Lindsay Clancy Cries ‘I Can’t Do This’ Before Court Abruptly Ends

I want everyone to just sit for a moment and remember that this trial is heartbreaking for everyone involved. I see people saying, ‘Send her to jail. Send her to hell. She should’ve died instead of the children.’ But when you can look at another human being and wish death, suffering, and eternal damnation on them, you’re becoming about as monstrous as the monster you claim her to be.

Lindsay’s life is over regardless of whether she spends the rest of it in prison or in a mental institution. She will have to live with the fact that she killed three innocent children, lost her marriage and family, and lost the use of her legs. And at the center of all of this are three beautiful, innocent children who were likely absolutely terrified in their final moments. I cannot even imagine the horror of that. And if Lindsay truly was experiencing psychosis and does not fully remember what happened, imagine regaining clarity and having to reconcile the memories you do have—laughing, beautiful babies you loved—with the reality that you were the person who brutally ended their lives. Having compassion for what may have happened to Lindsay does not take a single ounce of compassion away from Cora, Dawson, and Callan.

I also wish people would stop treating psychiatric illness as though every patient follows a textbook. As a medical professional, one of the most important things you learn is that a patient is not a symptom or a diagnostic checklist. Every patient presents differently. Saying that a clinician did not observe psychosis during an evaluation is not the same thing as proving that a patient could not become psychotic later. I sincerely believe the Tufts clinicians know that Lindsay could have experienced psychosis; much of their testimony seemed focused on the behaviors they observed, the choices she appeared capable of making, and what those observations meant clinically—not on establishing that an acute psychotic episode at the exact moment of these killings was impossible.

And regardless of what the jury ultimately decides about her legal responsibility, this was clearly a woman who was suffering before these children died. People who knew her described a loving mother, and there is evidence that she was repeatedly seeking help because she knew something was wrong. That doesn’t excuse what happened. Three innocent lives were taken because of what happened. But I have a hard time looking at this woman and reducing everything to narcissism, evil, or some character flaw when her history and the testimony about the person she had been before this tragedy make the situation so much more complicated.

I also believe the medical and pharmaceutical aspects of this case deserve serious scrutiny, and I work in medicine as a provider. The number of medications, medication changes, psychiatric evaluations, continuity of care, and monitoring leading up to this tragedy should be examined carefully because something definitely fell through the cracks here. I don’t think we should automatically declare that medication caused what happened without evidence establishing that connection, but I absolutely understand why people are asking whether the system surrounding her failed to recognize just how badly she was deteriorating.

Most of all, I wish people would stop celebrating this trial as though they’re watching their side win. There is no winning here. Three children are dead. Their father lost his children and the life he knew…and to the people arguing he got married too quick or he was cheating, okay ….but did you ever sit and think that maybe he married someone who looked like Lindsey because he just can’t fathom what has happened and so he is trying to make a different life, not saying I agree with that choice but I do understand everyone grieves differently….

Their families lost three babies they adored. And Lindsay, whatever the jury decides about her state of mind and criminal responsibility, will live with the consequences of this for the rest of her life.

Not a single one of us here knows what it is like to walk in the shoes of this family. We can care deeply about justice for those children while still having compassion for a human being who may have been profoundly mentally ill. Those two things do not have to contradict each other.

I bet those 3 precious 😢little angel babies CRIED EVEN HARDER ! When they were being brutally murdered