\n<\/p>\n
Prosecutors revived a theory in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial case this week, suggesting she had faked a suicide attempt after allegedly strangling her three children.<\/p>\n
While prosecutors have been arguing that Clancy acted intentionally and should be held criminally responsible, her defense has said she suffered from postpartum psychosis.<\/p>\n
To make their case, prosecutors pointed this week to internet searches made on the family computer in the months before the killings \u2013 including for \u201csuicide methods\u201d, searches for psychiatric medications, detox programs, mania, ketamine therapy and concerns about a psychiatrist overprescribing medication.<\/p>\n
Clancy\u2019s cellphone revealed searches for \u201ccan you treat a sociopath?\u201d four days before the killings, along with notes about depression, exhaustion and concerns over her relationship with her youngest child, Callan, who she struggled to breastfeed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to feel love and connection with all my kids \u2026 I just want to feel happy. I want to be able to relax and take care of my kids. And when they go to bed at night, I want to deeply relax and hang out with Pat and then fall into a deep sleep for 8 hours, get up and pour hard into myself for an hour and a half. Cal was so very planned and desired. I want to be able to give him all the love he deserves,\u201d read an entry from Clancy\u2019s notes app on 25 October 2022.<\/p>\n
Then, in a note created just prior to the killings and modified a day before they took place, Clancy wrote: \u201cMedication stole my motherhood and my life \u2026 prescription medication stole me from my own body.\u201d<\/p>\n
In January 2023, the prosecution claimed Clancy made a series of internet searches, including one for \u201challucinations\u201d and \u201cintrusive\u201d a day later. Clancy, who had been prescribed 13 different medications and reported trouble sleeping, also searched for \u201cpremade goodie bags\u201d and \u201cbest kids movies\u201d.<\/p>\n
On the day of the murders \u2013 which Clancy has admitted to but is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis \u2013 the 36-year-old mum took the elder kids out to build a snowman, later texting her former-husband, Patrick: \u201cAny chance you want to do takeout from Three-V,\u201d referring to a local restaurant.<\/p>\n
When Patrick responded \u201cYeah\u201d, Clancy wrote back: \u201cOkie dokie. Check the menu when you can.\u201d Soon after, prosecutors claim, she strangled her kids with exercise bands.<\/p>\n
Without a legal obligation to offer motive, prosecutors contend her actions \u2013 particularly in sending her husband out for a take-out and medicines on the evening of the murders \u2013 show she planned to kill her children.<\/p>\n
But to her defense team and others, Clancy was a mom struggling to hold her life and family life together. Proceedings have shown Clancy to be suffering from both undiagnosed bipolar disorder and postpartum depression, to have been overly medicated by layers of poorly communicating healthcare professionals from who she had repeatedly sought help and ultimately someone who may have snapped under postpartum psychosis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prosecution is arguing that this was a rational woman who liked to be in control, a mom who had her kids schedules, feeding schedules, and was so in control that when she started to lose it she was so frustrated that she killed the kids but when it came to killing herself, she was a coward,\u201d said Margaret McLean, a former Massachusetts prosecutor, aka the \u201cCourtroom Translator,\u201d who now runs a YouTube channel on criminal justice.<\/p>\n
McLean pointed out that Clancy never told her doctors she was hearing voices that were directing her to kill her kids prior to doing so, though she had told a psychiatric nurse practitioner that she was having \u201cintrusive thoughts I never had before\u201d, and \u201cfeeling completely hopeless\u201d.<\/p>\n
The practitioner advised giving her medications more time to work. It was only when Clancy was in hospital after the murders that she told her husband she had \u201cheard voices\u201d.<\/p>\n
While Shanan Buckingham, the prosecutor, has urged jurors not to view the Clancy trial as \u201ca public debate about women\u2019s mental health and how the medical system treats women\u201d, it is inevitably becoming one in the court of public opinion.<\/p>\n
Dr Gina Wong, a registered psychologist, a perinatal forensic expert and co-author of Maternal Filicide, a book on the phenomenon of mothers killing their children, says the Clancy trial has, in some corners of social media, \u201cbecome a spectator sport \u2013 stripped of nuance and rife with armchair diagnoses, moral certainty, sensationalism, misinformation and dehumanizing commentary\u201d.<\/p>\n
But the trial has also become a catalyst for what Wong calls \u201can overdue conversation\u201d on the shortcomings in maternal mental health care.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo often, mothers in psychiatric crisis are missed, care is fragmented and coordinated assessment, family involvement, safety planning, specialized professional training and public education have been insufficient,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
The trial, she says, shows \u201cthe need for more coordinated clinical responses to women whose perinatal mental health needs are escalating\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) are far more common that many people realize. The childbearing years represent the most vulnerable time psychologically, with psychiatric hospital admissions increasing markedly in the weeks after birth more than any other time in the female life cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Wong, who is involved with Postpartum Support International, says that a postpartum psychiatric crisis is not a predictor of violence, though \u201ccertain symptoms require rapid escalation, comprehensive risk assessment, and a rigorous level of coordinated psychiatric care proportionate to the danger\u201d.<\/p>\n
A mother who appears to be functioning but also going through a psychotic break is not inherently contradictory, she said. \u201cSevere psychiatric disturbance and evidence of planning, organization or apparently ordinary functioning are not automatically mutually exclusive,\u201d she said. \u201cApparent organization does not prove sanity.<\/p>\n
\u201cPsychosis is not always visibly chaotic,\u201d she added. \u201cPsychosis can fluctuate, and a person may retain some practical abilities that demonstrate cognitive organization, while having profoundly distorted beliefs or impaired judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trial continues next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prosecutors revived a theory in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial case this week, suggesting she had faked a suicide attempt after allegedly strangling her three children. While prosecutors have been arguing that Clancy acted intentionally and should be held criminally responsible, her defense has said she suffered from postpartum psychosis. To make their case, prosecutors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[4310,25184,25185,7454,4646,150,3766,3356,1217,4095,2131],"class_list":{"0":"post-51795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-attempt","9":"tag-clancy","10":"tag-faked","11":"tag-lindsay","12":"tag-murder","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-prosecutors","15":"tag-revive","16":"tag-suicide","17":"tag-theory","18":"tag-trial"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}