An attorney representing a Massachusetts woman accused of killing her two children compared his client’s case to the Lindsay Clancy trial following a probable cause hearing.
Lawyer Joseph Krowski Jr. asked a judge on Thursday, September 10, to dismiss Janette MacAusland’s case or allow her release on bail, according to CBS News.
Janette MacAusland, 49, allegedly killed her son, Kai, 7, and daughter, Ella, 6, by strangling them at her Wellesley home in April, when she also tried to die by suicide, the outlet reported. She faces first-degree murder charges in their deaths.
Following the killings, MacAusland traveled to her aunt’s home in Vermont and allegedly admitted to what happened, telling her, “I wanted the three of us to go to God together, but it didn’t work,” according to investigators.
Krowski the high-profile Clancy trial could impact MacAusland’s case while acknowledging differences between his client and Clancy.
“This is not Lindsay Clancy 2.0. Janette MacAusland is her own woman, but there’s been a discussion, a discourse that’s opened up in this country about whether or not we want to criminalize mental illness,” Krowski said, per NBC10 Boston.
His comments come nearly a week after a Massachusetts judge declared a mistrial in Clancy’s case after jurors couldn’t unanimously agree on whether the defendant was criminally responsible for killing her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in January 2023. Her defense team has argued she wasn’t criminally responsible due to her history of postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis and other mental health conditions.
All but one of the 12 jurors had decided they were going to find Clancy not guilty before the mistrial was declared on September 4.
Following the Clancy mistrial, Krowski said in reference to his client’s case, “I’m hoping that this district attorney’s office, and the new district attorney-elect, takes a look at this, and takes a different approach in how we prosecute women suffering from profound mental health problems,” The Boston Globe reported.
MacAusland and the father of her two children were getting divorced when she allegedly killed her daughter and son, according to the newspaper.
“This is not a postpartum situation, right? The children are older,” Krowski said of his client’s case, per CBS News. “Until I get all of the information, I’m not prepared to say anything about any potential defenses, but everything is on the table.”
Krowski has called on the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office to reconsider the charges against MacAusland.
At Thursday’s probable cause hearing, a judge turned down the lawyer’s request to dismiss the case or allow bail to be set, the outlet reported.
A medical examiner is still working to officially determine how MacAusland’s children died, resulting in delays in the case.
Her hearing was continued to October 29.
