Susan Clancy

Susan Clancy testified for the defense on Day 15 about Lindsay Clancy's reported distress and efforts to obtain treatment. Lindsay's mother-in-law and a registered nurse with about 38 years of labor-and-delivery experience, Susan described Lindsay as a loving mother. She recalled Lindsay reporting insomnia, appetite loss, anxiety and sadness in November 2022, and described contacting colleagues involved in postpartum care. Her testimony supplied family observations rather than a diagnosis or an opinion on criminal responsibility. After she identified their text messages, the court admitted the extraction report as Exhibit 279 over the Commonwealth's cumulative-effects objection.

On cross-examination, Shanan Buckingham questioned Susan about medication advice, childcare arrangements, reported improvement at Thanksgiving and later family activities. Susan said she had repeated a doctor's trazodone instructions but did not know Lindsay had increased the dose. She rejected the suggestion that Lindsay refused overnight childcare at Susan's home, explaining that the family jointly decided the children should remain in their own beds with family assistance. She acknowledged that she had not attended the treatment meetings under discussion or known what Lindsay told providers.

Access to treatment became the focus of redirect and recross. Answering Kevin Reddington's leading questions, Susan agreed that the Women and Infants program in Rhode Island turned Lindsay away because of overmedication, supplied suicide hotline numbers and turned her away again after two calls. On recross, Susan clarified that she did not remember the visit's details, had not reviewed the records and recalled Patrick and Lindsay telling her that Lindsay was not a candidate. Buckingham's explanations of eligibility and alternative services remained counsel's assertions, not substantive confirmations by Susan.

On further redirect, Susan agreed that outpatient management could include someone like Rebecca Jollotta, but did not know whether the program had called Jollotta without receiving a return call. The Commonwealth declined further questioning, and the judge excused her. During cross-examination, the judge had also instructed jurors not to consider a question about murder as a mortal sin after the defense objected.