Supporters say Clancy was failed by the system in the midst of a postpartum mental health crisis. Others say the focus should be on her children.
The closely watched triple murder trial of Lindsay Clancy has become the latest tragic court case to grip the nation, but onlookers are sharply divided about who to blame in a case with unusually undisputed facts.
Clancy, 36, is charged with three counts of murder in the Jan. 24, 2023, killings of her children: Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan Clancy, 8 months.
There’s little question about what happened. Clancy admits she strangled her three children, but her defense attorney has worked to convince the jury that she is not guilty of murder because she was experiencing postpartum psychosis and depression aggravated by overmedication.
Supporters have rallied around Clancy, with many sharing their own experiences with postpartum mental health struggles and placing the blame on the nation’s health care system.
But the prosecution has described Clancy as a “controlling, meticulous and manipulative” mother who planned the killings, sent her husband out of the house to run errands, then strangled the children with exercise bands in the basement of their Duxbury home.
The horrific nature of the crime has also prompted some backlash from commentators who, like prosecutors, feel Clancy should be punished, and the outpouring of sympathy should be directed at her children.
“There’s valid arguments to be upset on both sides and that’s probably what has fueled so much of the interest and controversy,” said Amanda Vicary, a professor at Illinois Wesleyan University who researches the cultural fascination with true crime.
Why the Clancy case has struck a nerve
Experts have said true-crime cases involving young, attractive white women often garner disproportionate attention whether they are victims like Gabby Petito and Natalee Holloway, or accused perpetrators like Karen Read or Amanda Knox.
Clancy’s is not the first case of a mother accused of killing her children to gain such notoriety. Casey Anthony, Andrea Yates and Susan Smith have all made headlines and faced intense public scrutiny.
“It goes against how we see women, right? As the nurturing, loving, less violent parents,” Vicary said. “It definitely violates every gender role stereotype that we have.”
The relative rarity and disturbing nature of these cases are part of what attracts so much attention, said Michelle Oberman, a law professor at Santa Clara University who has studied and written about women who kill their children.
“I’d say that the country gets riveted by these cases when they come up because they are so shocking,” Oberman said.
But in the 25 years since the Yates case, Oberman said, the level of “empathy” and understanding of the mental health challenges that can follow childbirth has changed. The Clancy case has prompted some mothers to share their own stories on social media of hallucinations, paranoia and suicidal thoughts after childbirth.
“That willingness to be open about that struggle has opened us to the possibility that this is not a calculated act of intentional murder that we’re seeing in the Clancy case, but instead the end of a spectrum, the far end of a spectrum of mental illness and struggle,” Oberman said.
Empathy for Clancy is what drove Nicole Ginnitti to travel from Connecticut to a rally of Clancy supporters outside the courthouse. Ginnitti told the Patriot Ledger, part of the USA TODAY Network, that she empathizes with Clancy due to her own experience of postpartum depression.
“It could have been any of us,” she said.
The case has also led to an outpouring of frustration at the health care system. Katy Coduto, an assistant professor of media science at Boston University, noted that the Clancy trial is unfolding simultaneously with the case against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which unleashed a similar wave of anger.
“I don’t believe Lindsay Clancy should be on trial,” Renee Kimball, organizer of a rally for Clancy, told The Patriot Ledger. “I think the health care systems across the world should be on trial.”
But others have rejected the idea that the system failed Clancy and have been highly critical of her supporters, including conservative commentators Matt Walsh and Megyn Kelly. As both a father and a prosecutor of crimes against children, Jonathan Hatami said it’s been “disappointing” to see so much focus on Clancy’s mental health and not on the “real victims in this case”: her children.
“You see so many people out in the public and outside the courthouse cheering on a person who is ultimately responsible for the death of her children and making that the focus and making certain causes – which I don’t mean that those causes aren’t important – they’re making those causes the focus instead of the real focus, which is the fact that three children lost their lives and they mattered,” said Hatami, a deputy district attorney in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
While the jury will have to sort through the complicated question of whether Clancy’s mental health issues mean she can’t be held criminally responsible, for some spectators the decision is not so nuanced, Coduto said.
“It’s really hard to accept that a mother could harm her children,” Coduto said. “And so I do think, of course, you’re going to see people who regardless of whether she has postpartum psychosis or not, they’re going to say, ‘Well, she murdered her kids.’”