Lindsay Clancy trial continued.

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Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5565097-lindsay-clancy-trial?page=10&reply=154694959

You can’t dictate what people can and can’t talk about on a thread.

Yet you seem to want to dictate exactly what people should talk about.

No I really don’t 🙄 I have said that my opinions are opinions. If you disagree with me then that’s fine - saying I’m ill and need help is not. So explain why you think the evidence that LC had psychosis is compelling.

I apologise if I inferred you were ill, that was not my intention.

However it's up to you to prove that Lindsay Clancy did not suffer from the mental illness that passes the McHoul standard that is the legal requirement in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

You suggested I ‘get the help I need’

This is a discussion forum and people are going to disagree with you.

I’ve explained why I have the opinion I do - ie that LC was more likely to have a personality disorder than psychosis and I’ve also said that I expected to see more evidence that LC had psychosis than was presented in the trial.

I’ve also said that women don’t usually get ppp 8 months after their baby is born.

You have made your opinions quite clear.

Can I ask what professional qualifications you have to state that?

Come on now, your posts are ridiculous.

Is that a personal attack?

I have a question for those of you who think LC was a victim of health services and whatever.

How would you feel if she was a babysitter who killed your three children or someone else’s? And then said that she was hearing voices and she was depressed and had loads of medication? Something tells me there wouldn’t be so much willing to find her guilty by insanity then…

It’s like, she brought them into the world so she can take them out(!)

regarding post natal psychosis (very different from ‘baby blues’) the NHS website says

‘Symptoms usually start suddenly within the first 2 weeks after giving birth - often within hours or days of giving birth. More rarely, they can develop several weeks after the baby is born.’

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/post-partum-psychosis/

It’s a case that stirs up a lot for me. Over the last few years I have heard voices and had hallucinations of angels who tell me to commit crimes. When medicated, they go and I can lead a normal life. When I’m not on medication I do really disturbing things in preparation for what I believe I am being told to do. Previous psychs diagnosed me with psychosis. My last nhs psych changed that to personality disorder and took me off the meds. I became really really unwell.
Im stable now back on medication due to a private psych. It’s terrifying to me now to read my endless notebooks of things I planned, believed and thought. Just one psych having a different opinion could have led to me committing an awful act. And equally, just one other psych disagreeing and putting me back on antipsychotic medication has changed my life.
MH is so fragile and professionals can differ so wildly in their opinions. It’s no wonder people fall through the net and cause harm. This could have been me and I think my lucky stars that my family waded in and went private.

As a rule, I don’t think psychiatrists do a very good job. Indeed they do all have differing opinions and put people on the wrong meds.

I had a psychiatrist who asked me if I was sexually abused. I said no and he ignored me and wrote into my report that he thought my parents SAed me. My parents were not good parents but they never did that. My friends mum had the same thing happen to her.

Psychiatrists will just say whatever suits them based on a few symptoms and dish out random medications. Then you see someone else with a different opinion. Once, I was put on seroquel and it just knocked me out. I never at any time had psychosis.

Did you tell the psychiatrist who took you off the meds that they had stopped your hallucinations and plans to carry out instructions for imagined voices? Or were you not well enough to recount this and they didn't realise they were effective? I understand mental health can be very complex but it sounds like you were a very clear case of someone for whom anti-psychotic medication (I presume) was very effective. It's hard to understand the choice that person made for your treatment.

Yes, multiple times and so did my family. He was adamant I didn’t need it and I was discharged. I went on to overdose later and was admitted to hospital and the referral to re-open my case was declined. I’m still under the private psych who has literally saved my life (and potentially that of others imo).
So just one change of opinion can have huge repercussions.

I was convinced she's not criminally responsible because her mental health had been deteriorating for months, because of the character evidence, the bipolar II diagnosis, Resnicks testimony and also the circumstances on the day itself, to me the fact she knew there was such a small window of time but it seemed to have to be there and then suggests her mental state had become so severely distorted and pathological that she was unable to obey the law.

The prosecutions rebuttal case did not convince me otherwise.

Dr Mack was a joke and a shitshow of a witness and I simply could not consider anything he said at all.

Heilbrun for the prosecution, he agreed that she had bipolar II, he considered acute psychosis and command hallucination but ultimately said the evidence suggested it was an altruistic filicide.

