon as the conversation ended and Judge William Sullivan declared a recess, the 35-year-old, wearing a soft baby blue blouse, collapsed.
Lindsay Clancy put her head in her hands and cried uncontrollably after the 911 call played
Patrick Clancy returned to the stand to describe the devastating moment he found his children dead
The former nurse put her head in her hands and began sobbing uncontrollably before the nurses took her to the rooms.
Clancy’s parents, Mike and Paula Musgrove, hung their heads and wept silently from one of the rows of the public gallery.
Two female jurors burst into tears.
There was hardly a dry eye in the gallery, which housed about 70 members of the media and public.
Patrick was excused before the 911 audio was played to avoid reliving the moment.
During the break that followed, the emergency workers entered a room next to the courtroom. The audio of the transmission referred to a juror having a panic attack.
But when the proceedings resumed, all eighteen jurors returned.
Not Patrick.
His testimony was expected to resume with cross-examination after the phone call, but the proceedings were interrupted.
I later saw the distressed father-of-three leave the room where the paramedics had been before returning to the witness box, visibly calmer.
The roughly six-minute 999 call captured the aftermath of that terrible night three years ago when Clancy strangled Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan at the family’s home in the wealthy suburb of Duxbury.
Patrick returned home to find Clancy injured in the backyard after slitting her wrists and neck and jumping out of the window in an apparent suicide attempt.
Only after emergency services arrived on the scene did he find his children dead in the basement.
Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan were strangled at the family home in January 2023
Clancy with her husband Patrick Clancy and two eldest children Cora, five, and Dawson, three
As they sat in the courtroom, the 911 call made for painful and heartbreaking listening during a day in which jurors were also shown the small pajamas the children wore that night and the three colored exercise bands used to strangle them.
Judge William Sullivan agreed to Patrick’s request that the recording never be released publicly, ruling that it could cause lasting emotional damage to him and his family.
After hearing it in court, it was easy to understand why.
The call began shortly after 6 p.m. with Patrick’s panicked voice after finding his wife on the lawn.
“My wife tried to commit suicide,” he told the dispatcher. The panic was audible as Patrick repeatedly urged his wife: “Stay awake, stay awake.”
When asked if she reacted normally while speaking, Patrick told the dispatcher, “No, not normally… just a little bit.”
At times, Clancy could be heard moaning, whimpering and mumbling in the background.
As the audio played in the courtroom, the defendant turned her head away from the jury and public gallery and leaned forward in her wheelchair so that her long dark hair hid her face.
In the audio, Patrick frantically tried to comfort his wife and keep her conscious, telling her to “open your eyes” and “say my name, say my name.”
His concern for his ex-wife was evident in the audio.
But as Patrick waited next to Clancy for first responders, he had no idea the children inside were dead.
He was heard asking Clancy about the children’s whereabouts, to which she replied, “In the basement.”
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague holds up as evidence the pajamas Callan Clancy wore the night of his death
Jurors were also shown the training tapes used to strangle the three small children
During the 911 call, Patrick could be heard asking Clancy about the children’s whereabouts, to which she responded, “In the basement.”
Soon the sound of approaching sirens could be heard.
“I want you to stay here while I go check on my kids,” Patrick told the first responders as they began caring for Clancy.
The court was still on the phone and then heard the sound of heavy footsteps as Patrick ran into the house and down the stairs to the basement to find little Cora, Dawson and Callan.
Then the blood-curdling screams began.
As the wailing grew louder, the dispatcher asked, “What is he yelling about?”
The high-pitched screams continued before he finally screamed out the words that changed everything.
“She killed the children!” he shouted.
“She killed the children? Holy shit!’ the coordinator replied.
The 911 call took center stage during the second day of testimony in a trial that has raised complex questions about postpartum mental illness and criminal liability.
Moments before the recording was played, prosecutors showed the children’s pajamas, including Callan’s red Mickey Mouse onesie.
Jurors were then shown three colored exercise bands that prosecutors said were used to strangle the children.
The stairs leading to the basement of the Clancy home where the children were found
The back of the Clancy house including the bedroom window (top right) from which Lindsay Clancy jumped
Clancy turned away and grabbed her lawyer’s hand as her father wiped away tears.
Patrick, who has since moved to New York City and remarried but has publicly supported his ex-wife, was excused before the evidence was shown in court, sparing him additional pain.
The first day of the trial was the very first time he and Clancy had seen each other since that tragic day.
When the 38-year-old tech executive returned to the witness stand Wednesday morning, he appeared to glance in her direction as he entered the room.
He testified that on the evening of January 24, 2023, Clancy asked him to pick up medication for Cora at CVS and pick up dinner before he returned.
When he couldn’t find the drug at CVS, he called Clancy. She didn’t answer, but called back a minute later.
During the conversation, Patrick said Clancy seemed “pretty quiet” and preoccupied with something.
“It sounded like she was busy,” he testified. “I thought she was taking a bath or something.”
On the second day, the court heard the devastating 911 call from that day in January 2023
Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington clutched her hand for comfort as her former husband testified about the day their children died.
After picking up the takeaway, he drove home and found the house “very quiet.”
He called out to his family, but received no answer. Then he opened the door leading to the cellar and called down.
As he took a deep breath in the stands, he remembered going upstairs and finding the couple’s bedroom door locked.
“And then I knew something was wrong,” he testified.
Patrick shook as he revealed how he managed to get into the room to find ‘blood everywhere’ and open the window.
There was a “huge pool” of blood on the floor and “sprayed over every surface.” “I remember it was on the doorknob,” he sighed.
Patrick said he ran downstairs and out the back door and saw his wife lying face up in the yard. When he asked her, “What happened?” she replied, “I tried to commit suicide.”
Clancy kept her head down and turned away from her ex-husband as he recounted the terrible moment he found the children.
His descriptions were brief; every word sounded heavy in the air and was clearly painful.
“I saw Cora.”
“She had a band around her neck.”
“She was face down.”
Patrick rubbed his face as he testified that he immediately ran over and took off the tire, only to find his little girl unresponsive.
Photos of the children are shown in the house where the family of five lived in Duxbury
ThreeV’s takeout order and the CVS bag of medication for Cora were on the couch
Then he saw Callan face down with a band around his neck, next to Cora.
After removing that tape, he searched for Dawson and found him alone in his basement office. “I knew he was gone,” he said of the three-year-old.
The children were rushed to hospital, where Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead. Callan died a few days later.
Days after the murders, Patrick said he received a call from Clancy at the hospital, where she told him she had heard a voice telling her to kill the children — and that it was her “last chance.”
Rubbing his face and struggling to hold back tears, Patrick said, “She didn’t talk about our children. She talked about what she had experienced.’
During a brief side discussion between the legal teams, Patrick covered his eyes with his hand and began to quietly cry. He was subsequently excused from the courtroom.
When he returned for cross-examination, Patrick testified that his wife was a “very devoted mother” who “loved the children very much.”
He described how Clancy’s mental health had deteriorated in the months leading up to the murders – and how she repeatedly sought psychiatric help and was given increasing amounts of medication.
Clancy has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to three counts of first-degree murder because she suffered from severe postpartum mental illness. Prosecutors allege she planned the murders and was of sound mind at the time.
If convicted, Clancy will be sentenced to life in prison without parole. If she is acquitted by reason of insanity, she will be committed to a state psychiatric hospital, where she will be further evaluated and could be released if she is determined to no longer pose a threat.
