Published: 01:00 BST, 6 September 2026 | Updated: 01:00 BST, 6 September 2026

There are some things a healthy human mind simply cannot comprehend, and a mother who kills her children is one.

That is why the trial of Lindsay Clancy, a former maternity nurse from Massachusetts, has captivated and divided opinion on both sides of the Atlantic. On a snowy night in 2023, Clancy strangled her three children with exercise bands before slitting her own wrists and attempting suicide by throwing herself out of her bedroom window.

She did not die with her children that night, as she presumably intended, but survived, paralysed and confined to a wheelchair. In some ways there can be no crueller punishment – to live on in a hopeless hell of her own making, every waking second haunted by the memory of that terrible night.

But even though she is already serving a life sentence of misery, the question remained: Were her actions the result of postpartum psychosis (her youngest, Callan, was just eight months old), as her defence team argued, or did she, as the prosecution claimed, act ‘intentionally, rationally and swiftly to accomplish a very specific goal – to kill’?

In court, she sobbed constantly, sometimes so loudly that the judge had to halt proceedings. Outside, women travelled from all over America to show support for her, wearing pink shirts in solidarity with someone they believed was a victim, of medical neglect, of how the system treats new mothers (postpartum psychosis is rare – two in 1,000 – but postnatal depression is far more common, affecting between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of women).

Ultimately the jury – three men and nine women – were unable to reach a unanimous verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial. This means that Clancy could stand trial again – although lawyers for her ex-husband and the children’s father, Patrick Clancy, were keen to stress how traumatic the whole process had been for him and warned that the prospect ‘of reliving this tragedy through another trial is extraordinarily painful’.

It’s hard to see what purpose another trial would serve. Her guilt is not in question – it’s her motives that remain unclear. But either way, she will be forever reviled as a child killer. Lindsay Clancy’s life is effectively over.

Lindsay Clancy with her then husband Patrick and their children, Cora, Dawson and Callan, whom she strangled with exercise bands

But for Mr Clancy, the children’s father, his is not. He has since moved to New York and re-married, to a doctor who specialises in infertility treatment. In all aspects of this tragedy, he has been incredibly magnanimous towards his ex. ‘I wasn’t married to a monster – I was married to someone who got sick,’ he told an interviewer in 2024. He should be allowed to move on as best he can in peace.

This case has shone a light on the whole issue of postnatal depression, and of how it should be treated. Years ago, after I had my son, I was diagnosed with quite severe postnatal depression. Reading some of the extracts from Clancy’s journals, which were recovered from the family home in the aftermath of the killings, I shuddered, recognising many of her feelings.

The entries chronicled desperation, insomnia, ‘crazy brain fog’ and guilt. ‘I’m so desperate to get a mental break that my mind is trying to make something physically wrong with me,’ she wrote in 2022. Sleep-training Callan ‘just about killed me’, she noted. ‘I feel like I can’t make a plan. I can’t carry it out. Like I just live moment to moment,’ and ‘I’m drowning every day’.

I recognise those feelings all too well, even at a distance of over two decades. When my son was born, my daughter was just 16 months old: She struggled to adapt to the new arrival. He then became very ill, which led to all sorts of other difficulties. A combination of exhaustion, hormones, guilt and anxiety left me struggling both physically and mentally.

I remember joking to a friend that I was desperate for something to happen to me so I could have a ‘non-fatal hospitalisation’ and get a few nights’ proper sleep.

I also remember how at times I would be seized by an almost uncontrollable rage. There were moments when I genuinely scared myself. I remember once, for example, being unable to get the children’s double buggy to unfold in a supermarket car park.

Source: Read the original article on www.dailymail.com

Written by https://futureknowledge.in/