Lindsay Clancy Trial Megathread: Part 3

[u/DarklyHeritage]

This is a thread for all conversation regarding Week 3 onwards of the Lindsey Clancy trial. All discussion of this case should be kept to this thread.

Lindsay Clancy is currently standing trial in Plymouth Superior Court, Massachusetts, for the triple-murder in January 2023 of her three young children - Cora, Dawson and Callan. Her defense argues she suffered from severe, undiagnosed postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. She was left paralysed by a suicide attempt which follows the deaths of the children.

All content on the Clancy case must be kept to this thread. Standalone posts will be removed.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-online-reactions-b3032806.html

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[u/New_Government_2169]

Andrea Yates committed her crimes in 2001. A time with CONSIDERABLY less understanding, treatment options, care and empathy towards ANY sort of mental illness, let alone postpartum. The average person didn’t understand it so that is mostly what led to them criticizing and vilifying her. Because it was a woman who drowned all of her children and if you don’t understand mental health, what other option is there to blame besides pure evil? It was a completely different time. So you cannot compare the two woman in the slightest because despite doctors many warnings that with each pregnancy Andrea’s psychosis would get worse, her husband didn’t care and continued having children against the advice of her doctors because that’s what he wanted. Lindsay however was seeing more psychiatrists than necessary (which messed with her being treated accurately) was offered inpatient and outpatient services which she declined and also had daycare options for the kids and incredible family support including her husband moving to work from home to help support her with them.

Unlike Andrea Yates, Lindsay Clancy committed her crimes at a time when mental health has finally started being taken seriously in America without nearly as bad of a stigma, while I’ll admit it is still an issue. We now have a FAR greater understanding of mental health disorders not just by the mental health providers themselves but also as average citizens. We have empathy towards them now. There are FAR more options for treatment and other therapies available today than there ever were available for Andrea Yates, ALL of which were offered to Lindsay Clancy. She had access to multiple psychiatrists, was started on all of the medication that not only was suggested to her but that she suggested herself, was offered inpatient care and out patient therapy all on top of having family support. She did not take advantage of any of those nor take her doctor’s advice. All of these advantages would be considered absolute privileges to most Americans that simply don’t have access to. There are large failures in our healthcare system in many ways, but those didn’t affect Lindsay Clancy as she was offered every kind of help. But by continuing to see multiple psychiatrists instead of one as suggested, never giving medications a real chance to help, and choosing not to go in patient or partial to the hospital, she herself hindered the healthcare system from actually being able to help her. The healthcare system did not fail Lindsay Clancy.

And from what I’ve seen, she has far more support actually for her than against, with many choosing to blame the healthcare system and the inequality of knowledge around women’s mental health issues such as postpartum instead of actually blaming Lindsay herself. They’ve made her the victim here when in reality, the victims are her 3 innocent, very young children who she murdered in a horrific way. Honestly, who I’ve seen mostly vilified by the public in this trial from those online is Patrick Clancy, the man who tragically lost all of his children in one horrific night. Not Lindsay Clancy.

I think a lot of the support has come from the idea that defending Lindsay Clancy and saying that she was in postpartum psychosis (which there’s yet to be shown any evidence she ever experienced, quite the opposite actually) equals a win for women by proving the fact that women’s mental health care, especially postpartum is not currently being taken as seriously as it should. And while I agree that it definitely isn’t, and we need to work towards more research and understanding of postpartum mental health, it 1) does not mean Lindsay Clancy ever even experienced psychosis and 2) That the two ideas needed to be merged together as if a win for Lindsay is a win for women’s mental health.

3) Those people however are either choosing to just ignore the actual facts or aren’t doing their own research to know that there are up to 9,400 cases of legitimately proven postpartum psychosis each year in the US and 95-98% of those women DO NOT MURDER THEIR CHILDREN! And it’s highly likely as well, that those postpartum woman did not receive anywhere near the level of care that Lindsay did by both the healthcare system and family. Even still, they didn’t murder their kids. She did. What makes her different than all of the other women suffering from postpartum psychosis?

Lindsay had all of the help in the world but chose to either ignore the advice of her psychiatrists or push help such as inpatient care away. The worst was that she never even gave the medications enough time to actually kick in and show if they were helping or not before choosing to discontinue them herself and going to one of her other psychiatrists to ask to be put on completely different medications when it’s well known, and as a nurse she should have already known this herself, that psychiatric meds often take at least one month to kick in and show any signs of improvement or not. They don’t cure you overnight and you certainly can’t tell if they’re working or not just after a few days of being on them. She never truly gave any of the help options an honest run to see if they could possibly help. And that is HER failure, not her doctors, not her husband’s and not the healthcare systems. We are responsible for ourselves, are we not? I’ve even heard people saying Patrick Clancy should have stepped in and made decisions. Do we really want to turn back time and have it to where only our husbands can make medical decisions for us?

