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In the Headlines: Lindsay Clancy · Deadly Divas True Crime Podcast

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hey again, True Crime Divas and Dudes.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's me, Tina, and welcome back to another episode of In the Headlines from your favorite True Crime podcast, Deadly Divas.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We just released an In the Headlines a few days ago about the Horsch House of Horrors.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't listened to that one, you definitely should, because it is wild.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I hadn't planned to release another episode so soon, but yesterday, Friday, September 4th, the internet exploded with the news.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: After seven days of heated deliberations, the jury in the Lindsey Clancy trial is officially hung, and the judge has declared a mistrial.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I actually wanted to get this out yesterday, but it's a one-woman show over here.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So here I am with my coffee Saturday morning before I have to go to work instead.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I figured that this was going to be one extreme or another in this trial because it is just so polarizing.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I figured either they were going to deliberate for just like a couple hours and come back with a unanimous verdict, or we were going to be heading into mistrial territory.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the more days passed, the more likely a mistrial was becoming.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, here we are.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I completely understand why.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: A mother killed her three innocent, defenseless children, the youngest one being just eight months old.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a literal baby.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So people are very upset, and they should be.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm upset.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those children should still be alive.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: But when you add the possibility of something like postpartum psychosis into the case, everything becomes so much more complicated.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: There is extensive evidence that Lindsay Clancy was seriously mentally ill.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't automatically mean she met the legal standard for lack of criminal responsibility, though.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what this trial was about.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But her mental health issues weren't something invented by the defense after the three children were dead either.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were documented by multiple medical professionals well before the murders.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Her friends knew, her co-workers knew, her husband knew, even her mother knew.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this wasn't something that we learned about after the fact.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that distinction is very important.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have a lot of thoughts about this case and some of the arguments that I've seen online, and I'm gonna get into that later.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: But first, for anybody who isn't familiar with this case, and I know that's not very many of you, but just in case, let's do a very quick rundown.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: On January 24th, 2023, 32-year-old Lindsay Clancy was living in Ducksbury, Massachusetts with her husband Patrick and their three children: five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lindsay was a labor and delivery nurse, and in the months before the murders, her mental health had deteriorated dramatically.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: She was experiencing severe anxiety, insomnia, intrusive thoughts, and suicidal thoughts.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: She saw multiple medical professionals, was prescribed psychiatric medications, and desperately tried to understand what was happening to her.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: On January 1st, just over three weeks before the murders, Lindsay voluntarily admitted herself to McLean Hospital, which is a psychiatric hospital.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: She stayed for just five days and was discharged.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Then on January 24th, Patrick left the house to pick up medicine for one of the children from CVS and to pick up takeout for the family.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: He was gone for less than one hour.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: When he returned, the house was strangely quiet.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: He eventually discovered Lindsay outside after she had cut her wrists and throat and jumped from a second story window.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: She survived, but suffered spinal injuries that left her paralyzed.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick then found all three children in the basement, each with an exercise band around their neck.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead that night.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Callan was still alive and rushed to the hospital, but three days later he died too.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And from the beginning, there was never really a question of who did this.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: When Patrick found Lindsay outside, he asked her where the children were.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: She told him they were in the basement.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when he asked what she'd done, Lindsay said she had tried to kill herself and the children.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So this case has never been about who killed Cora Dawson and Callan.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lindsay did.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And she freely admitted it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: The question is whether Lindsay understood what she was doing when she did it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: The prosecution acknowledged that Lindsay had mental health problems.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Their argument was that mental illness and legal insanity are not the same thing.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: They argued that Lindsay knew what she was doing and pointed to what they believed were signs of planning.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Lindsay asked Patrick to leave the house.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: She communicated with him about CVS and takeout.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: She appeared to be functioning normally immediately before the murder, and several medical professionals who treated Lindsay before the killings documented that they did not see evidence that she was psychotic.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Even during her hospitalization at McLean, she wasn't exhibiting obvious hallucinations or delusions.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: The defense saw the exact same evidence very differently.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: They argued that Lindsay was suffering from severe psychiatric illness, including postpartum psychosis, and that she had been failed by the medical system.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: They walked the jury through the insomnia, intrusive thoughts, suicidal thoughts, medications, doctors, and psychiatric hospitalization.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: One defense expert testified that Lindsay reported hearing a male voice telling her to kill the children and herself.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: The defense argued that Lindsay had undiagnosed bipolar disorder with postpartum psychosis and that some of the medications she'd been prescribed may have made her condition worse.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So neither side was really arguing about what Lindsay did.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: They were arguing about the condition of her mind when she did it.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And before we get to the mistrial, I really want to talk about Patrick.