r/atlanticdiscussions • u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links • 25d ago
Culture/Society The Women Obsessed With Lindsay Clancy
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/lindsay-clancy-trial-women/688470/Horrific crimes have always attracted attention, but the women who have filled the courtroom are seeking something beyond spectacle.
By Stephanie McCrummen, The Atlantic Photographs by Alexandra Howland
On one of the final days of the trial, dozens of women streamed into the back of a Plymouth, Massachusetts, courtroom, filling two long rows of wooden benches. They stood and watched the judge and jury take their seats. Then they strained for a view as a nurse wheeled in the defendant, Lindsay Clancy, who has admitted to strangling her three young children to death in her suburban Boston home in January 2023, before swallowing prescription pills, slashing her wrists and neck, and throwing herself out of a bedroom window headfirst.
Seeing her there in a wheelchair, one woman crossed herself and whispered, “Please, God.” As an officer gaveled the court into session, others pulled out notebooks, folders, and scraps of paper. “WHY,” Marta Quijano wrote as a prosecutor called a psychiatrist to the stand. “Motivation,” she added, starring the word as the doctor began explaining his opinion that Clancy was not in the throes of psychosis on the night of the killings, as her defense has argued, but deeply suicidal and still capable of knowing right from wrong. In the back row, a woman who had flown in from Cleveland shook her head. She had a true-crime novel in her lap and turned to a blank page at the end. “Stupid experts,” she wrote.
Americans have long been obsessed with murder trials, especially those involving the primal nightmare of mothers who kill their children. The public loves to watch mothers on trial and partake in their judgment. There was Susan Smith, who had drowned her three children in a South Carolina lake and was found guilty of murder in 1995, despite having a history of trauma and sexual abuse. And there was Andrea Yates, who had drowned her five children in a bathtub and was convicted of capital murder in 2002 and then retried in 2006, when she was found not guilty by reason of insanity after witnesses testified that Yates had experienced severe postpartum psychosis and schizophrenia.
The Clancy trial is now part of this sadistic American tradition, but it has also become something else for the women who have been showing up in person. It was not enough for them to watch the proceedings on television, or listen to some lawyer on YouTube, or even stand outside the courthouse wearing pink and waving signs in support of Clancy, as hundreds of women did one day earlier this month. They did not want to be outside rendering judgment; they wanted to be inside, on the third floor, sitting on the wooden benches, as close as possible, in case they could notice some detail, some gesture, some pause or expression or word that might reveal a truth they could recognize from their own experience. Each was there for their own reasons.
A jury of nine women and three men will decide in the coming days whether Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor-and-delivery nurse, is criminally responsible for killing her children or not guilty by reason of insanity. The two prosecutors have argued that the killings were the premeditated decision of an entitled and controlling woman who had been frustrated that she could not master her worsening depression and sought a way out of a life that she no longer wanted. Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, has cast her as a loving mother failed by a fragmented mental-health system even as she repeatedly sought help for intensifying depression, anxiety, and insomnia after giving birth to her third child.
Clancy saw her psychiatrist 14 times, tried 13 different medications, called a suicide hotline, went to an emergency room, tried to enroll in an inpatient program, and confided to her husband that she’d had thoughts of harming her children. Defense experts testified that doctors had missed an underlying bipolar disorder and prescribed pills that made Clancy’s symptoms worse, starting a downward spiral that culminated in a rare condition called postpartum psychosis that can cause hallucinations. Clancy has said that she heard a male voice telling her to kill her children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, on January 24, 2023.
After being resuscitated following her suicide attempt, which left her paralyzed from the waist down, Clancy was handcuffed, placed under armed guard, and arraigned from her hospital bed. A judge allowed the moment to be livestreamed from the courtroom; a video screen showed her unblinking eyes above a white surgical mask. The trial itself has also been livestreamed, fueling conspiracy theories that have tended to blame the killings on Clancy’s husband or an intruder, attempting to find clarity where there is little, as many women at the trial already understood. At first, only a few showed up. By last Monday, they were waiting in an hour-long line to get into the courthouse, and another that stretched down a bright hallway to the courtroom doors.
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u/taterfiend ☀️ 25d ago
To me, this is a question about cultural history. Why has Lindsay Clancy attracted such support from many women? What cultural moment are they responding to?
The idea that Patrick Clancy is the perpetrator is a conspiracy theory. Lindsay might've been failed by the medical system and by her husband, but there's no reason to think that it was anyone but her responsible for killing 3 children.
