By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-08-07 02:57:24 | Updated at 2026-08-07 04:30:44
1 hour ago
The gut-wrenching images flashed up on two screens in front of the 18 men and women handpicked to decide Lindsay Clancy’s fate.
Within moments, the emotion inside the courtroom shifted.
Two female jurors quietly brushed tears from their faces. Clancy’s mother Paula Musgrove dabbed a tissue to her eyes while her father Mike grew visibly flushed.
Clancy broke down uncontrollably from her wheelchair at the defense table. Placing her head in her hands, her body shuddered as she loudly erupted in guttural wails and cries.
The photos from eight-month-old Callan’s autopsy were shown to the jury on small screens and not displayed to the courtroom at large.
But from my seat on the far side of the public gallery, I could still make out the images of the little baby.
Even from that distance, without seeing every detail, the sight was deeply distressing and impossible to forget.
They were made even more devastating by what the courtroom had seen just one day earlier: videos of a happy, healthy baby who appeared full of life before the murders.
Callan Clancy, the eight-month-old son of Lindsay and Patrick Clancy, seen in an evidence photo
Clancy broke down in court on Thursday as photos of Callan's autopsy were shown to the jury
When the clip played of the adorable baby drinking milk from a bottle on Wednesday, an affectionate 'awww' was heard inside the room.
Less than 24 hours later, the same courtroom fell silent as images from his autopsy reduced people to tears.
It was day eight of Clancy’s high-profile trial where she is charged with the murders of her three children Cora, five, Dawson, three and Callan, on January 24, 2023.
Jurors will likely be forced to confront photos of the other two children's injuries as the trial continues.
After strangling the three children inside their Duxbury home, Clancy cut her wrists and neck and jumped from her second-floor window in an apparent suicide attempt.
She survived but remains wheelchair-bound, a constant reminder throughout the trial of the events that unfolded inside the family's home.
While prosecutors allege she planned and premeditated the murders of her children, the defense argues she was in the throes of severe postpartum depression and psychosis.
She has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
On Thursday, medical examiner Dr Kimberley Springer testified about performing Callan’s autopsy on January 29, 2023.
She described finding abrasions on the infant’s neck and hemorrhages on his face and beneath the skin.
Like his brother and sister, Callan had been strangled with an exercise band.
Clancy put her head in her hands and sobbed loudly and uncontrollably before a recess was called
One day earlier, jurors saw this adorable video of Callan happily drinking milk from a bottle
But unlike his siblings, Callan was briefly resuscitated before doctors removed him from life support three days later. Because of that, his official cause of death was ruled as complications of mechanical asphyxia.
While Clancy was not confronted with the autopsy photos herself, the sheer thought of them and the details of the injuries she inflicted on her youngest child was enough to cause her to break down.
Throughout the trial, Clancy has repeatedly wept while hearing testimony about her three young children and their injuries.
But only twice has that grief spilled into uncontrollable sobbing. This was one of them.
The other came when jurors listened to the harrowing 911 call from the night Patrick Clancy discovered his three children dead in the basement.
Both the 911 recording and the autopsy photographs have been barred from public release after Patrick successfully argued they would cause him serious emotional harm if made public.
Inside the courtroom, however, jurors have been forced to confront both.
Christopher Clancy, Patrick Clancy’s father, told the jury about the last time he saw his grandchildren in Christmas 2022
While complex mental health and postpartum issues sit at the heart of the trial, prosecutors have made clear they will not allow the horror of what happened inside that home to fade into the background: that three small children were strangled to death at the hands of their mother.
After the autopsy photos were presented, Judge William Sullivan immediately called recess, giving everyone in the courtroom time to compose themselves.
As Clancy's nurses pushed her wheelchair through the courtroom doors, her loud sobs and gasps continued to echo back into the room long after she was gone.
Later that day, a more composed, calm Clancy found herself reunited face-to-face with her former father-in-law, Patrick’s father Christopher Clancy.
Shifting uncomfortably in his chair at the witness stand, the doting grandfather appeared to find the questioning and the eyes trained on him from across the courtroom difficult.
Christopher testified that Clancy was always 'very mothering' and 'very protective' of her children, something he said to him was ‘normal of any mother.’
In the lead-up to the killings, he and Patrick’s mom Sue were aware that Clancy had been struggling with her mental health.
There were times when he noticed she had a ‘blankness’ to her, was ‘staring off into the distance’ and was ‘not interacting.’
He knew that she was having a hard time sleeping and ‘didn't feel well’ and his son confided in him that he was ‘very concerned’ about his wife.
Then came one of the day's most heartbreaking moments as Christopher described how differently the tragic evening might have unfolded.
The three-bedroom home in the wealthy suburb of Duxbury that was once home to the Clancy family
Christopher revealed that his son and daughter-in-law had invited him and Sue over for dinner that night.
But the grandparents already had plans, so couldn't go.
He recalled instead getting a devastating call from his son after he had found his children dead.
‘It was terrible,’ Christopher said, stoically holding his emotions together.
Christopher was also asked about his daughter-in-law’s demeanor in the lead-up to that day.
When asked about how she seemed on Thanksgiving 2022, around two months earlier, Christopher paused and thought for a moment before saying: ‘She seemed quiet.’
That day, Clancy was a ‘little frustrated’ with Dawson because he was ‘being a little bit silly.’ But to him, her handling of his behavior was normal.
Christopher last saw his grandchildren on Christmas Day 2022. Clancy was quiet again that day but seemed ‘good.’
Patrick, Lindsay, Cora, Dawson and Callan pictured together. Patrick's father described them as 'the all-American family'
‘She looked beautiful,’ he added.
Despite divorcing Clancy, moving to New York City and remarrying, Patrick has publicly forgiven his wife.
When he testified last week, he painted a picture of a devoted mother whose mental health was rapidly unraveling.
That memory of Clancy was echoed by his father, who described his daughter-in-law as a ‘very good’ mother who he had been very close to.
To him, the life Patrick and Clancy once led was that of the classic ‘all-American family.’
Clancy watched her former father-in-law attentively and calmly as he left the courtroom.
Christopher did not return her gaze. He never appeared to look toward the woman who both brought his grandchildren into the world and took them from it.
Nor did he appear to look toward the Musgroves, sitting equally heartbroken in the public gallery.
Two families once bound together by three young children. Now forever divided by the day they lost them.