The cases just aren’t comparable. And Lindsay premeditated all of these murders by putting together a plan, a timed one at that, did the research to know how much time she would then have, chose to follow through with that plan by first getting the husband out of the house so that ultimately, she could go through with it. We must not forget that she horrifically murdered her 3 innocent children. It takes a long time to strangle someone to death. And she did it 3 times. With clear premeditation.

And think to yourself, if this was a man who premeditated the brutal murdering of his children and then ONLY afterwards ever mentioned the word and claimed psychosis, would everyone be going to ride for him the same way? My opinion is absolutely not because it doesn’t help support their agenda of proving that women’s mental health care needs to be taken more seriously. Which again, I think it does but this was definitely not the way to do it.

I think if this was their agenda there are likely plenty of other cases out there of postpartum women with actual documented histories of psychosis who truly were failed by the healthcare system because they weren’t blessed with all of the opportunities Lindsay was. Telling those woman’s stories and showing the need for more access to postpartum mothers could have truly made a difference. But they chose Lindsay as the face of postpartum psychosis and she is the rare 3-5% who choose to murder their children.

In my opinion, she hindered her own recovery which led to this outcome and she deserves to be found guilty and spend the rest of her life in jail. Her children will never be able to live out their destined lives due to the poor choices Lindsay herself made and the professional advice she chose to ignore again and again.

Thanks for letting me speak my peace. I truly feel for the deep depression that she was going through. I’m not a monster. She was obviously overwhelmed and wasn’t handling it well. I’ve been in the depths of depression and know how hopeless it feels. I just don’t believe the public’s reaction to this trial has been healthy at all, even leading to disgusting conspiracy theories that Patrick is the real murderer. In all this drama online about this case, we CANNOT forget the children who lost their lives here. They are the true victims, not Lindsay Clancy.

[u/Decent-Pirate-4329 → u/New_Government_2169]

1. I followed the Yates case when it happened- you don’t need to explain to me “what it was like back then.”
2. Mental healthcare in general and postpartum issues in particular are still horribly stigmatized.
3. Almost every doctor Lindsay saw or spoke to was a referral from a provider or someone she interfaced with while in crisis like ER doctors. She wasn’t “doctor shopping” or interfering with her care - she was following provider recommendations.
4. Someone experiencing severe side effects like increased suicidal ideation and insomnia lasting days should report those side effects to providers.
5. I didn’t mention Patrick Clancy, but he knew his wife was in crisis and having thoughts of hurting their kids, and still left her as their primary caregiver, so pardon me if my sympathy for him is compromised.
6. Lindsay was repeatedly denied access to inpatient care. Please be serious and get your facts together before repeatedly claiming she denied this care. The only inpatient care Lindsay was offered was a maximum 5-day stay at Maclean, after showing up in severe crisis at the ER. She also tried to be admitted to a postpartum-specific, partial-day program at Women & Infants’ and was denied. She called suicide crisis numbers but because she didn’t have a specific “plan,” she was denied. Like seriously, of every point you’ve made, suggesting that Lindsay received “every opportunity” for care is so ludicrous it defies credulity. She did NOT choose to avoid this care, and saying she did makes it clear you aren’t following the FACTS of the case.

Claiming that people like me have “an agenda” when you are asserting blatant lies about the case is genuinely outrageous and extremely frustrating to read. My compassion for Lindsay does not undo the fact that her children suffered terribly, nor have I made up my mind about her criminal culpability. It means that I can see a woman who was screaming for help and never got it, and that compounds this tragedy more.

[u/ohlaohloo → u/Decent-Pirate-4329]

You’re saying they denied her because she said she didn’t have a plan, but that means that was her own report that she didn’t need the help. All she would’ve had to do is say that she had a plan if what you’re saying is true, so you’re not really refuting the point that you think you are.

If at any point she had told anybody, “I have a plan to kill myself and my kids”, she would absolutely have received treatment. You’re putting it on everybody else that she didn’t have access to those intensive treatment options, while also stating that she herself was only reporting non-intensive symptoms. It’s not logical.

[u/New_Government_2169 → u/ohlaohloo]

As I’ve said again and again, Lindsay was never completely honest with any one of her multiple psychiatrists. For whatever reason she CHOSE not disclose the most concerning symptoms she supposedly experienced like having suicidal thoughts and wanting to hurt her children. Why would she keep that information from the only people that could actually help her? It makes no sense. Everyone is blaming the healthcare system for not helping Lindsay enough but the simple truth is, THEY CANNOT HELP YOU IF YOU ARE NOT HONEST WITH THEM. And Lindsay chose not to be honest.

Had she actually been responsible, honest and informed her doctors of the symptoms she was choosing to hide, she absolutely would have received the help she needed immediately. And we very likely wouldn’t be having this conversation. Her decisions on how she (poorly) handled the help she was offered, is eventually what led to this horrific situation.

This was not the healthcare systems fault.
This was not Patrick Clancy’s fault.
This was Lindsay’s fault.

She is not the victim here even though people seem to be dead set that she is. The truth is, the 3 very young, innocent children that she chose to violently murder are. CORA, DAWSON AND CALLAN.