LINDSAY Clancy’s neighbors and residents close to where she strangled her three young children to death believe meds turned the depressed mom into a ‘zombie’ and feel she should be sent to a psychiatric hospital.
Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility to which shook the town of Duxbury, Mᴀssachusetts.
The since Thursday afternoon following a five-week blockbuster trial in which her mental state at the time of the killings has been at the heart of the case.
The U.S. Sun has been reporting from the trial at Plymouth Superior Court, where jurors heard weeks of emotional testimony about Clancy’s deteriorating mental health and the she had been prescribed.
She strangled her children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, with exercise bands and left them in the basement before throwing herself out of a bedroom window.
Prosecutors have that argued Clancy, who is now paralyzed, knew what she was doing when she carried out the murders on January 24, 2023.
Her defense, led by , has argued she was suffering from severe mental illness and was hearing voices.
The closely watched trial has divided opinion, but residents who spoke to The U.S. Sun near the family’s home said they believe Clancy needs psychiatric treatment and not be sent to prison.
Local resident Eric McDonald spoke to The U.S. Sun outside the Kingsbury Club & Spa, minutes from the Clancy home, where Lindsay and ex-husband Patrick regularly took their children.
The kids were last at the club on January 17, 2023 – just one week before they were killed.
Eric said, “I think she should be insтιтutionalized at a mental health facility and where she could get help she needs.
“She’s not going to get that in prison. She’s just going to get worse.
“It’s heartbreaking for the family. I can’t even imagine. And for her. I mean, she seems genuinely touched and upset.
“I’m sure the reality of it has had a chance to sink in by now. And I think that she’s a sad figure.
“I hope she goes to a mental insтιтution because I think she has some serious issues, but allegedly she’s had them for a while and they were not being treated properly.
“I won’t say mistreated but not being treated properly. They just threw meds at her and hoped it would help and, you know, turn her into a zombie.”
Ruth Hearson, 81, lives opposite the Clancy family’s former Duxbury home, a large, traditional New England-style property set back from the road and surrounded by trees.
She was home when the murders happened between 5pm and 6pm and saw police arrive but only found out the heartbreaking circumstances days later.
Ruth told The U.S. Sun, “She obviously wasn’t in her right mind. That’s what I think.
“No one in their right mind kills their babies and jumps out a window on the second floor, thinks they’re gonna kill themselves.”
Asked how she feels about Clancy now facing life behind bars for murder, she said, “I feel bad. When you’re like that, you’re not guilty. Because it wasn’t you doing it.
“If you’re in a psycH๏τic state, that’s what’s in control of you. Not your regular mind. Sorry, it isn’t.
“And she had all those drugs in her, that’s what was controlling her. I really believe that.”
Ruth believes Clancy should be treated in a hospital rather than sent to prison.
Clancy could receive psychiatric treatment even if convicted, but would remain under a criminal sentence.
If found not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility, she could be committed to a hospital without receiving a prison sentence.
“She would get the care she needed,” Ruth said. “In the prison, you don’t really, especially in a wheelchair.
“She’s in her own living hell. I’m sorry. So putting her in prison… she’s already in her own prison.”
Ruth added, “I’m heartbroken for her because she doesn’t have her babies.”
Mark Shortt lives two doors down from Clancy’s old home, which sold in 2024, and believes she was let down by medical professionals.
Separate over Clancy’s medical care are also ongoing, with both Lindsay and Patrick are suing medical providers who treated her before the killings.
The suits allege failures in her psychiatric diagnosis, treatment and medication management contributed to the deaths of Cora, Dawson and Callan.
The providers have denied wrongdoing.
The defense argued and believed a voice had commanded her to kill the children, while prosecutors pointed to evidence they say showed planning and awareness, including sending Patrick out to pick up medication and takeout before the killings.
Neighbor Mark, 62, told The U.S. Sun, “People get prescribed a lot of medication in the United States.
“I can’t say that medically what happened as far as how they treated or mistreated or maltreated her. But I will say that whatever they did, it didn’t work.
“So was she let down? I’d have to say, yeah, well, certainly her three kids were.
“There’s nothing good that’s going to come out of it for her. She’s in [a] prison anyway.”
The mom-of-three was prescribed 13 different psychiatric drugs in the four months before the killings, including antidepressants Prozac and Zoloft, anti-anxiety drugs Valium, Klonopin and Ativan, antipsycH๏τics Seroquel and Thorazine, and sleep aid Ambien.
Jurors heard Clancy herself had repeatedly complained about the impact of the medications, telling providers she felt “completely numb” and reporting intrusive thoughts she had never experienced before.
She also told a friend she felt “like a zombie,” while a note on her phone last modified the day before the killings said medication had “stole[n] me from my own body.”
Valerie Franks, who lives in Duxbury part time, told The U.S. Sun she was stunned by the number of medications prescribed to Clancy.
