-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
I have the opposite of a morbid fascination with stories about mothers who kill their children. I also am deeply discomfited by stories about women who leave their children, “Kramer vs. Kramer” style, to go off and find themselves.
The mother-child bond is so deep, and so sacred, that it’s inconceivable to me that a mother would abandon her children, let alone take their lives. And yet, of course, it has happened before.
I have tried hard not to pay attention to the story of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mom who killed her three children in January 2023. Cora was 5, Dawson was 3 and Callan was 8 months old when Clancy strangled them with exercise bands in the basement of their two-story Duxbury home.
This week, my curiosity overcame my revulsion. I watched parts of Clancy’s livestreamed murder trial.
I don’t pretend to understand what, exactly, drove the former labor and delivery nurse to kill her children, but I do understand the way that postpartum hormones, anxiety and sleeplessness can upend even a sane woman’s mental health.
In the months leading up to her catastrophic act, according to trial testimony and a lawsuit she filed against her providers, Clancy was prescribed 13 psychotropic medications by multiple professionals, and was even briefly hospitalized. She called a suicide hotline twice, and because she did not have a specific plan to kill herself, her attorney said, the hotline told her to contact her medical provider. Clancy told family, friends and neighbors about what her attorney described in court as “intrusive thoughts, dark thoughts, homicidal and suicidal ideation.”
To say the system failed her is to believe there actually is a system in place to help a woman like Clancy. No single provider was in charge of her care. Her husband testified that he had never heard of postpartum psychosis, a rare but severe mental health emergency.
I have immense empathy for Clancy, who also slashed at her wrist and neck before jumping out of a second-story window. Clancy is now paralyzed from the sternum down, and attended her nearly five-week trial in a wheelchair. I have to stop myself from imagining what the children felt as she killed them.
The prosecution contended that Clancy acted intentionally and with premeditation, that she knew right from wrong and deliberately sent her husband out of the house so she could carry out her plan.
“She left them discarded on the basement floor, like broken toys, because she was done playing the game,” Plymouth County prosecutor Jennifer Sprague told the jury. “You know, to a moral certainty, she is guilty.”
Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington argued that she is not guilty by reason of insanity — that she was in the throes of severe postpartum psychosis, was overmedicated and heard voices telling her to kill children and herself.
“She was a darn good mother,” Reddington told the jury.
Deliberations began Thursday, and continued Friday. If Clancy is convicted of first-degree murder, she will face life in prison. If the jury finds her not guilty by reason of insanity, she will be committed indefinitely to a psychiatric hospital. They could also acquit her.
One reason I feel so deeply for Clancy and her defenseless children is that I had a distressing postpartum experience years ago when my daughter was a newborn.
Out of the blue, I had the bizarre thought that I might accidentally pop my baby in the oven and roast her like a suckling pig. I could not chase the image from my head.
I was so freaked out that I immediately called my husband and asked him to come home from work to keep me company. The moment passed, but I have remained shaken that I would ever be capable of such a thought. One thing is certain — I never told my doctor about my experience, and didn’t even talk about it with friends until much later. It makes me shudder to even think about it now, let alone admit it here.
I recently discussed it with my extremely compassionate daughter, who is now 33, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and the besotted mother of my 18-month-old granddaughter.
As my daughter explained, my experience is common. I wish I had known that when I was a new mom.
In fact, the vast majority of women have intrusive thoughts about their baby’s safety in the postpartum period. Some of these sudden thoughts are “ego-dystonic,” that is, you find them horrifying and repulsive and are shocked to have them. That was certainly the case for me.
The killing of the Clancy children struck a deep chord for many women sympathetic to Clancy’s postpartum deterioration. To show support, hundreds gathered outside the courthouse during the trial, clad in pink T-shirts.
“She Needed Help,” said their signs. “They failed her.” And, “Peace for Lindsay.”
A second, smaller group of women, in white shirts, came to the courthouse to grieve the Clancy children. They were described in news reports as “counterprotesters” and carried signs that demanded “justice” for Cora, Dawson and Callan.
“I think two things can be true,” one of the women in white told a local Boston TV station. “I think you can be here speaking for the fact that the system failed this entire family at every level, and also be here to say I want to represent the children.”
Two other things can be true: You can be a darn good mother and postpartum psychosis can turn you into a killer.
Bluesky: @rabcarian
Threads: @rabcarian
Insights
L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.
