By using that defense, Clancy is not contesting that she killed her children but is asserting that her mental state at the time prevented her from comporting her behavior with the law.
Should she be acquitted under such a defense, Clancy would be sent to a state psychiatric hospital where she would come up for periodic evaluation to determine whether she no longer presented as a public safety threat and could be released. She's currently held without bail and has been receiving treatment at Tewksbury Hospital, according to previous legal filings.
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder for the slayings on Jan. 24, 2023, of her children Cora, 5, and sons, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. Prosecutors say she strangled the children in the family's home after sending her husband, Patrick, out to pick up a takeout order. After the killings, Clancy cut herself and jumped out of a second-floor window but survived the fall, officials said.
In asking for Clancy to be held without bail during her October 2023 arraignment, Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said that seven medications were detected in blood samples taken from Clancy in the hours after the fatal attacks, which she allegedly perpetrated with exercise bands.
Those details appeared to be aimed at challenging defense assertions that Clancy was overmedicated at the time of the killings. She was being treated for postpartum depression.
Tests found seven prescription drugs in Clancy's blood: three antidepressants, an antipsychotic, two sedatives, and an anticonvulsant medication, Sprague said. There were therapeutic levels of the sedatives and the anticonvulsant in Clancy's system, she said, citing the grand jury testimony of Dr. Margarita Abi Zeid Daou, a psychiatrist hired by prosecutors.
The tests detected the antidepressant Trazodone at a level too low to have an effect on Clancy, Sprague said. It also turned up the presence of the antidepressant Amitriptyline but couldn't pinpoint how much Clancy had consumed, she said.
Remeron, an antidepressant, and Seroquel, an antipsychotic, were found in Clancy's system at "peak levels," Sprague said, meaning they would have been ingested about two hours before her blood was drawn at 8:15 p.m. She said that was a sign that Clancy consumed those medications after she allegedly strangled her children.
Daou told the grand jury that the most serious consequences for taking this combination of medications at the same dosages would be "cardiac arrest or coma," Sprague said.
Daou "was asked if these medications in these amounts could cause a person to become violent. She said they did not," Sprague said. Daou also testified that the combination of drugs taken by Clancy at the same doses wouldn't cause psychosis, according to Sprague.
Four days before the fatal attacks, Clancy conducted an Internet search on her cellphone for the phrase, "can you treat a sociopath," Sprague said.
Clancy also allegedly researched ways to kill on her cellphone before the slayings, according to court records.
"She is a danger to herself and others. She planned these murders," Sprague said. "She did so with deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty."
At the same hearing, Reddington countered that his client has a "very, very, very good defense." He was joined at the arraignment by Paul D. Zeizel, a forensic psychologist who examined Clancy at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where she was treated shortly after the killings.
"She obviously had no reason to kill those three beautiful children, so you have to ask yourself why. Why?" Reddington asked in court. "And when you ask yourself why and you consider all of these factors it's readily apparent, I suggest, judge, that this woman was a troubled soul."
Prosecutors asked Friday that Clancy's trial in Plymouth Superior Court be set for September.