Valerie said, “Why aren’t these doctors talking to each other? Why aren’t they looking at the records? Why are they just dishing out all of these [anti] psycH๏τics? I listened a little bit to the doctors [in the trial].
“How can one person be sane with all that going into their body?”
Asked if she thinks she should be sent to prison, Valerie said, “Personally, I think she’ll be better off in a hospital.”
But she believes no matter where she ends up, she is in her own self-imposed prison.
“She’s going to be a mental wreck anywhere she goes, whether she’s in a hospital or whether she’s in a prison, she’ll never be the same. Look at her. Look at her body. Look at her mind. She’ll never be the same.
“I wish the best for her. How can you be a sane woman when you’ve killed your three children and hurt yourself to the point where you’re crippled?”
💔 STELLA PARTON BREAKS HER SILENCE — What She Said About Dolly’s Health Has Fans Looking Back
Dolly Parton’s Sister Breaks Silence What Really Happened - GMT - G1
Stella Parton was born May 4, 1949, the sixth of twelve children raised by Robert Lee and Avie Lee Parton in Sevierville, Tennessee — a household defined by noise, limited money, and almost no privacy, the kind of environment that produced strong, determined personalities.
Stella was one of them.
By seven, she was appearing alongside her older sister Dolly on a Knoxville television program; by her teens, she was writing her own songs, though marriage and motherhood pulled music to the margins of her life for a stretch.
The dream never fully disappeared.
In 1967, she recorded a gospel album with her mother and sisters, and later worked clubs in Washington, D.C., before founding her own record label in 1975 and releasing “I Want to Hold You in My Dreams Tonight,” which climbed to number nine on the country charts.
Long before any of that commercial success, Stella had already shown a willingness to take positions others avoided.
At 26, amid backlash against Australian singer Olivia Newton-John for winning recognition in country music, Stella recorded “Ode to Olivia” in her defense — a stand that offered her no career benefit and real risk of criticism, but one she took anyway simply because she believed staying silent was the wrong choice.
That instinct defined the rest of her career: hits like “The Danger of a Stranger” and “Steady as the Rain” (written by Dolly) built a genuine, independent following, including in the U.K., while Stella also worked in New York theater and spoke openly, often controversially, about poverty, domestic violence, and the treatment of women in the music industry.
She was named the Christian Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 2004.
Through all of it, she remained defined publicly, more often than not, as simply “Dolly’s little sister” — a label she spent five decades quietly proving didn’t tell the full story.
That same directness is why her comments in the fall of 2025 carried real weight.
Stella had never positioned herself as the family’s image manager or spokesperson; she was, by reputation, someone who believed difficult truths shouldn’t stay hidden indefinitely.
What she described wasn’t dramatic or accusatory — it was a portrait of a woman who had spent years prioritizing everyone else’s needs over her own.
The context mattered.
Carl Dean, Dolly’s husband of nearly sixty years, died in March 2025 at 82, after a long illness during which Dolly had devoted herself almost entirely to his care.
She later acknowledged that in the process, she’d neglected her own health significantly.
The loss reverberated through the whole extended family — the Partons had lost three brothers in the years surrounding this period, compounding grief that, for a family that had once crowded twelve children into a single small home, meant losing pieces of a shared childhood one after another.
Stella herself went seven years without releasing new music during this stretch, later describing the period simply as one shaped by sorrow, while still speaking about the importance of finding moments of laughter within it.
Looking back, one moment reads very differently in hindsight than it did at the time: in late September 2025, Dolly postponed her planned Las Vegas residency, citing health challenges — a rare cancellation for a performer whose six-decade career had included very few of them.
At the time, most fans treated it as a minor, temporary setback.
Stella’s later reflections suggested the signs had actually been building for some time, visible to family in ways the public smile made easy to miss.
That concern crystallized publicly not long after, when Dolly’s younger sister Frieda posted a simple request on Facebook asking fans to pray for Dolly.
What looked at first like an ordinary, well-meaning gesture spread rapidly, sparking widespread speculation about how serious Dolly’s condition actually was.
Dolly herself responded directly within days, appearing in a video from a Grand Ole Opry commercial shoot, insisting with her familiar humor that she wasn’t finished yet — the now widely remembered “I ain’t dead yet” moment that briefly quieted public concern.
In the months that followed, the pattern repeated: reassuring updates about kidney stones, dehydration, and treatment, paired with continued work on new projects, right up until Dolly Parton’s death on August 25, 2026, at 80.
Looking back across that full timeline — the postponed residency, the family’s public worry, Stella’s own account of a sister who consistently deprioritized her own wellbeing — it becomes easier to see what the people closest to Dolly understood well before the rest of the world did: that the warmth and resilience the public saw every time she appeared on camera came at a real, largely invisible cost.
