Three years to the day earlier than Lindsay Clancy killed her three kids and tried to kill herself, one other nurse slaughtered her personal three children in an eerily comparable case in Eire.
Diedre Morley, a 44-year-old pediatric nurse in Dublin, smothered her three kids to loss of life with duct tape and plastic baggage after which unsuccessfully tried to kill herself on Jan. 24, 2020.
That very same day in 2023, Clancy, a labor and supply nurse, strangled her three kids earlier than swallowing tablets, reducing her wrists and neck, and leaping from a second-story window of her Massachusetts dwelling in a failed suicide.
Morley was affected by bipolar dysfunction, in response to a psychiatrist who testified for the protection at her 2021 trial — a prognosis Clancy, 36, additionally at one level obtained.
“Lots of people on-line are evaluating the 2 circumstances and other people have made feedback about Deirdre, the children and me,” Morley’s estranged husband, Andrew McGinley, advised the Irish Mirror in a latest interview. “They’re typically simply doing it simply to be controversial and get a handful of likes.”
McGinley stated he empathized with each Lindsay and Patrick Clancy.
“I empathize with them each in that persons are selecting sides. That’s what occurred in our case,” he added. “Individuals are speculating and posting lies on-line. It’s simply not proper. The details are the details.”
On-line conspiracists have even made wild leaps to tie Patrick Clancy to the Morley case.
“I can’t get previous the similarities, apart from the husband. The husband right here struggled hardcore with the loss,” one lady on Fb stated of the Irish case. “However is it attainable Pat seen this story and tried to recreate it?”
Patrick Clancy’s lawyer Howard Cooper has lashed out on the “escalating marketing campaign of misinformation” being waged by unhinged influencers and attention-seeking “minor celebrities,” telling Boston 25 Information, “This marketing campaign, now fueled by insatiable media protection, stays at a fever pitch and has resulted in real-life threats to his fame, livelihood, and life … Sufficient is sufficient — this unfold of blatant and baseless falsehoods should cease.”
The end result of Morley’s case was drastically completely different than Clancy’s — the Dublin nurse was discovered not responsible by cause of madness by a jury of 10 males and two girls after 4 and a half hours of deliberation.
The Irish mom killed her kids as a result of she thought she had “irreparably broken” them and “needed to put an finish to their struggling.”
“They have been damaged like me as a result of I couldn’t mum or dad them. I couldn’t be resilient,” she advised police. “The sentiments intensified that I wanted to go.”
Morley had been having ideas of killing her kids for 3 or 4 days, she advised a psychiatrist. The night time earlier than, on Jan. 23, 2020, Morley crushed greater than six morphine tablets into the boys’ cereal in an try and kill them, however was “relieved” after they spat out the poisoned meals.
The subsequent day, nonetheless, “one thing clicked” when she was along with her son, Darragh, and regarded on the clock noon. “I might do it now … I might smother him now,” Morley advised police she had thought earlier than finishing up the unspeakable bloodbath, the Irish Occasions reported.
Like Clancy, Morley had two boys and a woman — Conor, 9, Darragh, 7, and Carla, 3 — whose first names even shared the identical initials as Clancy’s kids: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months.
Morley put thick brown tape over her 7-year-old’s mouth, a bag over his head and a cushion on prime of the bag. After killing him, she stated she felt she “couldn’t depart any of them behind” and did the identical to her 3-year-old daughter– even holding the little woman’s nostril when she realized she was nonetheless respiration.
After killing Darragh and Carla, Morley picked up her oldest little one from faculty at lunch and steered taking part in a recreation the place they put tape over his mouth to see if he might speak. “Cease, mammy,” her 9-year-old son stated as she twisted a plastic bag over his head.
“I’m sorry, Conor,” she stated she advised her son, noting she didn’t really feel she might cease herself.
After killing the kids, she packed tablets and wine and left dwelling after 4 p.m. with the intention to kill herself earlier than her husband returned from a piece journey. However she crashed her automotive, and somebody drove by and took her dwelling.
Morley– who struggled with melancholy for a few decade by the point of the killings and had spent at the least a 12 months attempting to get psychiatric assist, filed a lawsuit towards her health-care supplier — like Clancy. The Irish swimsuit continues to be pending, in response to courtroom data reviewed by The Submit.
Morley continues to be at Dublin’s Central Psychological Hospital, although she was granted day depart privileges from the power in early 2025, The Irish Occasions reported.
Morley’s husband, Andrew McGinley, 58, stated there have been instances when he wished to “liquidate” all the things and transfer to the Caribbean to work in a “seashore bar,” in an Irish podcast final 12 months, however that “I don’t assume I might dwell with myself if I didn’t try to make modifications that might assist shield kids sooner or later.”
“As a girl that I beloved up till the twenty fourth of January, 2020, I now hate the truth that I’ve to breathe the
similar air as her. That’s not a pleasant factor to say, however that’s how I’ve been left feeling,” he advised the Irish Occasions.
McGinley didn’t return The Submit’s request for remark.
The Plymouth County District Lawyer’s Workplace, which tried the Clancy case, didn’t return The Submit’s questions whether or not this might have been a copycat crime — or only a coincidence. Clancy’s web search historical past introduced at trial didn’t reveal searches for the Morley case.