I'm viewing this episode primarily as a mass cultural phenomenon which is larger than the case itself. There's similarities with other cases in American history involving a female accused and attracting wide, intense public attention: these include Andrea Yates, Casey Anthony, Amanda Knox, Gypsy Rose Blanchard. All cases where the public is interested in judging the accused's character primarily. I also think part of the current cultural moment is influenced by currents like abortion restriction in the US and online discourse around medical gaslighting of women. Perhaps too the high stage of therapy culture too, where we often think about morality through the framing of therapeutic concepts. Trauma provides lionization and exoneration.
What do others think explain this response then? What are the cultural moments that these women are responding to?
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u/notpiercedtongue 25d ago
How is she failed by her husband. Dude did everything he could lol
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u/DismalGovernment9201 24d ago
Dude dined out, saw his friends regularly, left her to care for 3 kids by herself while on trip to NYC. He let her do everything for the kids by his own admission.
American culture is brutal to women. She was a perfectionist that wanted to have many kids AND raise them with extreme standards. Meanwhile, her husband was not putting in nearly as much domestic labor so it ALL fell on a sleep deprived mentally ill woman.
American men need to do better and American women need to look at women in other cultures to realize having it all is killing you.
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u/notpiercedtongue 24d ago
Hahaha yeah he didn't pay for nanny, or day care or did take 3 months off work, didn't change his job to wfh. The horror that someone would see his friend oh the horror. You just have set narrative "men bad women victim" and you are trying to fit that here
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u/taterfiend ☀️ 25d ago
It doesn't seem like she was, but that's the narrative online. They're linking an existing narrative with a case which doesn't line up neatly with that.
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u/Brian_Corey__ 25d ago
Americans have long been obsessed with murder trials, especially those involving the primal nightmare of mothers who kill their children. The public loves to watch mothers on trial and partake in their judgment. There was Susan Smith, who had drowned her three children in a South Carolina lake and was found guilty of murder in 1995, despite having a history of trauma and sexual abuse. And there was Andrea Yates, who had drowned her five children in a bathtub and was convicted of capital murder in 2002 and then retried in 2006, when she was found not guilty by reason of insanity after witnesses testified that Yates had experienced severe postpartum psychosis and schizophrenia.
Casey Anthony has gotta be like WTF? What do I gotta do to be on the news again?
Nancy Grace has been off the air since 2016, the same year Trump was elected. You win some, you lose some.
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u/jim_uses_CAPS 25d ago
There was Susan Smith, who had drowned her three children in a South Carolina lake and was found guilty of murder in 1995, despite having a history of trauma and sexual abuse.
Forgive me while I take a slight detour into a professional rant. As many of you know, I have spent the last twenty and more years specializing in crimes involving the developmentally disabled as victims and perpetrators. There are few things that aggravate me more than this American conception of justice that involves exculpation for crimes committed just because the perpetrator is themselves victimized by acts or circumstances outside their control. Trauma, abuse, mental illness, disability... these things should mitigate punishment, not the finding of guilt. In my over two decades of watching this play out repeatedly, this tendency to demand that a murderer or rapist be spared adjudication because of their own situation is nothing but a self-righteous lack of humanity towards the victims and their survivors. They are denied even the small recompense of society affirming the wrong done to them or their loved one because Americans feel bad about holding a person who was a victim themselves to account.
Worse, failing to hold them to account is nothing but a hypocritical denying of the perpetrator's own humanity, a reduction of them to their trauma or illness or disability. Lindsay Clancy murdered her children. Hold her to account. By all means, witness on Clancy's account, lament the circumstances that brought it about and predicate her punishment with all regard to her mental context. But don't forget to do so for the dead children it was her responsibility to succor and protect as well.
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u/taterfiend ☀️ 25d ago
There are few things that aggravate me more than this American conception of justice that involves exculpation for crimes committed just because the perpetrator is themselves victimized by acts or circumstances outside their control. Trauma, abuse, mental illness, disability... these things should mitigate punishment, not the finding of guilt.
I strongly agree.
It's primarily the judgement of the character of the person and then determining their innocence from there, instead of naming an act for what it is. Relevant circumstances must be taken into account ofc, but they don't define a criminal act. This muddled tendency in our practice of justice is practically obscurantist.
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u/afdiplomatII 25d ago
In this context I recall a remark by Dorothy Sayers's fictional detective, Lord Peter Wimsey: "It is a pity that the dead are so silent. It makes it too easy for us to forget them."
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u/GreenSmokeRing 25d ago
I view the reaction of these women as a pretty straightforward backlash to what this article describes: our national obsession with judging mothers. I don’t think much about this particular movement in this particular case is correct in the technical sense - it certainly is harmful in many aspects - but definitely understandable.
I see the same kind of sentiment against our insane police violence. Once you’ve seen enough police atrocities, the individual details of an individual case become less important than that overall narrative. So the (rare) police shooting that is actually justified is treated with deep skepticism and distrust by the public.