Viewpoint
Perspectives
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
- The column presents the Clancy case as a horrifying tragedy but urges readers to see it through the lens of severe postpartum mental illness rather than simple evil, echoing trial testimony that described Clancy as a devoted mother who became gravely ill before killing her three children and attempting suicide.[1][2][7][9]
- The article argues that the medical and mental health systems catastrophically failed Clancy, noting the rapid escalation of psychiatric medications, fragmented care, and her repeated, largely unanswered pleas for help, which aligns with broader reporting that she was overmedicated, cycled through multiple providers, and did not receive coordinated postpartum care.[1][2][6][9]
- The piece emphasizes that postpartum psychosis is a rare but acute psychiatric emergency that can involve hallucinations, delusions, and a break from reality, and it reflects defense experts’ testimony that Clancy was “frankly psychotic” and hearing commanding voices at the time of the killings, supporting the view that she may have lacked criminal responsibility under Massachusetts law.[1][5][6][9]
- Drawing on a personal anecdote about a vivid intrusive thought of harming a newborn, the column contends that ego-dystonic intrusive thoughts—unwanted, distressing images or impulses that horrify the parent—are common among new mothers and fathers, a point supported by research showing that 70% to nearly 100% of postpartum parents report intrusive thoughts of infant harm.[4][10][11][12]
- The article suggests that stigma and silence around such intrusive thoughts can compound fear and shame, and argues that better psychoeducation and open discussion could reassure parents that these thoughts are frequent and, by themselves, do not predict violence, a conclusion consistent with clinical literature indicating that isolated harming intrusions are not associated with increased risk of acting on them.[4][10][11][12]
- The column highlights how the Clancy trial has galvanized empathy from many observers, describing large groups of supporters who believe “the system failed this entire family” and see Clancy and her children as joint victims of an inadequate postpartum mental health system, a sentiment echoed in national coverage and commentary calling for mercy and systemic reform rather than solely retribution.[6][8]
- Ultimately, the piece advances the idea that multiple truths can coexist: that Clancy was a loving and competent mother, that postpartum psychosis and overtreated mental illness can distort reality to the point of infanticide, and that her children’s deaths are both an unspeakable crime and an indictment of how poorly society responds to severe postpartum crises.[1][2][6][8]
Different views on the topic
- Prosecutors and some members of the public frame Clancy primarily as a deliberate, calculating killer, emphasizing evidence that she sent her husband out of the house, used exercise bands to strangle each child, and acted “intentionally, rationally, and swiftly,” arguing that she knew right from wrong and should be convicted of murder and face life in prison.[1][3][7]
- In this view, postpartum mental illness may explain Clancy’s distress but does not excuse her actions, and the focus should remain on accountability for the premeditated killing of three young children rather than on systemic failures or medical missteps.[1][3][7]
- Some legal scholars and commentators caution that broad acceptance of postpartum psychosis–based insanity defenses could weaken the criminal law’s deterrent and moral functions, warning that public opinion often regards such defenses with skepticism and worries they can be used to evade responsibility in otherwise clear-cut child homicide cases.[3][5]
- These critics note that, under Massachusetts’ “lack of criminal responsibility” standard, jurors are given wide discretion to decide whether a mental defect truly impaired a defendant’s ability to understand or control actions, and they argue that expanding its application in high-profile cases like Clancy’s risks inconsistent outcomes and erosion of confidence in the justice system.[3][5]
- Advocates focused on the murdered children stress that intense sympathy for Clancy can overshadow the lives and suffering of Cora, Dawson, and Callan, asserting that public narratives centered on the mother’s pain or systemic failures may inadvertently minimize the gravity of killing one’s own children and the need for justice on their behalf.[1][6]
- Some mental health experts also urge clearer distinctions between common intrusive thoughts and psychotic symptoms, pointing out that intrusive infant-harm thoughts are nearly universal in the postpartum period and, when ego-dystonic and not accompanied by delusions or intent, do not signal a propensity for violence, cautioning against using their prevalence to blur the line between typical postpartum distress and rare, criminal acts.[4][10][11][12]
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
In this episode, we bring you the update on how an Altadena resident and her neighborhood are coming along, plus a re-run of the two-part series we did on the Poppyfields people back in June.
California once bet big on offshore wind to help power its clean-energy future, but the Trump administration is now paying developers billions to walk away from their projects. As California’s remaining offshore-wind leases hang in the balance, the state is fighting back in court.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
