Lindsay Clancy Is on Trial. So Is Postpartum Psychosis.

On Thursday afternoon, the fate of Lindsay Clancy, a mother accused of killing her three children, rests in the hands of a jury. The trial has captivated the country for weeks, not just because of the horrific nature of the crime, but because of the difficult questions it has raised about how we treat, or fail to treat, postpartum women in crisis.

Today, Natalie Kitroeff speaks with her colleague Ellen Barry, who has been inside the courtroom for every day of the trial, to understand the stakes of the outcome.

The Basic Facts of the Case

Ellen Barry explains that Lindsay Clancy is a labor and delivery nurse who lived in Duxbury, Massachusetts, with her husband and three children: Cora, Dawson, and Callan. About three or four months after the birth of her third child, Clancy began complaining of symptoms like insomnia, anxiety, and depression. She started taking an antidepressant, but over the next three months, despite a long series of prescriptions and seeing several mental health providers, her condition seemed to worsen. One night at the end of January 2023, she asked her husband to pick up takeout for dinner. While he was out, she strangled all three of her children, who were three, five, and eight months old. She then went upstairs and attempted to die by suicide. Clancy survived, though she is paralyzed, but her children did not. She was subsequently charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

Barry emphasizes the tragic nature of the crime, stating, "It's just so terrible. It's hard to imagine a more tragic thing than a mother killing her three children." She notes that the facts of the case are not in dispute because Clancy and her lawyers admit that she did this. However, Clancy has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and her defense has consistently argued that she committed these actions in a state of psychosis because she heard a voice telling her to do it.