Margaret Hamp has spoken out again about her former co-worker Lindsay Clancy, this time on Oprah Winfrey’s podcast.
Hamp, a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, testified as the defense’s first witness on August 17 at Plymouth Superior Court, weeks before Clancy’s trial ended in a mistrial when one juror refused to vote not guilty. The 45-year-old nurse from Massachusetts is accused of murdering her three children — Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months — at their home in January 2023.
On the stand, Hamp recalled a conversation she had with Clancy about Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children in 2001 and later had her conviction overturned by reason of insanity. The discussion began after a pregnant patient on their unit was planning to harm herself.
“I asked [Clancy] if she had ever heard of the Andrea Yates case and she hadn’t,” Hamp said in court. “I explained that to her and she cried, and she said: ‘How could a mother hurt her children?'”
Hamp returned to this moment during her September 10 appearance on Winfrey’s podcast. “We had a patient on the unit that was suffering from some mental-health challenges, and there was just a lot of question 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 told Winfrey. “It seems like such a big case in the maternal health world, but Lindsay was at that age where she probably hadn’t lived through that – I’m a little bit older than Lindsay.”
Hamp also described Clancy’s emotional presence during deliveries. “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.”
The podcast appearance marked Hamp’s second public account of learning about the murders. She had previously told the court about receiving 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.
Her disbelief persisted through the trial. “She loved her children,” Hamp added. “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.”
Hamp has maintained she is still “friendly” with Clancy despite the charges.
The former co-worker also used the podcast to reflect on broader lessons from the case. “I think mental health can affect anyone. 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,” Hamp shared. “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, 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.”
Clancy’s defense team argued her actions stemmed from severe bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis. Her mother, Paula Musgrove, testified that Clancy had revealed thoughts of harming the children in December 2022, with her husband Patrick present. Her sister, Allison Ozga, described her as suicidal during this period.
The timeline of Clancy’s final months showed escalating psychiatric involvement. After giving birth to Callan, she posted on social media about feeling “dialed in” through exercise and nutrition. But as her maternity leave ended, anxiety about returning to work mounted. She visited two psychiatrists, received a generalized anxiety disorder diagnosis, and was prescribed multiple psychiatric medications. In a phone note, she wrote: “I think I sort of resent my other children because they prevent me from treating Cal like my first baby. And I know that’s not fair to them. I know that. I was feeling so depressed last evening when Cora and Dawson came home from school, I know it runs off on them, so we had a pretty rough evening, I want to feel love and connection with all my kids.”
Clancy underwent evaluation at the Women and Infants Hospital Center for Women’s Behavioral Health but was not diagnosed with postpartum depression, according to prosecutors. Patrick Clancy told police she was having suicidal thoughts and thoughts of harming their children. She admitted herself to McLean Hospital for five days but was discharged when clinicians determined she posed no imminent danger.
On January 24, 2023, the day of the killings, Clancy appeared functional. She took Cora to a pediatrician appointment, played in the snow with Dawson, sent photos to Patrick and her mother, searched for children’s laxatives, and coordinated takeout from ThreeV restaurant in Plymouth. At 4:35 p.m., she texted Patrick about dinner. He left around 5:15 p.m. To pick up medication and food. When he returned at 6:09 p.m., he found silence, blood, and eventually Clancy outside with injuries that would leave her paralyzed below the waist. The children were in the basement. Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead at 7:28 p.m.; Callan died after being flown to another hospital.
Clancy later told Patrick in a call, monitored by a psychologist hired by her attorney, that she had experienced a “moment of psychosis” and heard “a man’s voice telling her to kill the kids and kill herself.” She pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder, and her attorney said she remained suicidal at her arraignment. Patrick asked the public for forgiveness, telling The New Yorker: “I wasn’t married to a monster – I was married to someone who got sick.” The couple also filed a civil lawsuit against medical providers for failing to properly diagnose and treat her postpartum psychiatric condition.
Clancy now faces the possibility of a retrial after the hung jury.