Lindsay Clancy is the Massachusetts woman who killed her three children. In any normal society, this would make her an instant pariah.
But this is Massachusetts we’re talking about. Child killing is all the rage in Massachusetts, where abortion was recently made legal until birth. Even as Lindsay Clancy is on trial, her exoneration has become a “cause” among progressive feminist factions of the Bay State. Hundreds of supporters, overwhelmingly women, recently rallied outside the courthouse in support of Clancy—who strangled her young children to death with exercise bands.
Lindsay Clancy’s mental health at the time of the murders is the crux of the debate—and the trial. Here are the basic arguments for the two sides:
The defense argues:
- Clancy repeatedly sought psychiatric treatment.
- Clancy had been prescribed numerous psychiatric medications.
- Clancy’s mental health deteriorated rapidly after childbirth.
- Clancy attempted suicide immediately afterward.
- Clancy was experiencing postpartum psychosis.
The prosecution argues:
- Clancy planned the killings.
- Clancy deliberately sent her husband out of the house prior to murdering her children.
- Clancy behaved coherently beforehand.
- Clancy therefore understood what she was doing.
This triple filicide is somewhat different from the Susan Smith case of 1994, which I remember well. Lindsay Clancy had no apparent self-interested motive for killing her three children (unlike Susan Smith, who murdered her two sons in 1994 because they interfered with a romantic relationship). On the contrary, Lindsay Clancy’s crime was completely self-destructive.
That Clancy was suffering from some form of mental illness (perhaps, even, postpartum psychosis) seems beyond dispute. In colloquial, commonsense terms: sane people don’t murder their children, or anyone else’s. Ergo, Lindsay Clancy is insane.
Is Lindsay Clancy tormented by her inner state? Was she tormented by her inner state on the day she murdered her kids? I don’t think that any of us can imagine what it’s like to live inside Lindsay Clancy’s mind. But should that change our evaluation of her actions?
We do not know for certain what motivated—or impaired the judgement of—Timothy McVeigh, Susan Smith, or Ted Bundy. Ditto for Robert Dale Henderson, the spree killer who kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered a local woman not far from my home in 1982.
And what about Mark David Chapman, Robert John Bardo, or John Wayne Gacy? They certainly had mental health issues, too… because—once again—there are some things that mentally sound people simply won’t do.
But only in the looniness of our present culture could “Justice for Lindsay Clancy” become a feminist rallying point. (Note: Women were universally horrified by Susan Smith’s crimes in 1994.)
Which brings us to the question: What exactly do Lindsay Clancy supporters want? Exoneration? A slap on the wrist and two hundred hours of community service?
Massachusetts is a notoriously liberal state insofar as criminal law is concerned. There is certainly no death penalty there. But anything approaching exoneration seems unlikely—even in the relative madhouse that Massachusetts has become in recent years.
-ET