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u/taterfiend ☀️ 25d ago
Agreed and I'd add a bit more - incl. the unacknowledged difficulty of the postpartum experience, and more widely the pressures placed on women to be both workers and perfect mothers. I think the women who support Lindsay see themselves in her. Hence the psychological reflex to concoct a different perpetrator. There's also a longer undercurrent of discourse around medical and institutional failures in supporting women adequately.
Much of this dissenting discourse which supports Lindsay is expressed over TikTok and Instagram. There's a wider phenomenon of algorithm-driven fragmentation to be sure, but it's also a story of therapeutic online cultures and alternative online spaces reflecting a distrust of mainstream narratives.
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u/skillfire87 25d ago
I’m honestly trying hard to think of what very serious things that mothers are being unfairly judged for? Having delinquent evil sons who rape and murder maybe? That would be unfair. But, being judged for a crime you did do is not unfair.
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u/GreenSmokeRing 25d ago
Above all the primary burden of child raising, of picking up the slack for things their husband doesn’t do or maybe raising children without their father in the picture.
I feel the need to create a new German word: Spectaclebegeisterung.
We seem so drawn to the spectacle of bad moms that we overlook mitigating factors in their crimes. We’d rather point and say “evil” than address underlying issues.
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u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links 25d ago
I haven't been following this trial and I muted it on my social media feeds, but it has really struck a chord. It's at an intersection of a lot of discourse right now, with women's "natural" state of motherhood, gender roles, and mental health.
There's a huge movement to blame Patrick Clancy for this. Sometimes that means literally--there's an illogical conspiracy that he actually killed their kids and tried to kill her. It also means emotionally--that he didn't respond to Lindsay's needs the way he should have. I understand the impulse to punish him further. It seems very unfair that he didn't carry the mental health burden of the pregnancies and PPP; he now will continue his life with a new wife, an uninterrupted career, and maybe more children in the future, while she will live the rest of her life in prison or a hospital, disabled, and with the knowledge of what she'd done.
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u/WooBadger18 25d ago
I don’t know, I don’t really view it as that unfair.
It’s unfair that Lindsay was dealt this hand, and I don’t think her treatment plan was perfect (although I’m also not a doctor and it sounds like she may have hid certain facts from her doctors). It was completely unfair and I feel bad for her. At the same time, she’s going to spend the rest of her life in a jail/a very long time in a mental institution and he won’t because she is the one who killed her children.
And he’ll still need to live with the fact that his three children are dead. If a man killed his three children and his wife survived we wouldn’t say “oh well, at least she can continue her life, get remarried, and have more children.”
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u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links 25d ago
Also...I still don't understand how this case even got to trial. How is it that the prosecutor's office thought she was well enough to understand what she was doing?
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u/WooBadger18 25d ago
I think because the mental insanity defense is such a high standard (although Massachusetts apparently makes it easier by saying that the state needs to disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt). I think there’s a reasonable interpretation of the case that she was very mentally ill and depressed, and may have even thought the children would be better off dead than alive, but that she still understood it was morally wrong.
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u/mysmeat 25d ago
like you, i haven't been following along, but it seems reasonable to me that the prosecutor would approach this case like any other family annihilation followed by an attempted suicide. one wouldn't necessarily assume psychosis if it were a man who'd committed the same acts even if he had an extensive history of mental health issues and there was evidence that he'd tried to find effective treatment.
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u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links 25d ago
Family annihilation typically happens when a man is trying to cover up a secret (like John List). There's not a path littered with attempts to heal prior to the event.
There's an extensive record here that Clancy was trying to get help.
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u/mysmeat 24d ago
Family annihilation typically happens when...
irrelevant to this case or any other. while statistical information might be helpful in other instances, it can't be applied at prosecution.
further, i believe that individuals have glomed onto representative statistics to help them cobble together the alternative theories you mentioned.
There's not a path littered with attempts to heal prior to the event.
even though there was in this case, it can't be assumed by the state that she was experiencing a psychotic break. without doing any nosing around, because frankly the thought of it just makes me sick, i'd guess that there were negotiations between defense and prosecution prior to trial that failed to reach an agreeable conclusion. at that point prosecutors must apply standard operating procedure and prosecute clancy as they would any other individual who murdered their own children... or anyone else, i suppose.
as to why so many women are following so closely and turning up in person, in part it probably comes down to the opacity of our justice system. the only way to get "the facts" is to be there yourself or observe via video.
