Did Lindsay Clancy kill kids over mental health or something more sinister?
· Toronto Sun
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Two contrasting portraits of accused killer mom Lindsay Clancy have emerged during her five-week trial.
Is she a calculating murderer or, as her hundreds of pink-clad fangirls believe, an overwhelmed mother who had a psychotic break due to severe postpartum depression?
But in the midst of the TikTok moms taking to their cameras and sharing their own “pain,” and turning Clancy, 36, into Luigi Mangione 2.0, are three dead children.
Psychosis or malice?
Closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday.
On Jan. 24, 2023, Clancy, a mother of three young children, allegedly used elastic exercise bands to strangle Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan before trying to kill herself at the family’s Duxbury, Mass., home.
Her attempt at death left her paralyzed.
Was she in the throes of psychosis and thus blameless, or were the murders part of a sinister scheme she had been conjuring for months?
FBI psychiatrist Dr Gregory Saathoff testified in a Plymouth, Mass. court Thursday as the final prosecution witness. He said Clancy knew right from wrong.
‘To do this quickly, methodically’
“Having no instructions as to how to do it, but being able to execute those decisions … that is surprising that she’s able to accomplish all of this without any other kind of direction or plan,” Saathoff said, adding he doesn’t believe the murderous mom heard voices as she’s claimed.
Clancy’s mental health has become the crux of the case. Her legal eagles have argued that at the time of the killings, she was legally outside the realms of reality. She has copped to killing her children, but oddly, not murdering them.
Far from freaking out, Saathoff testified Clancy — who has sobbed throughout the trial — “had control, control of the sequence of what she was doing throughout”.
He added: “In the small amount of time that Miss Clancy had in the home without her husband, it was important, in order to carry this out, as well as her suicide [attempt], to do this quickly, methodically, and alike.”
Not guilty by reason of insanity?
Clancy has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Prosecutors and the defence have waged a courtroom war of attrition. Were her actions the result of postpartum psychosis partnered with medications and an undiagnosed bipolar disorder?
Or is Clancy, as portrayed by prosecutors, a high-functioning mom who was a perfectionist who believed control was slipping out of her hands? Prosecutors argued that killing her children and herself would return that control.
According to Saathoff, Clancy knew what she was doing. On the day of the killings, she went to a doctor’s appointment, made lunch for the kids and built a snowman with them.
‘She was methodical and quite controlled’
Saathoff said: “The planning involved, prior to the strangling of her children, I thought was significant. The activities of that day were controlled. Throughout the day she was methodical and quite controlled and organized. There was a lot to do in terms of killing her children but also [attempting to kill] herself.”
As for the voices Clancy said compelled her to kill, they miraculously ceased their murderous murmurs once the kids were dead. Saathoff testified he has “not ever seen that happen.”
Under cross-examination, the psychiatrist admitted to treating only two women who experienced postpartum psychosis. He testified that after giving birth, a woman’s hormone levels can affect neurotransmitters in the brain and lead to “intrusive and hard-to-control thoughts and hard-to-control behaviour.”
‘Therapy culture as performance art’
As her pink-clad army of supporters gather outside the Massachusetts court and online again today, some are happy attention is being focused on postpartum depression and mental health. Others aren’t convinced.
New York Post columnist Bethany Mandel has called the cold-blooded killings and indictment of faddish “gentle parenting.”
She wrote: “These mothers were taught to analyze every negative emotion they experience, turning even the least discomfort over in every direction to analyze and dissect it.
“This mindset teaches that sadness isn’t something you shake off, and anxiety isn’t something you push through.”
Mandel called the Clancy trial a “lightning rod”, a Super Bowl of feelings. Instead of following soap operas like previous generations, the Clancy trial has become their Days of Our Lives, Mandel wrote.
The writer adds: “This is therapy culture as performance art.”
Closing arguments are expected Thursday, followed by the judge’s charge to the jury, who will then be sequestered.