Watch Live: Prosecution rests in Lindsay Clancy murder trial, defense takes over
CBS News · LC · trust 56/100
Updated on: August 17, 2026 / 12:59 PM EDT / CBS Boston
Lindsay Clancy's Massachusetts murder trial is back underway Monday in Plymouth Superior Court, and the prosecution rested its case. The defense is now calling witnesses, including Clancy's mother, Paula Musgrove.
You can watch the trial live on CBS News Boston or YouTube when court is in session.
Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the deaths of her three children, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan, in their Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023 .
The prosecution, led by Jennifer Sprague and Shanan Buckingham, alleges that Clancy planned the murders before faking a suicide attempt .
Clancy admits to killing her children. Clancy's defense attorney Kevin Reddington argues she should not be held criminally responsible because she was overmedicated and suffering from postpartum psychosis .
At the start of the day, Judge William Sullivan told jurors it's possible the prosecution could rest its case on Monday and allow the defense to begin calling witnesses. That happened around 11:15 a.m.
Allison Ozga, Clancy's sister, was called to testify for the defense.
She said she and Clancy are very close, even though they haven't lived in the same state for 10 years.
Ozga said that in November 2022, she came home for Thanksgiving and that is when she first noticed a difference in Clancy's mood.
"I think at Thanksgiving, her mood did not look good, her energy wasn't high. Definitely seemed off from how I saw her in the past," Ozga said.
Ozga said that in December 2022, Clancy told her that she was in "a really tough spot." She said she remembered asking Clancy if she was safe, and she said yes.
On cross-examination, Sprague highlighted that the day after the children's death, Ozga told police that she saw Clancy two weeks prior and she seemed OK. Sprague asked if Ozga had any concern about the safety of the children or her sister to file a police report, and she said no.
The first defense witness was Margaret Hamp, who has worked as a labor and delivery nurse at Mass General Hospital since 2012.
She was working on the labor floor when Clancy first started working there as a nurse.
They worked together until 2022 when Clancy had Callan, her third child.
Hamp said there was one time when Clancy first started working at the hospital when a patient arrived who had plans to harm herself while pregnant.
According to Hamp, Clancy was shocked that the woman would be willing to harm her baby. Hamp said she asked Clancy if she was familiar with the case of Andrea Yates, a Houston mother who drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001. Yates was found guilty, but later in a retrial was found not guilty because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
"We had a conversation about mental health and pregnancy and postpartum. I asked her if she had ever heard of the Andrea Yates case. She hadn't. I explained that to her and she cried and she said, 'How could a mother hurt her children?'" Hamp said.
After the prosecution rested, Judge Sullivan heard arguments from attorneys without the jury present.
Reddington asked the judge to find Clancy not guilty or reduce the charges from premeditated first-degree murder to second-degree murder.
The defense attorney argued that Clancy was "clearly and unequivocally suffering from a mental defect."
The jury then returned to the courtroom, and Reddington began calling witnesses.
The final prosecution witness called was Ian Whiffin, who works for digital forensic company Cellebrite. He was the only person the prosecution called on Monday before resting.
Whiffin testified during Karen Read's high-profile murder trial about data including the timestamp on witness Jennifer McCabe's Google search for how long it would take someone to die in the cold.
In Clancy's trial, he faced direct questioning for about 45 minutes before Reddington took over cross-examination around 10:45 a.m.
On cross-examination, Reddington called into question some of the data from Jan. 25, 2023, the day after the children were killed. He asked Whiffin if the data came from Clancy's phone or her Apple Watch. Whiffin said based on his report it wasn't clear which it came from.
"On January 25, Lindsay Clancy was in a coma, lying in bed with tubes coming out of her body and certainly not wearing the Apple Watch," Reddington said.
"Based purely on the report there, I'd suggest it came from the phone," Whiffin answered.
On re-direct questioning, Sprague highlighted that if police were carrying the phone around that day, it could have registered data in Whiffin's report.
Whiffin stepped down and the prosecution rested its case.
Earlier, Whiffin was asked on direct examination about Apple Health data and other information from the family's home from the night the children were killed.
Her last measured heart rate was 57 beats per minute at 5:23 p.m.
In addition, Whiffin also assessed search records and messages from Clancy's iPhone.
On Jan. 12, 2023, at 7:48 p.m., Whiffin said that Clancy searched "how does Wellbutrin work for depression?"
She also searched at one point "how to tell if you're sleep deprived – or depressed." In another search, Clancy searched "ketamine for suicidal ideation."
On Jan. 19, 2023, Whiffin said that Clancy searched for "symptoms of postpartum psychosis."
According to Whiffin, Clancy's phone was also used to plan a route from her Duxbury home to a restaurant in Plymouth called ThreeV. Prosecutors have said Clancy sent Patrick, her husband at the time, to CVS and ThreeV in order to give herself time to kill her children.
Patrick and Lindsay Clancy were married at the time of their children's deaths. They have since divorced and he is married to another woman.
Last week, prosecutors attempted to use electronic materials to lay out their theory that Clancy premeditated killing her three children. Also last week, court was paused several times as…
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