Crime
Testimony resumes Monday following an emotional first week in the Duxbury mother’s trial.
August 3, 2026 | 9:00 AM
3 minutes to read
Livestream via NBC 10 WJAR.
On the stand: Dr. Kelly McDonough, emergency physician at South Shore Hospital
Previously:
Five-year-old Cora Clancy arrived at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Plymouth with bruising around her neck and other signs pointing to a lack of oxygen, according to a doctor who treated her there.
Dr. Michael Snyder was the third Beth Israel emergency physician who testified about treating the three Clancy children the night of Jan. 24, 2023.
Prior to the ambulances’ arrival, “We had heard that, you know, all three were in cardiac arrest,” Snyder recalled. “And Cora in particular, they were still working on, doing CPR and doing what we call pediatric advanced life support.”
He testified that Cora was not breathing on her own when she arrived.
“There was no heartbeat,” Snyder added.
Hospital staff continued CPR for about 30 minutes and consulted with Boston Children’s Hospital over the phone, he said. But their efforts proved unsuccessful, and Snyder declared Cora dead shortly before 7:30 p.m.
Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial resumes Monday following a week of emotional testimony from her former husband, first responders, and emergency physicians who worked on her children the night she strangled them.
Clancy, now 35, does not deny that she killed 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan at home in Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023. However, she has pleaded not guilty under what’s commonly known as an insanity defense as she argues she was wracked by postpartum mental illness and heard a voice in her head that instructed her to kill.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, argue Clancy no longer liked her life as a mother and “deliberately and meticulously” strangled her children with exercise bands before attempting suicide — an act that left her paralyzed.
After visiting the Clancy family’s former home Friday morning during a view, jurors heard from two Duxbury police officers who testified that Clancy seemed to be “sedated and unconscious” in the hospital the night of Jan. 24, with several cuts to her arms and neck.
One of them, Officer Richard Lippard, told jurors Clancy experienced a life-threatening medical emergency known as a “code blue” while under his guard at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
“That kind of amped up the bedlam at that point, didn’t it?” defense attorney Kevin Reddington asked.
“Yes, sir,” Lippard replied.
“There were people running from all over and you could hear on the [overhead] microphone, ‘code blue,’ with the room being identified, right?” Reddington questioned. “And that meant that she was dead or dying, right?”
Lippard answered “yes” to both questions.
Separately, two doctors who treated Dawson and Callan Clancy at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Plymouth testified about their resuscitation efforts. Former emergency physician Dr. Mark Tenerowicz recalled that hospital staff worked on Dawson for about 40 minutes before realizing his heart would likely never restart. He said he declared the boy dead at about 7:28 p.m.
Emergency physician Dr. Benjamin Kaufman testified that hospital staff were able to regain a pulse for Callan and continued life-saving efforts as they prepared to transfer him to Boston Children’s Hospital.
“At no point did he exhibit any brain function,” Kaufman testified. Callan ultimately died days later at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Across the courtroom, Clancy covered her face as she wept during the doctors’ testimony.
Lindsay Clancy cries as medical witnesses describe their attempts to revive her children during her trial, in Plymouth Superior Court on Friday, July 31, 2026. Clancy is on trial for the murder of her three children in Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023. – Josh Reynolds for Daily Mail /Pool
Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between. She has been covering the Lindsay Clancy murder case since January 2023.
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