EDITOR’S NOTE: This article contains graphic descriptions of child killings, suicidal ideation, and an attempt to die by suicide.
Dawson Clancy, an energetic toddler who loved trucks and firefighters, dressed himself for the first – and last – time the morning of January 24, 2023. In a photo captured by his father, Dawson leaps towards the camera wearing his chosen outfit, with his arms above his head and a grin spread across his face.
That evening, when Patrick Clancy returned from running errands to his family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home, he found Dawson and his two other children lying motionless in the basement, each with an exercise resistance band around their neck.
“I knew he was gone,” Patrick said of his middle child Monday, when he was called to testify as the first witness in the triple-murder trial of his ex-wife, Lindsay Clancy.
Lindsay Clancy, 35, does not deny she fatally strangled her children: Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and 8-month-old Callan.