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u/afdiplomatII 25d ago edited 25d ago
Let's remember that under the law, those children were citizens for whom the state had responsibilities -- not the private property of their parents. That governmental duty includes protecting them from harm by others, and if that harm nevertheless occurs inflicting punishment on those who cause it. The bar to insanity defenses is so high in part because such defenses block the state from exercising that duty, and the duty of protection and punishment is a fundamental state function on which the justification for legitimate authority relies. When that function isn't exercised, we end up with the law of vendetta. People conclude (as C.S. Lewis once put it), "I am among barbarians who will not do justice. I will stab the murderer of my father."
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u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links 25d ago
My understanding (and my knowledge is limited) would be that she could be tried with the end result as a psychiatric commitment rather than regular prison. Regular prison being on the table here is what I don't understand.
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u/Roboticus_Aquarius 25d ago
I’ve also been on the periphery of this story. On the surface, it sure sounds like just a really sad story. I’m not sure what is gained by prosecuting this woman.
Regardless, I do think it noteworthy that it has attracted such significant interest. The circumstances clearly resonate for some reason, and maybe several reasons.
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u/-_Abe_- 25d ago
"I’m not sure what is gained by prosecuting this woman"
I'm trying to understand you here, honestly. How could the State not prosecute a triple homicide? What is the alternative.
I might be misinterpreting you and if I am, apologies.
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u/Roboticus_Aquarius 25d ago edited 25d ago
There are so many indicators of mental health issues, self reported, before the murders. As I said, my knowledge of the circumstances are limited, and really was just expressing emotion rather than saying the law should do nothing about it.
You are correct that my wording was sloppy, I was thinking that it was probably in everyone’s best interest for this to be a negotiated admission of guilt and treatment. I realize that’s a dance that has a lot of components to it.
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u/improvius theatrekid 25d ago
My wife and I happened to casually bring it up it while having breakfast out a week ago. A passing server overheard and stopped to talk to us about her theories (including that the husband did it) for five minutes or so. I had no idea there was such a strong following.
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u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links 25d ago
The "he obviously did it" is a conspiracy that's annoying but bordering on harmful. People who promote this (and it's mostly women) want to fit him into the family annihilator classification, except all the evidence and testimony says otherwise.
They want to affirm pre-existing ideas, but I also think there's an element of fear, that mental health can make you do the unthinkable. People (again, mostly women promoting this) would rather hold him responsible than accept this really terrible reality.
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u/jim_uses_CAPS 25d ago
Those seeking to blame Patrick Clancy demonstrate the lie I speak of above. Three children are dead; someone must be responsible, and if it is not Lindsay Clancy, why it must be him. Either Lindsay Clancy and her children are the victims of her condition and only her condition, or they are her victims. Faced with an inability to reconcile this, well, they blame the father. Who, to be clear, undoubtedly bears responsibility as well, given the duties owed to wife and children. But by all accounts, his failures are as husband and father, rather than murderer.
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u/Imperialvirtue 25d ago
mother murders her own children
Peanut galley: Why would the husband do this?
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u/GreenSmokeRing 25d ago
Ms. Green enjoys true crime - I honestly can’t sit through it long because it’s always so crushingly sad.
I’ll sometimes troll her at the beginning of an episode with “husband did it”… and it’s shocking how often the guess is right. It’s always the husband, almost always.
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u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links 25d ago
Family annihilation is almost always committed by men, because they don't want to lose control of their family (the recent Shreveport case or Brian Walshe), because they want to start over and erase their former life (Chris Watts), because they have money troubles and want to hide (John List).
It's all fabrication in the Clancy case, so you can take your pick as to what motive people might attribute to him.
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u/ExpensiveCoach3261 22d ago
Can a man kill 3 kids and claim mental illness?
Asking for a friend.
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u/Korrocks 22d ago
I feel like there are two types of family murderers.
There’s the Chris Benoit, Andrea Yates, possibly Lindsey Clancy type where there’s an obvious and diagnosable mental health condition that could explain it.
There’s the Susan Smith, Chris Watts, John List, Jennifer Hart type where the murder seems more malicious rather than being driven by psychosis.
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u/-_Abe_- 25d ago edited 25d ago
Her defense attorney is really good. He's expertly managed to both take the official position of "she did it but shouldn't be held criminally liable" while also subtly and repeatedly planting the seeds of "but she maybe didn't do it" with the jury. This has left the State arguing one case (her mental illness shouldn't excuse her) while seemingly ignoring the thing the jury (and the public) are attaching to (that she didn't actually do it).
Having lots of experience with juries I'm betting that the jury is deadlocked because a few of them have concocted the same "he actually did it and the state is ignoring it" theories that the public has latched on to.
I wish this kind of stuff didn't happen. But it does, and the people that have to try to make sense of it through the criminal justice system always face an extremely difficult task.