On the trial of Lindsay Clancy

“A wonderful mother”

An unspeakable crime

Lindsay Clancy, 36, is on trial for the murder of her three children, a trial that has gripped America. On the 24^th of January 2023 Lindsay Clancy strangled, with an exercise band, her three children, her daughter Cora who was aged 5, her son Dawson aged 3, and her 8-month-old baby boy Callan. Lindsay Clancy then attempted suicide by cutting her neck and wrists and jumping out the second floor bedroom window. She was left paralyzed from the waist down.

The two older children died on the day of the killing, the little baby survived for three days before his life support was switched off.

When a mother kills her children, in this case three under the age of 5 including an infant, it outrages us all. Rightly. It is a shocking event that destroys motherhood. Mothers sacrifice themselves for their children. Society is built and orientated on this belief. The idea a mother would hurt, let alone end the life of the child she gave life to, goes against all logic and morals. It demolishes all that is right, innocent and good.

Such an act, the killing of a defenceless child in a brutal manner by a mother’s own hand, the same hands that will have carefully cared for and nurtured that child, is against the natural order.

The outrage and trauma of this tragedy is well placed. The target of the blame, I believe, is not.

The legal position

Lindsay Clancy does not deny that she killed her three children. The defence say she is not legally responsible for the crime of murder because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time, in part due to over-medication for postpartum depression.

This trial is taking place in the state of Massachusetts. Unlike most other common law jurisdictions, including England, the offence of infanticide is a not available in any State in the US including Massachusetts. The defence is claiming that Clancy is not guilty by reason of insanity, although insanity is not the exact term used in court.

The test to avoid criminal responsibility read in court by Judge William Sullivan is

“A defendant is not criminally responsible for their conduct if they have “a mental disease or defect, and as a result of that mental disease or defect, lacks the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality or the wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law.”

In most states, the defence has to prove a lack of criminal responsibility, more commonly known as an insanity defence, but Massachusetts shifts that burden onto the prosecution.

The case

The prosecution says Clancy planned and executed the murders by sending her husband, Patrick Clancy, out of the house on errands, then strangling the children with exercise bands in the basement of their Duxbury home. Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham called Clancy a “controlling, meticulous and manipulative” mother who committed the murders because she could no longer control “every little detail” of her and her family’s life.

The defence argues that Clancy is not guilty of murder because she was experiencing a psychotic break induced by postpartum psychiatric disease aggravated by overmedication.

Prosecutors argue that Clancy manipulated her providers and sought quick fixes for her depression and anxiety. Clancy’s defence argues that she repeatedly sought treatment and was overmedicated before the killings.

If Clancy is found guilty of murder she will receive life imprisonment without parole. If she succeeds in her defence she will be detained at a psychiatric facility.

(An tragedy beyond words. Cora, baby Callan and Dawson.)

Postpartum depression to postpartum psychosis

The defence say Clancy experienced hallucinations and delusions after giving birth to Callan and she was undergoing medical treatment for psychiatric problems. She checked herself into a psychiatric hospital for a few days just before the killings.

Lindsay Clancy and her ex-husband are suing the medical personnel who they say over medicated her, to the point where she was psychotic and receiving command responses to hurt herself and the children. The medication triggered a bi-polar condition. She was prescribed Zoloft Prozac, Fluoxetine, Remeron, Mirtazapine Amitriptyline, Trazodone, Seroquel, Lamictal, Ativan, Klonopin, Valium, Ambien Buspar, Benadryl and Hydroxyzine. The drugs were changed about 30 times and she was taking about four at the time of the killing.

Taken together, these drugs may produce sedation, dizziness, impaired judgment, slowed cognition, confusion, low blood pressure, and fall risk.

Serious or uncommon side effects include suicidal thoughts, worsening depression, agitation, restlessness, confusion, worsening of mania, and abnormal movements. Almost every single one of them carries warnings involving things like serotonin syndrome, new or worsening suicidal thoughts, particularly after starting or changing a dosage, and activation of mania or hypomania in susceptible individuals.

Clancey was in the care of two doctors, where one did not know what the other was prescribing. Her condition deteriorated which resulted in practitioners increasing her dosage of powerful drugs, including those with “black box warnings” of suicidal ideation. In addition, all of the 14 visits between one practitioner Dr. Jennifer Tufts and Clancy were conducted via telemedicine. The first time they were in the same room together was at trial.

The switching of drugs and the increase in dosage was according to some, evidence that she was not responding well to them and they were causing serious side-effects. This includes triggering bi-polar depression and mania. This psychiatrist described Clancy as being “tortured” by these drugs. Her nervous system was under attack. Once she starts hearing voices, he explains that other patients have described it as a ‘kind of hell.’

Dr Phil, described this postpartum psychosis as a “psychiatric emergency” with a number of red flags that had been missed. Clancy told her husband and others she had dark thoughts about harming the children and therefore, according to Dr Phil, she should not have been left alone with them.

It will still be difficult for Lindsay Clancy to succeed on this defence which juries are highly sceptical of.