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because there is an entire corner of the internet convinced that Lindsay did not do this and that Patrick did.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And look, I understand why.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I really do.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: As women, I think some of us probably have a bias here.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just be adults and have some radical honesty.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially if you are a mother, you simply don't want to believe another mother could do something that the very thought of doing to your own children makes you physically sick.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And practicing radical honesty myself, I will admit it.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I question Patrick too.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I saw the same theories and misinformation everybody else was seeing.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And some of it sounded compelling at first.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just bias either.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is when someone kills members of their family, including their children, and then kills themselves, the perpetrator is overwhelmingly likely to be male.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: One major US study found that ninety two percent of the killers in those cases were men.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: So initially questioning the father when multiple members of a family are dead is not some outrageous assumption.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: But statistics don't solve individual murders.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Evidence does.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the evidence simply does not support Patrick killing his children.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest theories involves Lindsay's Apple Watch.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: People have claimed Patrick could have been wearing it or somehow manipulating the movement data.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: But Patrick was documented leaving the house, he went to CVS, and then to get takeout.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: There was surveillance footage, receipts, and digital evidence that proved this.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, Lindsay's watch recorded movement inside the house while Patrick was gone.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've also seen people question why Patrick didn't immediately run to the basement when he came home.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because he didn't know the children were in the basement.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: We know that now, but he didn't at the time.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he came home, found his wife critically injured outside after jumping from a second-story window, and Lindsay ultimately told him where the children were after the fact.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then there is the endless analysis of the 911 call.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Whether he sounded devastated enough or too devastated, whether he said the right things.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there is no universally correct way to react when you discover that your three children have been strangled.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot diagnose guilt or innocence from somebody's voice on a 911 call.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I also understand why some of Patrick's choices after the murders have raised eyebrows too.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: He literally traveled to Costa Rica less than a month after the children died, only about 18 days after their funeral.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Four months after the children died, he moved to New York and eventually sold the family home.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: He also started dating again, and by February 2024, just over a year after the children died, he was in a relationship with the woman he would eventually marry.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it does seem like he moved on from this very quickly.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Suspiciously quickly, for sure.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that leaves a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, including mine.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean this is pure speculation, but maybe he was having an affair with this woman prior to the incident.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know, but it would explain the timeline.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But even if he was having an affair, that does not make him a murderer.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: It just makes him a cheater.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, Lindsay says she did it.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Her defense says she did it.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Her attorneys are not accusing Patrick.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Their argument is that Lindsay killed the children while so severely mentally ill that she was not legally responsible for her actions.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And even Patrick has defended Lindsay, saying, I wasn't married to a monster.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was married to someone who got sick.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if Lindsay had died after jumping out that window and police arrived to find a mother and three children dead, with Patrick as the only surviving member of the family, like, yes, obviously investigate Patrick.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Investigate the shit out of Patrick.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's what investigators are supposed to do.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: But questioning somebody at the beginning of an investigation and continuing to accuse them of murdering their three children after the evidence clearly does not support it are two completely different things.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So back to the trial.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: After six weeks of testimony from more than 80 witnesses, the case went to the jury.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: They deliberated for approximately 38 hours over seven days.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And during those seven days, the jury told the judge multiple times that they were deadlocked.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But each time, they were sent back to keep deliberating and try to reach a unanimous verdict.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, the dispute appeared to come down to one juror.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: According to a note from the four person, that juror acknowledged having reasonable doubt, but was allegedly refusing to apply that doubt according to the judge's instructions.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: The defense tried to have the juror removed and even went to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in an emergency attempt to intervene, but neither effort worked.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And on September 4th, Judge William Sullivan officially declared a mistrial.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lindsay has not been acquitted.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: She has not been convicted.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: The charges remain.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so now here's my take on all of this.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's probably going to be controversial, even though I really don't think it should be.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: There is a reason our legal system recognizes that sometimes a person can be so severely mentally ill that they cannot be held criminally responsible for what they do.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if that verdict can't be applied in a case like this, where we have mountains of evidence and documentation showing that a mother was severely mentally ill and repeatedly begging for help after the birth of her child, I genuinely don't know where else it could apply.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, truly, I've seen people say she murdered three children.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what mental illness she had.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I understand that reaction.