The handwritten pages are hard to read without feeling a chill—day after day, Lindsay Clancy jotted down the same disturbing phrase: “horrible thoughts.” In one entry, she underlined those words with such force it practically screams off the paper.
According to court testimony, the 35-year-old mother of three kept a meticulous medication log while being prescribed 13 different psychiatric drugs in the four months before she allegedly killed her children. The diary, shown to jurors this week, tracks Valium and Seroquel doses along with notes on sleep, mood, and what she called “intrusive thoughts.”
Starting December 8, 2022, Clancy wrote she felt “very depressed” and suffered from unwanted ideas. The next day, despite sleeping well, she noted “horrible intrusive thoughts.” That same phrase appears on December 10, 11, 12, and 13—sometimes with the word “thoughts” underlined multiple times.
Her ex-husband Patrick returned to the stand to testify about her declining mental state. He told the court that in early December, she admitted to having intrusive thoughts about harm coming to their children, though she insisted she had no plan to act on them.
Patrick described Clancy as a devoted mother who read to the kids, made up songs, and took them to music classes. But he also said her insomnia was a “huge problem,” recalling a stretch where she went 48 hours without sleeping. “I just wanted her to sleep and get better,” he said.
The defense argues that a severe postpartum mental illness, worsened by sleep deprivation and a rotating cocktail of antidepressants, sedatives, and antipsychotics, left Clancy unable to understand right from wrong. They say she was not criminally responsible for the deaths of five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan on January 24, 2023.
Prosecutors, however, claim she deliberately sent Patrick out to pick up medicine and takeout, creating the time and privacy to strangle the children with exercise bands. They point to the fact that few pills were missing from her prescription bottles as evidence she was aware and in control.
Clancy herself was left paralyzed after attempting suicide the same night. Her lawyers stress that she sought specialist treatment, tried multiple medications, and even admitted herself to a hospital before the tragedy—but was discharged just 19 days before the killings. Patrick testified that no one ever warned him she should not be left alone with the children.
As the trial unfolds, the jury must weigh the chilling diary entries against a mother’s struggle with mental health. Was Lindsay Clancy a woman overtaken by illness, or did she know exactly what she was doing?