His biggest issue with the command hallucination was that it was very unusual to just hear a voice for 18 minutes, and that she hadn't heard it before and hadn't heard it afterwards.

To me the command voice isn't particularly relevant, I don't know if she heard a voice and have explained before that it's very possible due to everything that happened afterwards and the altered states she was in, critically ill, unconscious, coding, medicated, in ICU etc that it would be very possible for her memory to be distorted, and we do have another piece of evidence which shows that, the fact that she thought she slashed the window screen and didn't.

And she's been in hospital on anti-psychotics receiving in-patient treatment for years, so that could explain why she didn't hear a voice again

I also was very skeptical about what he was saying about how the series of decisions and choices she made suggested to him she wasn't psychotic.

I feel like this was misleading evidence, psychotic people can and do make choices, they're not handed an instruction manual or told what to do and if psychotic people couldn't make choices very few of them would actually commit a crime, they'd just be there in a psychotic stupor

Heilbrun was overall very sympathetic to Lindsays mental state and described how she had undergone profound mental deteriorating and was suffering immensely, he said the killings were so out of character for the woman that he evaluated.

Heilburn also used what Lindsay had apparently told Patrick as part of his reason for why he didn't believe the command hallucination, that she had said 'I tried to kill myself'. I found this extremely concerning that Heilbrun would take these words as fact, knowing the circumstances under which Patrick formed this memory, deeply traumatic discovery, his adrenaline would have been going crazy and so there is a big chance that Patricks memory is not accurate and Heilbrun would know this because memory is year one college stuff. What may have happened is that Patrick asked Lindsay 'did you try to kill yourself?' and she tried to grunt a yes and that got stored as 'I tried to kill myself', it's really impossible to know what she said...so as I said I think it was very concerning that Heilbrun appeared to take these words as fact for both his evaluation and for when he was giving evidence.

Saathoff, again I found him misleading, he said the voice didn't tell her how to do it, he said that indicated she had control.....but control of what, picking a murder weapon? That doesn't prove she could conform her behaviour to the law. It can just mean she could pick a murder weapon to carry out the killings she felt overwhelmingly compelled to commit. Being able to make decisions in order to carry out what you're compelled to do is not evidence that this person was able to obey the law, and this person might have deeply delusional beliefs that are driving those choices.

Again Saathoff had also regarded the statement 'i tried to kill himself' as significant to his assessment which I found it to be very intellectually dishonest for the reasons I mentioned above, they know that those memories are not reliable.

The problem for me is that she was perfectly able to conform her behavior to the law whilst her husband was in the house. And she tried to get him out so she could hurt the children.

We also don’t know how many medications she was or wasn’t taking at any one time. Just because you’re prescribed something, does not mean you took it.

And the fact she didn’t want to engage with therapy and was doctor shopping suggests something else other than psychosis imo.

And I don’t believe anyone would feel sorry for her if it was someone else’s children she killed.

Horrendous - I wish I could say I can't believe NHS doctors could be so incompetent but sadly I can. So unfair you've been forced to pay for care you should be getting on the NHS but very glad you're getting it somehow - it sounds like you've had an awful time of it!

I think this gives insight into who Lindsay Clancy really was.

The problem for me is that she was perfectly able to conform her behavior to the law whilst her husband was in the house. And she tried to get him out so she could hurt the children.

That's not a problem for me because people who have such delusions often can and do wait until they have an opportunity (or create one) to do it when they know they will be able to complete it.

There are of course others who are psychotic who may try to do it when someone is there who could potentially stop them.

We also don’t know how many medications she was or wasn’t taking at any one time. Just because you’re prescribed something, does not mean you took it.

What medications she was on or taking isn't a major factor for me, I do think the medications had an impact but for me I think it's probable they were more indirect than direct, like she tried a medication, got side effects, came off it or switched it, she didn't return to baseline, she was worse off then when she started, and then the cumulative effect of all the switches etc was just was a period of massive instability and led to rapid deterioration in her mental state.

And the fact she didn’t want to engage with therapy and was doctor shopping suggests something else other than psychosis imo.

A lot people don't want to engage with therapy and I don't agree that she was doctor shopping. I'd see doctor shopping more like if someone just kept going to new psychiatrists, but with Lindsay these were escalating levels of care and each one was a step up.

