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

Well this shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what psychosis actually is 🙄

I think you can be mentally ill and still plan something. Look at people that die by suicide. They plan over a long time and look ok to many others on the outside. I don’t think she is evil at all.

I also don’t believe that looking at things on the internet proves it was planned. She maybe had these feelings before, looked it up and then did nothing at that time.

I believe there are evil people that do these things to their children, such as mothers or fathers that kill their children because of custody battles but this was not the case.

Plus who would want to paralyse themselves, I believe she had a real suicide attempt because it was all too much.

I had seen she was on many tablets at the same time and health care givers were not talking with each other and maybe she did not give the information either but if you are overwhelmed you can forget these things.

Evil. Im not going to defend her just because she’s a woman. Women do bad stuff as well

She didn't want to walk away. She was practically begging for help and everyone, including members of her own family, let her down. I truly believe she loved her family. In most other filicide cases the prosecution could find a reason that the mother wanted the children gone: most prominently is that they had fallen for a person that did not want children. There has been no mention of any reason Lindsay would have wanted her children dead. The idea that she wanted out from under the responsibility is BS.

No one is talking about them because there's no doubt that she killed them. That appalling fact is not up for debate. The kernel of the trial is whether she was sane or insane when she killed them, and hence whether she's guilty of murder or not. Hence the focus is on her state of mind, not her victims.

I believe I had postnatal psychosis after DS was born, but I hid it so well, that not only did no one else realise, but I didn't really realise myself until much later. I remember the shadows on the floor were talking to me and telling me to do things -- fortunately, none of the things were murderous towards my baby. I appeared in full possession of my senses to DH, visitors, HV, GP, NCT people etc.

Do you know anything about psychosis and how it presents? People can look incredibly logical, rational and sane - not all psychosis presents as people raving and ranting in the corner.

That the question though, isn’t it? Was she in the throes of psychosis? She certainly wasn’t before, or after. So what’s the evidence she was when she murdered her children? That she murdered her children? It’s all very circular reasoning. That she said so? Well, she would, wouldn’t she?

There are many threads about this case already. Do a search.

What is your assertion of her mental state before and after? Were you there? Did you assess her? Unless you were, you cannot possibly comment on whether she was psychotic or not. As far as I can see she was not assessed properly - certainly not before, and I havent seen anything to show she was assessed after either. You are clearly very ignorant about psychosis.

She was mentally ill, she was literally begging for help! Kept being put on increased medication. Tried being admitted to a specialist post partum mental health unit and was turned away. Tried ringing a suicide hotline and was turned away because she didn’t have a specific plan, TWICE! Saw numerous health professionals who just kept prescribing medication. Medication it turns out she shouldn’t have been prescribed because she has now been diagnosed with Bipolar and the benzos and SSRIs increased the likelihood of her becoming manic. She told each mental health professional she was suicidal. She told both her mum and Patrick she was scared she’d harm the children. I’m failing to see what else the poor woman could have done!

She begged her parents to stay with her, which they did. She climbed into bed with her mum because she was afraid of being alone with her thoughts. Her husband tried to get her help, her mum tried to get her help, her MIL tried to get her help.

The prosecution for 1st degree murder feels like a witch hunt. Massachusetts doesn’t have the best reputation for treating women well, does it?

Thousands of women have these symptoms and worse. They are not diagnostic of being so psychotic you are not responsible if you kill your children. There’s a bit of a danger here of implying that all women with mental illness are a danger to their children.

So nobody who kills their children should ever be prosecuted for murder? Or people who kill one or two children can be justifiably prosecuted for murder, but not if they kill three? I’m not sure what point you’re making.

I think it can be both. I don't doubt she had mental illness but I'm not convinced that's the reason for her actions. Millions of people suffer mental illnesses but we're not all out there killing children.

What I find odd is that people are so nasty about her husband remarrying. It happened 3 years ago is he not allowed to move on and find some peace? I know there are a lot of people that say he did it. I don’t believe that. I think she’s a very sick woman who masked how she was truly feeling. They have just declared a mistrial haven’t they so she’ll have to go through another trial. I think she’ll just end up in an institution for the rest of her life.

I don’t think she was let down by doctors, she had access to a lot of medical professionals and medication. I was trying to imagine the same scenario with the NHS, having to fill in a econsult then having to wait up to 48h for a phone call that might or might not offer you a face-to-face consultation…

I struggle with the fact that it was definitely planned.

Absolutely spot on - a lot of ignorance on this thread. The fact she had the insight to recognize something was wrong is heartbreaking for those children, her and her whole family. We know womens health is often poorly served and what they say about their health is often dismissed - this is another example of this, albeit one which where that kind of misogyny had catastrophic results.

If you believe that she was mentally unwell she isn’t guilty of murder.

This is not factually correct. You can be mentally unwell and still guilty of murder. I have depression, currently well controlled. If I had murdered someone whilst unwell that would still be murder, and not automatically not just because I was mentally unwell. The test for not guilty of murder by reason of insanity is more complicated than you are suggesting.

Like everyone else on this thread, no, I wasn’t there and I am basing my opinions on what I have read about the case and trial.

🙄