Lindsay Clancy case: was it evil, or severe mental illness?

But she did. She voluntarily went in to mental health hospital for 5 days and they discharged her with another round of meds.

Has she not been discharged, if her Bi Polar diagnosis was identified then , those children would still be alive.

I agree. Mental health issues are no excuse for murdering three small children. No more than schizophrenia is why Peter Sutcliffe bludgeoned multiple women to death or Fred West's crimes were due to learning difficulties. The more I hear these excuses I despair.

It’s not that many people don’t understand psychosis. It’s that many people do not believe LC was in psychosis. The main “evidence” that she was appears to be that she murdered her children and that she says she was. Many people do not find this convincing.

Exactly. She knew she was a risk to her children, as she said she had thoughts of harming them. She had access to a nanny, she had the option of saying ‘I’m stepping away right now to get well and I want to safeguard my children.’ Did she? NO.
She wanted control and the children paid their lives for it. It’s absolutely disgusting.

If only the dc didn’t have to be part of that plan too.

Excellent post

On waking in hospital, her first thoughts were for her own welfare - should my get a lawyer, is my body broken, how are my legs - not her children.

This is so chilling

Exactly. She knew she was a risk to her children, as she said she had thoughts of harming them. She had access to a nanny, she had the option of saying ‘I’m stepping away right now to get well and I want to safeguard my children.’ Did she? NO.
She wanted control and the children paid their lives for it. It’s absolutely disgusting.

Once he’s out of the house she had the opportunity to carry out a delusional plan that her mind may have been fretting over for some time.

She had reported suicidal ideation to for some time.

It’s not uncommon for suicidal people to seize an opportunity when they are unsupervised to kill themselves.

Fascinating that more than 11 treating doctors, several of them psychiatrists, several of them working in the field of post-partum mental health, came to a different diagnosis to you - who have never met her, let alone attempted to treat her - and all have firmly stated she showed no signs of psychosis.

She was prescribed multiple medications but didn't take any of them consistently enough to see results (many of these medications start taking effect only after 4-5 weeks of continuous use). As a nurse, she knew this. She did not adhere to any of her medications - execept for the benzos.

She was discharged after one day from Women and Infant's hospital because team the clinical team in the postpartum depression program believed her symptoms were "more pharmacologically induced than purely depressive."

She was referred to three other hospitals but did not follow up on the referrals.

She was admitted to psychiatric facilities on multiple occasions but checked herself out of them after a few days. She did not go to therapy consistently outside of these brief stays.

She told her major treating psychiatrist the day before she murdered her children that she had no thoughts of suicide or homicide. She was playing in the snow with the children, building them a snowman, before she sent her husband off on that series of erands - the timing of which she mapped out on her phone prior - that allowed her the window to strangle them one after the other.

On waking in hospital, her first thoughts were for her own welfare - should my get a lawyer, is my body broken, how are my legs - not her children.

Funny kind of psychosis.

She was given the medication she refused to take it you can't force people to take medication the doctor can prescribe it but they can't shove pills down your throat

Indeed, but it’s strange how hers happened most significantly when he was out the house (planned by her so not accidentally….!!)

What’s the chances that was completely a random act and timing…. I say not so much a random act!

Have you ever experienced post-psychosis, or supported someone through a prolonged period of severe mental illness?
One thing I’ve learned is that severe mental illness doesn’t always look the way people expect it to.
Someone can be in the depths of a serious episode and still appear completely lucid. They can hold a normal conversation, make plans, organise things, communicate clearly and appear to know exactly what they’re doing.
Being able to “plan” or appear rational doesn’t necessarily mean someone isn’t severely unwell. Psychosis isn’t always obvious from the outside, and someone can retain certain abilities while their perception of reality is significantly altered.
Even after the episode, they may appear completely lucid and be able to talk about what happened, sometimes with a surprisingly clear memory of events.
I think there’s a huge misconception that someone experiencing severe mental illness must constantly appear confused, irrational or completely detached from reality.
That simply isn’t always the case.
Sometimes the most difficult episodes are the ones that other people don’t recognise because the person appears so completely “normal.”
Mental illness can be incredibly complex, and you can’t always see what is happening beneath the surface

I don't think being mentally ill excuses her to be honest. Many women suffer post partum depression. Some women suffer post partum psychosis. Very very few of them MURDER their children.

She knew she was unwell. She had thought previously that she was capable of hurting them. She could have walked away and didn't

She was given the medication she refused to take it you can't force people to take medication the doctor can prescribe it but they can't shove pills down your throat

Seriously though, anyone who does something as horrific as this(whether pre-planned or not) has got to be mentally ill. No sane person would ever do this - whether planned or not.

It’s horrifying in 2026 that so many people still have no real concept of what psychosis is. Your brain, like your heart and liver, is an organ. It can go wrong. Psychosis leaves you unable to trust your senses or memory, in a different reality to everyone else. It’s terrifying for you and for those around you. It is no more a character flaw than heart disease is, and it can happen to any of us at any time. It happened to my 85-year-old Nan during lockdown, one of the sweetest and gentlest people I’ve ever met.

Believe me. You do not, in psychosis, “know what you are doing”. That’s rather the crux of it.

She was given the medication she refused to take it you can't force people to take medication the doctor can prescribe it but they can't shove pills down your throat

We need to remember she has since been diagnosed as BI-Polar. BPD and the wrong medication can also lead to psychosis. Combining that with PPD and the meds for that was disastrous.

She was failed because they didn’t assess her properly. They treated the symptoms, without identifying the true cause.

And sadly. This happens all the time. Especially in women.

It's very basic anatomy, no medical person would have to google it

We need to remember she has since been diagnosed as BI-Polar. BPD and the wrong medication can also lead to psychosis. Combining that with PPD and the meds for that was disastrous.

She was failed because they didn’t assess her properly. They treated the symptoms, without identifying the true cause.

And sadly. This happens all the time. Especially in women.

There’s a late onset window of up to 12 months for first onset psychotic episodes.

I’m not a medic but afaik beyond 3 to 6 months, onset of psychotic symptoms is generally evaluated as onset of an underlying mood or psychotic disorder (eg bipolar or depressive disorder with psychotic features rather than an immediate hormone-triggered acute puerperal psychosis.

It’s horrifying in 2026 that so many people still have no real concept of what psychosis is. Your brain, like your heart and liver, is an organ. It can go wrong. Psychosis leaves you unable to trust your senses or memory, in a different reality to everyone else. It’s terrifying for you and for those around you. It is no more a character flaw than heart disease is, and it can happen to any of us at any time. It happened to my 85-year-old Nan during lockdown, one of the sweetest and gentlest people I’ve ever met.

Believe me. You do not, in psychosis, “know what you are doing”. That’s rather the crux of it.

If it was mental illness, it was a strangely carefully planned case of loss of control, with the unusual ability to talk calmly to her husband in the middle of the murders and know she shouldn’t tell him what she was doing. I find it very hard to understand how people can read the details and still believe she didn’t chose to murder her poor children.

Indeed, but it’s strange how hers happened most significantly when he was out the house (planned by her so not accidentally….!!)

What’s the chances that was completely a random act and timing…. I say not so much a random act!