First she went to Dr Tufts, then to the emergency room, then Patricks mother who worked at that hospital contacted the perintal behaviour programme at that same hospital which is why she was seen there, then Nurse Jollata at that hospital was going on vacation when Lindsay wanted to taper off medication so she went back to Tufts, she then went back to the ER, then entered the partial day hospitalisation programme but they said it wasn't suitable and then after that admitted herself to McLean.

And I don’t believe anyone would feel sorry for her if it was someone else’s children she killed.

People do often look at cases like this differently, and I don't believe that's because of what you said earlier that it's like people think she brought them into the world so she can take out, because it's often the same in cases where an adult child with serious psychiatric problems kills a parent. When the family members left behind say they were a loving family and things were good until mental illness took hold and the ultimate catastrophic outcome happened, many peoples opinions are often in line with the family, that this was a truly devastating tragedy.

@kkloo would you be defending her like this if she harmed your children? I don’t think you would. That was the point I made, not about a child killing a parent so please stop trying to muddy the waters with all this waffle.

Chris Watts’ in laws, if you listen to interviews with them (Shannan’s father and brother) say that he was the perfect father and husband before he did what he did. People can wear a mask for years, sometimes.

’people often don’t want to engage with therapy’ - really? What kind of people? Mothers who owe their children adequate care?? Because I never did that when I had MH issues in the past. In fact, I recognised that my upbringing with a narcissistic mother had made me someone who regularly got unwell. So you know what I did? I put myself in therapy for 2 years and I paid for it myself. And I came out the other end as a mum who could be there for my kids when they needed me instead of being in MH crisis at random times. It devastated me that I had been in hospital when my children needed me and continues to devastate me to this day.

There is much evidence of who LC was. The things she wrote about a 19 month old child in that FB post are wild to me. Every day she was frustrated with a baby since he was 8 months old and presumably couldn’t even walk at that point?! Imagine writing that stuff about a baby.

I wonder what frustration looked like and what she was like with that baby?

Like I said, a pattern of someone who did not like being a mother whose mental health got worse with every child and yet she was planning on a fourth!

And this is where I see narcissism. Unrealistic/ unfair expectations of others. An inability to be realistic about one’s own limitations. Magical thinking. ‘I’ve had three, that wasn’t fun but the next one will be perfect because I want it to be’.

I'm muddying the waters by bringing up another type of Intrafamilial murder? but you're allowed to bring up something completely different?? Hmm

Now you're bringing Chris Watts into it, again muddying the waters, Chris Watts had a motive to kill, he wanted to get rid of his family and start a new life.

Loads of people. Loads of people who need therapy don't go to therapy. You must surely know this even if you've been yourself. It's common.

I don't think there's anything wild about what she wrote and neither did a mother in the same mom group as her and said all the moms she knew would say similar. I never said anything like that about mine but then my kids were very chilled, but I definitely had friends who said everything with their kids was a battle. Again it's common.

I wonder what frustration looked like and what she was like with that baby?

Patricks father said that she got a little frustrated with him at thanksgiving 2022 and that she was trying to get him to sit down so she took him by the arm to get him seated

The Nanny said one time Dawson got frustrated at Cora and slapped Callan, Lindsay removed Dawson from the room, consoled Callan and then she addressed it with Dawson and the nanny said it was appropriate.

Talking about other cases is entirely relevant - it’s a part of my argument. Which is that personality disordered people can wear a mask. I believe that CW was a sociopath. People to him were either useful or in the way. He killed his family because they started to get on his nerves and he’d decided to switch them out for Nicole Kessinger.

LC certainly did have a motive - there’s evidence she didn’t like being a mother and she found her children frustrating every day.

And you’re muddying the waters by refusing to answer my question about whether you’d be defending LC If she harmed your kids. Instead you started talking about adult children who kill their parents.

So it's only entirely relevant as long as you get to pick which ones, but I can't bring cases into it about an adult killing their parent due to psychiatric issues because that's 'muddying the waters?' Hmmmmmm

Which is what?

Im in various parenting groups on Facebook and that type of post of a mum struggling and asking for help is extremely common. Often people have a second or third child who is much harder to look after than the first.