Three years after Lindsay Clancy killed her three young children inside the family\u2019s Massachusetts home, she and Patrick Clancy are united on something: they believe the medical professionals treating her in the months before the killings failed catastrophically.<\/p>\n
But if you read their separate civil lawsuits<\/a> side by side, a more complicated picture emerges. Currently, Lindsay Clancy\u2019s criminal trial is underway in Massachusetts, where prosecutors argue she was criminally responsible for brutally strangling her three children before attempting to take her own life. Clancy maintains she was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity and was experiencing hallucinations at the time of the killings.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Both Lindsay and Patrick Clancy point to psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Tufts, nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta and their employers for failing to properly treat Lindsay as her mental health deteriorated. Both describe a frantic stretch of medications, worsening insomnia, suicidal thoughts and repeated efforts to get help before Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, were killed on January 24, 2023.<\/p>\n Yet the two complaints tell noticeably different stories about what exactly was happening inside Lindsay\u2019s mind: particularly when it comes to bipolar disorder, psychosis and the alleged voices she says commanded her to kill. This is to be expected, of course, as Patrick was clearly not inside the mind of his then-wife. Additionally, Patrick Clancy\u2019s lawsuit centers around his children, and their deaths and suffering.<\/p>\n Patrick filed his 20-page wrongful-death lawsuit January 20, 2026, individually and as representative of his children\u2019s estates. Two days later, Lindsay filed a far <\/a>more expansive lawsuit (over 700 pages) seeking damages for her own physical and psychological injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n Patrick\u2019s lawsuit paints a relatively straightforward picture of a once-happy and well-adjusted woman who began struggling with anxiety as the end of her maternity leave approached, then deteriorated as doctors repeatedly prescribed medications while failing to monitor her properly.<\/p>\n Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n Lindsay\u2019s complaint goes much further. Her lawsuit alleges she was actually suffering from Bipolar I disorder with postpartum onset, which multiple providers failed to diagnose. It claims an \u201cuncoordinated course of polypharmacy\u201d ultimately caused a psychotic break by auditory hallucinations.<\/p>\n The differences in the two lawsuits begin months before the killings.<\/p>\n Patrick\u2019s complaint describes Lindsay as happy and energetic following Callan\u2019s birth in May 2022. She told him how much she loved their new baby, returned to exercising (something that had long been important to her) and spent parental leave with the family visiting relatives, going to the beach and enjoying time together. His lawsuit says stress and anxiety emerged around September, when Lindsay was preparing to return to work as a labor-and-delivery nurse.<\/p>\n In Lindsay\u2019s lawsuit, however, some of those same early months are viewed through a dramatically different lens, with hints of mental illness that should have been identified by professionals.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Her attorneys describe her intense exercise routine: waking at 4 a.m., running three miles, riding a Peloton and doing aerobics all before the kids woke up, as \u201csignificant hypomanic behavior.\u201d Five weeks after giving birth, she ran a five-mile race, which she said she was discouraged by others from doing.\u00a0Patrick Clancy\u2019s lawsuit almost paints it all as a positive.<\/p>\n The complaints also frame Lindsay\u2019s mental-health history after Dawson\u2019s 2019 birth differently.<\/p>\n Patrick describes postpartum anxiety that Lindsay was ultimately able to manage through exercise, healthy eating, meditation, socializing and therapy.<\/p>\n Lindsay\u2019s lawsuit goes further back, alleging that she experienced increased energy, racing thoughts, obsessive decluttering and what she says Patrick had described as \u201cmanic behavior\u201d for several days. Her attorneys argue those earlier episodes were important to the underlying bipolar disorder that went undiagnosed.<\/p>\n The difference becomes even more stark when the lawsuits reach the weeks immediately before the killings. Patrick\u2019s complaint chronicles severe insomnia, panic, disorientation and suicidal ideation. It notes that Lindsay was asked in early December whether she was having thoughts of harming herself or the children (and reportedly denied it to Tufts), although according to Patrick she reported repeatedly feeling afraid that \u201csomething awful might happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Lindsay\u2019s lawsuit shows a darker account. It says what she and some providers were calling \u201cintrusive thoughts\u201d were actually auditory hallucinations. The complaint alleges that by mid-December she was hearing voices telling her she would never recover and that \u201cthe only option is to die.\u201d It also makes the notable claim that Lindsay told Patrick: \u201cI have thoughts of harming the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n By January 16, Lindsay\u2019s lawsuit says, the alleged voice was telling her, \u201cYou should harm the children\u201d and \u201cYou should kill yourself.