The American Right wades in

Depressingly and predictably this has turned into a culture war. The American Right, (Matt Walsh and Megyn Kelly for instance) argue Clancy was a cold and calculating killer, too “selfish” to care for her own children. Others say, this was the logical extension of abortion on demand, or something.

The trial has been a rallying call for women and mothers in America. Many see themselves in Lindsay, it could have been me. Statistically, that is not the case, as postpartum psychosis occurs in about 1 to 2 per 1000 women after delivery, but many women do feel they are not being heard when it comes to other serious conditions that are triggered by giving birth.

Begging for help

From what I have read and listened to Lindsay Clancy was a good mother. In fact, she did everything that the American right wanted her to. She got married and had three children, three children under 5 years of age, in fact.

The experienced nanny Elaine Rossi, who looked after the children briefly for a few months before this tragic killing, described Lindsay Clancy as a ‘wonderful mother’ and a doting mother. Lindsay didn’t want to leave her baby so she decided to extend her maternity leave. This meant giving Ms Rossi notice but they left on very good terms. The nanny gave evidence that she loved Lindsay. Ms Rossie described two wonderful children in Cora and Dawson. Cora was a girly girl and Dawson had a lot of energy. The baby Callan was just a ‘smiley baby’ a love. If this is how the children were, then they were well cared for and nurtured by a devoted mother.

Ms Clancy’s now ex-father-in-law Christopher Clancy, said she was very mothering and protective of the little ones when they were babies.

Lindsay’s now ex-mother-in-law Sue Clancy, who worked as a nurse in the labour and delivery room for 38 years, said Lindsay was very nurturing and very loving. “She was a wonderful mother. She loved her children, all of them, very, very much.”

Lindsay Clancy reached out to her mother, mother-in-law, her husband and medical practitioners for help. She was struggling, had insomnia, was anxious and sad. Her mother-in-law said Lindsay was ‘begging for help.’ The ex-mother-in-law testified that Lindsay was struggling during the holiday period of 2022 and “we were all very concerned.”

The question is, was Lindsay Clancy in such a psychotic state that either, she didn’t know that her conduct was criminal, or if she did she could not control her actions because she was involuntarily intoxicated due to being over-medicated or in a psychotic state.

Logic

It was Ms Clancy’s tragic misfortune to suffer from postpartum depression after she gave birth to her third child. She did not choose to have postpartum depression.

It was Ms Clancy’s misfortune to suffer from the condition serious enough to warrant medication. It was Ms Clancy’s misfortune to receive allegedly negligent care from medical practitioners in a country that dispenses powerful mind altering drugs freely, sometimes known as Big Pharma. She was a medical professional, desperate for help, who relied on other medical professionals in good faith.

It was Ms Clancy’s deep, deep misfortunate to suffer serious side-effects from the cocktail of drugs she was prescribed by two practitioners who were not communicating with each other and never met her in person. Lindsay Clancy did not choose to suffer from serious side-effects that included 48 hours without sleep, the triggering of bi-polar disorder and perhaps hallucinations and psychosis.

No, I do not believe Lindsay Clancy chose, in a rational sense, to murder her three children, one by one, by her own hands.

The prosecution and the conservative right, who like to think they are telling us all hard truths, the brutal unsayable truths that ‘softies’ like me would prefer to avoid, believe otherwise.

Their case is that Lindsay Clancy, a woman who worked as a labour and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital before having children, and was described by grandparents who lost everything as a wonderful mother, a protective mother, nurturing and loving, a mother who loved all her children very, very much, just woke up one day and said to herself, I don’t fancy this motherhood lark anymore. I am – as Matt Walsh says – just a bit too selfish for it.

The prosecution case and the ‘truth telling right’ say this mother then hatched an unspeakably evil plan over a number of days or weeks (neither the prosecution nor Meghan Kelly have specified) to murder, in cold blood her three precious children that up to that point she was very protective of.

The children she gave birth to, nurtured, comforted at night, read to, fed, and loved she just said, I don’t want it anymore. And to come up with an excuse she schemed that she would injure herself severely, cut my wrists and neck and throw herself out a second floor window, but survive.

That’s the case against Lindsay Clancy.

Do you think this is likely or logical?

Or do you think that her postpartum depression, followed by the cocktail of drugs and negligent care, her declining mental state, a psychiatric emergency, her insomnia, anxiety, bi-polar, and perhaps mania, that she was having hallucinations and on that terrible day she did indeed hear a ‘male commanding voice’ telling her to kill her children and herself. That this was her only way out.

Mothers on trial

If the prosecution is correct, that this loving, devoted mother could turn on a dime into a cold and calculating murderer, then that could be any loving mother right? This means any mother, myself included, could just wake up one day and do the unspeakable. Because that’s women, right? We turn on a dime…

This is what the American right think American mothers are capable of, the maternity nurse for goodness sake, who wanted to extend her maternity leave to spend more time with her baby.

So yes, the women of America are angry. Yes they feel under attack, because on this argument every mother in America is on trial.

I discuss the reaction to this trial, here.

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