A former coworker of Lindsay Clancy is sharing the compassionate side of the woman she knew before the deaths of Clancy’s three young children. Meg Hamp, a labor and delivery nurse who worked alongside Clancy for years, recalled seeing her become emotional while helping mothers give birth at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Hamp said those memories made it difficult for her to comprehend what happened inside Clancy’s Duxbury home in January 2023. Her personal account, however, does not resolve the legal question that left jurors deadlocked: whether Clancy could be held criminally responsible for killing her children.
Hamp discussed her former colleague during an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s podcast focused on Clancy’s trial and postpartum mental illness.
“I often remember looking up after a baby was born, and Lindsay was my second nurse in the delivery, and just looking over at the mother and Lindsay with tears in her eyes because birth was just so emotional for her,” Hamp said. “She felt that for so many other women, not just her friends or her family.”
Hamp said she never observed signs that Clancy was struggling with a serious mental illness while they worked together. That does not establish when Clancy’s reported symptoms began or whether they would have been visible in a professional setting. It instead describes the version of Clancy that Hamp personally encountered at the hospital.
The Nurse Says Clancy ‘Lived For Her Children’
Hamp also recalled receiving a phone call from another colleague when news began emerging from Clancy’s home. “I had a phone call from a colleague. We weren’t 100% sure what had happened, but the address was hitting the news, and I knew her address, so I knew something had happened,” Hamp said.
She struggled to reconcile the emerging information with the mother she remembered. “She loved her children,” Hamp said. “She lived for her children, she did everything for them. She wanted all the parenting tips. It wasn’t possible in my mind that this was a person who could murder her three children.”
Clancy killed Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, inside the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home on January 24, 2023. She then jumped from a second-story window and was left paralyzed.
Clancy did not dispute causing her children’s deaths during her trial. Her defense instead argued that bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis left her unable to understand the wrongfulness of her actions. Prosecutors maintained that Clancy knew right from wrong and intentionally killed the children.
Lindsay Clancy Had Discussed The Andrea Yates Case
During the podcast, Winfrey asked Hamp about a conversation she previously had with Clancy concerning Andrea Yates. Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001. She was convicted of capital murder in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison, but that conviction was later overturned. A second jury found Yates not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006. She was subsequently committed to a state psychiatric facility.
Hamp explained that she mentioned the case to Clancy while they were caring for a patient experiencing mental health challenges. “We had a patient on the unit that was suffering from some mental-health challenges, and there was just a lot of questions around that, Lindsay being a new nurse, and there was another new nurse on the floor at that time, and I just asked [Clancy] if she had ever heard of the Andrea Yates case, and she said she hadn’t,” Hamp recalled.
Hamp believed Clancy may have been too young to remember the intense national attention surrounding the Yates case.
Her Coworker Says Mental Illness ‘Can Affect Anyone’
When Winfrey asked what Hamp would say to people who view Clancy as an evil person, the nurse emphasized that severe mental illness is not limited to people with a particular background or lifestyle. “I think mental health can affect anyone,” Hamp said. “It can affect the person who goes to their dream college, meets the man of their dreams, decides to have a family, buys a house, buys another house as their family grows.”
“It doesn’t matter where you are in life or how many boxes on your life’s bucket list you’re checking off as you go, it can impact anyone regardless of where you are in your life,” she continued. “And this has been very eye-opening that someone like Lindsay who was checking off those boxes on her life’s bucket list, that this could happen to her.”
Hamp’s recollections offered insight into Clancy’s behavior before her mental health reportedly deteriorated. However, testimony about Clancy being a loving mother did not automatically establish that she lacked criminal responsibility. Jurors were required to evaluate her mental state at the time of the killings under Massachusetts law.
Jurors Had Five Possible Verdicts
Following the weeks-long trial, jurors began deliberating on August 27. The verdict slip gave them five possible conclusions: not guilty, not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of second-degree murder, or guilty of manslaughter.
A finding of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility would not have meant Clancy was simply released. Such a verdict can lead to commitment at a secure mental health facility and continued judicial review.
Jurors deliberated for seven days and repeatedly informed Judge William Sullivan that they could not reach a unanimous decision. According to jurors who later spoke publicly, the panel was divided 11 to 1. They claimed the lone holdout would not join the other jurors in finding Clancy not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.
The holdout juror has not publicly provided his version of what occurred.
