A HAIR bow has put an unexpected spotlight on the two veteran prosecutors trying to prove Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three children.
Assistant District Attorneys Jennifer Sprague and Shanan Buckingham have spent five weeks presenting the Commonwealth’s case against the 36-year-old mom.
Assistant District Attorneys Jennifer Sprague, left, and Shanan Buckingham, right, have been involved in Lindsay Clancy’s case Credit: Reuters
Buckingham has been seen wearing a bow in her hair every day of the trial Credit: Reuters
At Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts, the pair have questioned dozens of witnesses, handled disturbing evidence and challenged Clancy’s claim that postpartum psychosis robbed her of the ability to know right from wrong.
But Buckingham has also attracted attention for something far removed from the legal argument, the large bow she has repeatedly worn in her hair.
Sign up for The Jattvibe newsletter
Thank you!
The accessory immediately stood out after Buckingham used her opening statement to describe five-year-old Cora Clancy’s personality.
“Cora had just turned five. She was sweet, silly smart. She loved sparkly dresses and wearing bows in her hair,” Buckingham told jurors.
She was later seen questioning witnesses with different bows in her own hair, including a black one and a large white one.
The choice was was quickly interpreted by some court watchers as a quiet tribute to Cora.
But Buckingham has never publicly said the bows were intended to honor Cora, and another lawyer says the prosecutor wore similar accessories long before Clancy’s trial.
Massachusetts public defender Craig Tavares, who has previously faced Buckingham in court, told CT Insider, “My recollection always in a bow or scrunchy.”
He said her appearance during the blockbuster trial was consistent with how he remembered her dressing in other cases.
Still, the coincidence has generated debate because Buckingham specifically drew jurors’ attention to Cora’s love of bows before appearing in them throughout the proceedings.
Some people online have accused the prosecutors of trying to create an emotional visual reminder of the child.
University of Connecticut law professor Todd Fernow told CT Insider even an unintended choice could raise questions if jurors viewed it as carrying meaning, although he did not believe the accessory alone was likely to become a major legal issue.
The bow debate has placed additional attention on Buckingham, who has spent more than a decade prosecuting cases in Plymouth County.
She joined Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office in 2011 and is chief of its Family Protection Unit, according to her professional profile.
Sprague pictured giving her closing arguments to the jury on August 27 Credit: AP
Buckingham pictured in the Plymouth Superior Court on August 11 Credit: AP
Lindsay has not denied killing her three children and seeks an insanity defense Credit: AP
Patrick Clancy, Lindsay’s then-husband, found Cora, Callan and Dawson in the basement of their Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023 Credit: Handout
Buckingham graduated from Stonehill College with a political science degree in 2003 before earning her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law in 2011.
She was admitted to the Massachusetts bar that November.
Her work has extended beyond individual criminal prosecutions.
A Massachusetts child-fatality review report listed Buckingham as the team leader for Plymouth County, alongside District Attorney Timothy Cruz.
Sprague, meanwhile, brings more than two decades of experience to the Clancy prosecution.
She has worked for Plymouth County DA’s office since December 2003 and says she has tried 28 homicide cases.
Her experience also includes more than 40 Superior Court trials involving sexual assault, guns, drugs and domestic violence, along with hundreds of district court cases.
Sprague graduated from Bridgewater State University with a political science degree in 1999.
She received her law degree from New England Law Boston in 2003 and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar that December.
Sprague has also been tapped for work involving sexual and domestic violence outside the Plymouth County courthouse.
In 2023, she was among the members sworn into Massachusetts’ Governor’s Council to Address Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking.
And the Clancy case is far from the first major prosecution Sprague and Buckingham have handled together.
Just months before Clancy’s trial, the pair prosecuted Michael Hand in the notorious 1986 murder of 15-year-old Tracy Gilpin.
Gilpin disappeared from Kingston, Massachusetts, before her body was found in Myles Standish State Forest.
Hand was arrested more than three decades later after investigators reopened the cold case.
He was sentenced to life in prison in March 2026, with the Plymouth County DA’s office crediting Sprague and Buckingham as the prosecutors on the case.
They also have previously worked together on other serious prosecutions, including a Brockton manslaughter case stemming from the 2017 death of a 64-year-old man.
Their roles in the Clancy trial have again put them at the center of one of Massachusetts’ most closely watched criminal cases.
Buckingham delivered the prosecution’s opening statement on July 27, painting Clancy’s actions as deliberate rather than the product of a psychotic break.
Sprague took the lead for the Commonwealth’s closing argument a month later.
She told jurors that Clancy’s documented mental-health struggles were not themselves enough to make her legally not responsible for the killings.
“This case is not about our mental health system or how it treats women,” Sprague said in her closing argument Thursday.
She argued Clancy deliberately sent her then-husband Patrick away to pick up medication and takeout before taking five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month old Callan into the basement.
Clancy had admitted strangling the children with exercise bands on January 24, 2023, before cutting herself and jumping from a second-floor window.
Her attorneys say she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and should be found not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.
Prosecutors acknowledge Clancy was mentally ill but argue she still understood that killing her children was wrong and deliberately carried it out.
