Lindsay Clancy’s Coworker Reveals She Had an Emotional Reaction to Andrea Yates’ Harrowing Tragedy

Years before Lindsay Clancy was charged in the deaths of her three children, a coworker says she witnessed Lindsay become emotional while discussing another mother’s notorious case.

Lindsay, 36, is standing trial on three murder charges stemming from the January 2023 deaths of her children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. She has entered not-guilty pleas, while her attorneys contend that an undiagnosed case of postpartum psychosis left her severely mentally ill at the time. Prosecutors, meanwhile, allege Lindsay killed the children during a brief window when her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, had left their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home.

Margaret Hamp, who worked alongside Lindsay as a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, was the first defense witness to testify this week, according to a report the U.S. Sun, published on Monday, August 17. Hamp remembered Lindsay as a compassionate caregiver, telling the court, “She was the type of nurse you wanted taking care of you or your loved one.”

According to the report, during Lindsay’s first summer at the hospital, they treated a pregnant woman who was struggling with suicidal thoughts, which prompted the nurses to talk about mental health issues surrounding pregnancy and the postpartum period.

Hamp said the conversation turned to Andrea Yates, the Houston mother who drowned her five children, ages 6 months to 7 years old, in 2001. Lindsay became emotional when she heard about the case, Hamp recalled. “She cried and said, ‘how could a mother hurt her children,'” she testified, per the outlet.

More than two decades later, Yates’ case has a significant connection to the defense Lindsay’s attorneys are presenting at her own trial. Yates’ original murder conviction was overturned, per NBC News, and in 2006, a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Lindsay’s lawyers are similarly arguing that she should not be held criminally responsible for her children’s deaths because she was suffering from undiagnosed postpartum psychosis at the time.

Lindsay’s sister Allison Ozga also testified on Monday about the conversations the two shared. As Globe previously reported, Lindsay had confided in her sister that she’d been suicidal, revealing that by the end of December, she’d experienced suicidal thoughts every day for a month.

According to the U.S. Sun, Ozga told the court she hadn’t seen much of her sister in the months prior but knew something wasn’t right. She recalled Thanksgiving 2022, when Lindsay’s mood “did not look good, she didn’t seem very energized.”

“It definitely seemed off from how I’d seen her in the past,” Ozga said, per the outlet.

By early December, Ozga said her sister had “decompensated,” telling her she was in a “really tough spot.”

“She reported her mood was worsening, as she described it as depression, she was having more suicidal thoughts, insomnia continued to be an issue,” Ozga testified, per the report. “She was really not feeling like herself.”

As a social worker and mandated reporter, Ozga was trained to recognize potential warning signs. She told the court that “this gut feeling that something was off” prompted her to ask Lindsay directly whether she was safe. According to the outlet, Lindsay assured her that she was.

Ozga told the court that despite her concerns, she never believed Lindsay posed a threat to herself or her children, according to the report. She saw her sister again in early January at Cora’s birthday party, just two days after Lindsay left inpatient treatment at McLean Hospital. Ozga recalled that Lindsay still appeared exhausted and seemed to be functioning on autopilot.

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide or struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available 24 hours a day through the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.