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Three babies are dead at the hands of their own mother.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing about Lindsay's mental illness makes what happened to Cora, Dawson, and Callan less horrific.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the legal system can't operate on the principle of the outcome was horrible, therefore the person must have been legally responsible.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Mental illness either matters under the law or it doesn't.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in this case, I think it really, really matters.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Based on the evidence presented at this trial, I believe Lindsay should be found not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I know some people here are not guilty, and they think that means Lindsay gets away with murdering three children.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what I am saying, and that is not what that verdict means.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: She does not deserve to simply get away with it, and it is not that simple.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: She killed her children.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Cora, Dawson, and Callan deserved to live.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I believe Lindsay was so mentally ill that she wasn't in control of her own mind.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: She was not in reality here with us.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And most critically, she tried to get help over and over again.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have the receipts.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Her mental illness was documented well before January 24th.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow, three weeks after she voluntarily admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital, all three of her children were dead.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have a really difficult time looking at that timeline and seeing only an evil woman who simply decided that she just didn't want her kids anymore.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this brings me to the argument I've seen everywhere.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: If Lindsay were a man, everybody would want the electric chair.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that comparison completely oversimplifies this case.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, men kill their children more often than women, but maybe not by as much as you would assume.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: One major study looked at more than 94,000 cases where a parent was arrested for killing their child over a 32-year period.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: About 57% of offenders were male and 43% were female.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So women absolutely kill their children too.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: But when we look at the kind of family annihilation we were talking about earlier, men overwhelmingly dominate those statistics.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when people say if Lindsay were a man, what they're actually picturing is someone like Chris Watts.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And these are not even remotely the same circumstances.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Please look at the evidence before you form an opinion on this.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Watts did not give birth and then become severely mentally ill during the postpartum period.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't terrified by what was happening inside his own brain and he was not repeatedly seeking psychiatric help.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't voluntarily hospitalized weeks before murdering his family.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: He murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters because ultimately he wanted a new life with his mistress.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: That is a completely different crime.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if a father had documented severe mental illness, repeatedly sought help, hospitalized himself, and credible experts testified that he was experiencing psychosis when he killed his children, yes, I would want his mental illness considered too.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's another reason Lindsay has so many female supporters that gets overlooked.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: They are not saying it's okay that she killed her children.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're not cheering her on for that.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are thinking that could have been me.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not the murders, but the illness, the exhaustion, the intrusive thoughts, the postpartum depression, the terrifying feeling that something is wrong inside your brain, and you cannot fix it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the women supporting Lindsay have experienced postpartum psychosis themselves, and they know exactly how terrifying it is.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: All that said, I do think Lindsay should be tried again, and I believe the evidence strongly supports a not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility verdict.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think she should be admitted to a psychiatric treatment facility where she can continue receiving treatment.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think somebody who is sick should be punished because it settles some mental score someone has on the internet.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And more importantly, if Lindsay really was experiencing postpartum psychosis, the warning signs were there, and she was actively trying to get help, then we have to ask whether a dangerously sick woman reached out repeatedly and the systems designed to protect her and her children failed to recognize just how sick she was.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that is something we should be talking about.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it happened once, it can happen again.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it could happen to someone you love.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Lindsay's family never thought it would happen to her either.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: They described her as a loving and devoted mother and could never have fathomed something like this.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: But here we are.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's one thing people can learn from this tragedy, it's that mental illness does not discriminate.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are someone you know is struggling, please seek help.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I am going to be putting some resources in the show notes for that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: For now, Lindsay Clancy remains charged with the murders of her three children.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: A mistrial doesn't mean she's been acquitted, and prosecutors can choose to try her again.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Her next court date is September 29th, and that's when we may start getting a clearer picture of what happens from here.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Prosecutors could announce that they intend to retry her, or the two sides could potentially work towards some kind of agreement.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, Lindsay will remain in custody at the psychiatric facility where she's been held throughout the case while prosecutors decide what comes next.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So just because we've reached a mistrial, that certainly does not mean this case is over.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: I will be sure to keep you guys updated.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all I have for you on Lindsay Clancy.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sarah is going to be doing a full deep dive on this case at some point, so keep an eye out for that.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, let me know what y'all think.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Most importantly, rest in peace to Cora, Dawson, and Callan.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Three precious lives that should have had so much more time.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, be divas, not deadly.