All the details Lindsay Clancy's Apple Watch revealed about her final hours before she killed her children
Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse and murder which some readers may find distressing
Apple Watch data that was presented to the court during Lindsay Clancy's trial shed some light on her final movements before killing her three children.
Clancy is facing three counts of first degree murder following the deaths of her children Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan.
She has pleaded not guilty to the charges, but has not denied killing her children. Instead, her defense team has argued that she cannot be held criminally responsible for their deaths because she was allegedly suffering with postpartum psychosis at the time.
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After allegedly killing her children, Clancy also tried to take her own life and has been left paralyzed from the waist down.
Closing arguments for the weeks-long trial will begin today (August 25), which will be followed by jury deliberations. And one big part of the trial was data taken from Clancy's Apple Watch in the hours leading up her children's deaths.
The smartwatch was found 'a number of days' after the death of Clancy's children, and was located in a drawer in her bedroom, her attorney said.
The final heart rate reading
The last heart rate reading taken on Clancy's wearable Apple device on January 24, 2023, was of 57 bpm at 5:23pm.
A normal resting pulse rate is anywhere between 60 to 100 bpm, making Clancy's reading lower than average.
No further heart rate readings were sent from the watch to the 36-year-old's phone after that.
The expert noted that just because there were no more readings after 5:23pm, it doesn't mean that Clancy stopped moving. The watch could have been removed, switched off, or ran out of battery.
Watch data vs phone data
Per evidence shared in court by digital forensics expert Ian Whiffin, who was called to testify by the prosecution, Clancy's phone continued recording data after her final heart rate measurement was taken at 5:23pm.
Between 5:33pm and 5:38pm, her phone recorded Clancy climbing up two flights of stairs. However, these timestamps may not indicate the exact time she walked up the stairs, but when Clancy's iPhone recognized the elevation change.
Clancy's defense attorney Kevin Reddington pointed out that the data can be 'off a bit', NBC Boston reported. The heart rate reading was from his client's Apple Watch, while her steps were recorded on her iPhone.
"After 5:38, it's pretty much blackout," Reddington went on.
Reddington also pointed out that data was recorded on January 25 while Clancy was in a coma.
Whiffin theorized this data could have been produced either by the smart watch or the phone, with the movement being produced when investigators were handling the phone.
Why it matters
Prosecutors have argued that Clancy's attack on her children was premeditated – something which her cellphone and Apple Watch data could back up.
If the data is accurate, it would mean that Clancy killed her children shortly after her now-ex husband Patrick Clancy left the house - which would be a possible indication of premeditation.
Witnesses who have testified at Lindsay Clancy’s trial
Patrick Clancy
After the jury heard the opening statements on 27 July, Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, was the first person to take to the stand.
Patrick testified that Clancy struggled after the birth of their third child, Callan, and that in the months before the January 2023 killings, she told him she was having thoughts of suicide and of harming their children.
He claimed that December 2022 ‘was really where her big spiral started’.
After Clancy spent some time in a locked-ward facility, Patrick said he was ‘hopeful' as ‘she seemed much better’.
He later recalled the day of the killings, testifying that Clancy initially ‘seemed in a good mood’ and ‘was having one of her best days’. But on returning home to find his children dead, he said he ‘saw blood everywhere’.
Around a week later, Clancy called her then-husband from hospital.
“She didn’t talk about our kids, she talked about what she went through,” he testified. “She said she heard a man’s voice telling her that if she didn’t do it now, she would lose her chance - or something like that.”
Elaine Rossi, former nanny
Elaine Rossi, who worked as the Clancy family's nanny from September to December 2022, testified that Clancy was a ‘wonderful mom who loved her kids’.
“She was concerned about their safety, and Callan eating and sleeping. She was a wonderful mother,” she told the court.
Rossi recalled seeing prescription medicine bottles in the house, and that Clancy ‘shared with me she had postpartum and couldn't sleep’.
The nanny also testified that she noticed the mom had lost a significant amount of weight, but she said she never feared for the children's safety.