\u201d Her attorneys claim doctors failed to dig into what she meant by \u201cintrusive thoughts\u201d and therefore missed evidence that she had become psychotic. The claims have taken front and center stage at her criminal trial.<\/p>\n Dr. Tufts recently testified during the criminal trial that she did not observe signs of psychosis during her treatment of Lindsay and said Lindsay denied suicidal or homicidal ideation during their final appointment on January 23. This was the day before the killings.<\/p>\n Then there is January 24 itself\u2026Patrick\u2019s lawsuit is relatively broad, saying medical records indicate Lindsay reported hearing an unfamiliar male voice telling her it was her \u201clast chance\u201d and that she needed to take the children with her.<\/p>\n Lindsay\u2019s lawsuit gives a grim, detailed first-person theory of what happened.<\/p>\n It says she awoke severely depressed and suicidal but still went about the day: feeding the kids, taking Cora to a pediatrician and building a snowman outside. Later, she asked Patrick about ordering takeout. Her lawsuit says she checked how long the trip would take because she did not want to be alone and needed help.<\/p>\n As soon as Patrick left, according to Lindsay\u2019s complaint, the voice became loud and demanding:<\/p>\n \u201cTHIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. YOU HAVE TO KILL THE KIDS SO YOU CAN KILL YOURSELF.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit says Lindsay felt a \u201cforce\u201d come over her and entered a dissociative, dream-like state in which she believed her body was acting independently of her conscious will.<\/p>\n \u201cI lost all control,\u201d she is quoted as saying. \u201cMy body started acting without any control on my part.\u201d<\/p>\n She strangled the children and then attempted suicide, suffering a spinal cord injury that left her permanently paralyzed. Her complaint says she maintains the killings were compelled by hallucinations rather than a conscious decision.<\/p>\n Lindsay\u2019s civil attorneys support that account with evaluations from forensic experts, including psychiatrist Dr. Margaret Spinelli, who diagnosed her with Bipolar I disorder, severe, with psychosis and anxious distress, with postpartum onset. The complaint says Spinelli concluded antidepressants can trigger manic or hypomanic symptoms in someone with underlying bipolar illness and criticized providers for failing to recognize that possibility.<\/p>\n The lawsuits also differ fundamentally in what they are trying to recover.<\/p>\n Patrick is suing on behalf of Cora, Dawson and Callan. His complaint alleges their deaths were the result of negligent medical treatment and seeks wrongful-death damages, including compensation for the loss of the children\u2019s companionship, care and guidance, funeral expenses and their alleged conscious pain and suffering. Tragic.<\/p>\n His suit also contains a separate allegation against South Shore Health, claiming Patrick was notified that an employee had improperly accessed his and his children\u2019s medical records.<\/p>\n Lindsay, meanwhile, is suing mainly for what happened to her. Her complaint seeks damages for permanent paralysis, other physical injuries, psychological trauma and loss of consortium with her children and spouse. It alleges that the providers\u2019 collective negligence caused both her killing of the children and her attempt to kill herself.<\/p>\n Her list of defendants is larger as well. In addition to Tufts, Jollotta, Aster Mental Health and South Shore Health, Lindsay sued McLean Hospital and Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, alleging failures across nearly every stage of her psychiatric treatment.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Neither difference in the lawsuits means the former couple is directly contradicting one another. Different lawyers wrote the complaints for different plaintiffs seeking damages for different injuries. But together, the lawsuits provide two versions of the same brutal descent.<\/p>\n In Patrick\u2019s, a loving mother became increasingly anxious, sleepless and suicidal while her doctors piled on medications and failed to recognize how dangerous her condition had become.<\/p>\n In Lindsay\u2019s, the story begins earlier and ends more definitively: what looked like energy was hypomania, what doctors called depression obscured bipolar disorder, what were labeled intrusive thoughts were actually hallucinations\u2026.and, finally, a psychotic voice took control.<\/p>\n Now, some of the very providers accused in those lawsuits are taking the witness stand in Lindsay\u2019s criminal trial and giving jurors their own account of what they saw.<\/p>\n Patrick Clancy has previously spoken out and publicly forgiven his wife, telling the New Yorker in 2024, \u201cI wasn\u2019t married to a monster \u2014 I was married to someone who got sick.\u201d<\/p>\n Separately, the Clancy family started a GoFundMe<\/a> to try and recoup the money they have spent uprooting their lives to care for Lindsay. The account has amassed over $800,000.<\/p>\n Patrick is now remarried and lives in New York City. As with all civil lawsuits, the allegations in both complaints represent the plaintiffs\u2019 claims and have not been proven in court.<\/p>\n