Lindsay Clancy trial: GoFundMe for her parents surpasses $800K

As Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial enters its fourth week, a GoFundMe for her parents — who have remained at her side throughout the court proceedings — has raised more than $800,000 of a $2 million goal.

According to its description, the fundraiser is meant to help Clancy’s parents, Mike and Paula Musgrove, cover the travel, lodging, and living expenses incurred through their efforts to continue supporting their daughter.

“For more than three years, Mike and Paula have shown up for Lindsay. They have attended her court proceedings and relocated from their Connecticut home to Massachusetts so they can be close to their daughter,” the GoFundMe description reads. “They have spent years absorbing the travel, lodging, and living costs required to remain close to their daughter, drawing down savings they spent a lifetime building. They have not walked away from their daughter, and they have never been unclear about why: they love her.”

Clancy, now 36, is on trial for killing her children at home in Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023. While she doesn’t deny strangling 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan, Clancy is raising what’s commonly known as an insanity defense as she argues she was in the throes of postpartum mental illness and heard a voice in her head instructing her to kill. 

Prosecutors, on the other hand, say Clancy was in her right mind at the time of the killings and had simply tired of her life as a mother. 

“Nothing about this fund asks anyone to share their view of Lindsay or the criminal case,” the GoFundMe description states. “It asks donors to recognize the extraordinary financial burden her parents have carried simply by continuing to be present. The purpose of this fund is to help Mike and Paula rebuild the financial stability they have sacrificed over these past three years.”

With Clancy’s trial reaching a national audience through livestreamed, gavel-to-gavel coverage, donations have poured in from across the country and as far away as the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Several commenters on the GoFundMe have mentioned their own struggles with postpartum mental illness. A Wisconsin woman named Brandee Mulligan set it up.

Clancy’s official diagnoses and psychiatric care leading up to the killings has come under scrutiny during her trial, and her parents have been with her in the courtroom throughout weeks of emotionally grueling testimony.

“The case will eventually reach its conclusion,” the GoFundMe description notes. “Whatever that outcome is, Mike and Paula will still have to pick up the pieces of the lives they have put on hold to be there for their daughter. They should not have to face that future without the financial foundation they spent decades building.”

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between. She has been covering the Lindsay Clancy murder case since January 2023.