The Clancy Trial Is About Three Children Who Were Killed — Not Making Their Mother the Victim

PLYMOUTH, Mass. — As Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial approaches its final stage, much of the public conversation has focused on her mental health, her medications and whether postpartum psychosis left her unable to understand that killing her three young children was wrong.

Those questions matter in a court of law. But somewhere beneath the competing psychiatric diagnoses, courtroom arguments and demonstrations of support for Clancy are three children whose lives ended inside the place where they should have been safest.

Cora Clancy was 5. Dawson Clancy was 3. Callan Clancy was 8 months old.

They should not become footnotes in their mother’s defense.

Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, has pleaded not guilty to three murder charges stemming from the Jan. 24, 2023, deaths at the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Her attorneys acknowledge that she strangled the children but argue that postpartum psychosis prevented her from understanding the wrongfulness of her actions.

Prosecutors agree that Clancy was experiencing serious mental-health problems. They argue, however, that she remained capable of understanding right from wrong and should be held criminally responsible.

The distinction will determine whether Clancy is convicted of murder or found not guilty because of a lack of criminal responsibility.

The trial has largely become a battle between mental-health experts.

Defense witnesses testified that Clancy was profoundly psychotic and experienced command hallucinations. One defense expert concluded that she could not appreciate the wrongfulness of killing her children.

Prosecution experts offered a different assessment. Forensic psychologist Kirk Heilbrun testified Monday that Clancy was not experiencing acute psychosis when the children were killed. He said her reported account of a male voice directing her actions was inconsistent with the typical features of such hallucinations.

Heilbrun instead described the killings as a possible case of “altruistic filicide,” meaning a parent kills children while believing death will protect them from future suffering. He diagnosed Clancy with bipolar II disorder but maintained that she understood what she was doing. The Associated Press reported that final witnesses were expected Tuesday before closing arguments later in the week.

Another prosecution expert, psychiatrist Avram Mack, testified that Clancy was suffering from a serious psychiatric condition but showed no evidence of psychosis in her medical records. Mack concluded that she understood her actions were wrong.

The jury must evaluate that conflicting testimony under Massachusetts law. The public should resist pretending it has heard or evaluated every piece of evidence presented in court.

We can recognize postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis as serious medical conditions without erasing personal accountability or forgetting the children who died.

We can demand better mental-health care for mothers without automatically declaring every mother who kills her children to be the primary victim.

There is something deeply troubling about watching crowds gather in support of an adult defendant while the names and faces of her children receive comparatively little attention. Compassion may explain why people identify with Clancy’s struggles, but compassion becomes distorted when it is extended so broadly to the accused that the dead are pushed out of their own story.

Cora, Dawson and Callan did not choose the medications prescribed to their mother. They did not control the medical system. They did not cause her depression, anxiety or alleged psychosis.

They were children who depended upon adults to protect them.

The defense says Clancy believed she was saving them. Prosecutors say her actions were deliberate and that she knew they were wrong. The jury—not social media—must decide whether the legal standard for criminal responsibility has been met.

That verdict should be based on the evidence, not anger, sympathy or political pressure.

But regardless of the verdict, three facts will remain unchanged: Cora is dead. Dawson is dead. Callan is dead.

Mental illness may provide an explanation. Under the law, it may even provide a defense if the required standard is proven. But an explanation does not reverse what happened, and compassion for a struggling mother should never require society to look away from the children she killed.

Their lives mattered before this trial became a national debate. Their lives should matter when the jury returns its verdict.

Editor’s note: This case involves suicide and the deaths of children. Anyone experiencing a mental-health crisis can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.