Timothy Chiappini, state trooper
Timothy Chiappini was tasked with doing a forensic analysis of Clancy's cellphone, testifying that she searched 'can you treat a sociopath' days before her children were killed.
The former detective also read out entries from her notes app.
I'm sad and depressed because I am not able to parent my third child like my first,” one excerpt, dated October 25, 2022, read in part.
Jennifer Tufts, psychiatrist
Tufts, who first began treating Clancy in September 2022, testified that the mom had ‘denied having suicidal thoughts but felt that she was getting close to it’ in December 2022.
Clancy’s defence attorney asked Tufts: “Would it surprise you to know that she called a suicide hotline in that timeframe, not once but twice, and was turned away?”
She replied: “It does surprise me, yes. It surprises me that she called them twice.”
When asked if Tufts had ever asked Clancy about calling the suicide hotlines, the psychiatrist said she didn’t think she had ‘specifically asked that’.
Clancy had more than a dozen sessions, which took place over an online video link, with Tufts. Their final appointment was on January 23, 2023 - the day before the killings, the court heard.
Paula Musgrove, Clancy’s mother
Paula Musgrove described her daughter as a loving and devoted mom whose mental health began to decline in October 2022.
The jury was shown a text from Clancy to her mother from that time; it read: “Mom, will you please come up and stay with me for a bit? I'm really sick. Something is wrong.
“I had horrible insomnia all night, and I just don't know how I am going to get through the day... I started taking the medicine my doctor prescribed for anxiety and I think it's made things worse. It's just really scary and I don't want to be alone.”
Musgrove told the court about a conversation she had with Clancy and her then-husband, Patrick, in December 2022.
“She told us she had thoughts of harming the children,” she said.
Musgrove testified that Clancy grew increasingly fearful of sleeping alone, suffered from insomnia, and became convinced that the numerous psychiatric medications she was being prescribed were ‘destroying her mind’.
Allison Ozga, Clancy’s sister
Ozga testified that when she saw her sister during Thanksgiving in 2022, her ‘mood did not look good’ and she ‘didn’t seem very energised’.
Clancy told Ozga that she was experiencing suicidal thoughts every day for a month before the killings, her sister said.
She told the court: “I had this gut feeling that something was off and that she was really struggling, and I asked her if she was safe. She said ‘yes’ at that point.”
Ozga also said she had concerns when she saw Clancy at Cora's birthday in January 2023.
She testified: “I think she looked like she was going through the motions of putting together a birthday party for her daughter. But she looked tired. She looked like she was still struggling.”
Christopher Clancy, Patrick’s father
Clancy’s former father-in-law, Christopher Clancy, testified that she was ‘very mothering’ and protective ‘like any mother would be’.
On how she appeared in December 2022, he told the court: “She was very, very good. She fed them great. She did a lot of things with them …like the all-American family.”
Christopher testified that he ‘knew she [Clancy] was having a hard time sleeping’, adding: “I knew she didn’t feel well … I knew she went to the emergency room where my wife was working.”
When the prosecutor asked Christopher about receiving a call from Patrick on the night of the killings, he said: “It was terrible.”
Susan Clancy, Patrick’s mother
Susan Clancy testified that her former daughter-in-law was a ‘very nurturing, very loving’ and ‘a wonderful mother’ who was ‘begging for help’.
“She had insomnia. She was losing her appetite,” she said.
“She was very anxious and sad.”
When asked by the defence if Clancy had been ‘interested at all times in trying to get better and see doctors’, Susan responded: “Very much so.”
Margaret Hamp, Clancy’s former co-worker
Margaret Hamp, who worked with Clancy at the Massachusetts General Hospital, recalled a conversation they had about Andrea Yates, a woman who confessed to drowning her five children in the bath in 2001.
Hamp told the court: “I asked [Clancy] if she had ever heard of the Andrea Yates case and she hadn't.
“I explained that to her and she cried, and she said: 'How could a mother hurt her children?'”
Hamp testified that Clancy ‘loved being a nurse’, adding: “She was compassionate. She was kind. She was a patient advocate.”
Topics: Lindsay Clancy, Crime, US News, Court, Apple
Niamh Shackleton