Why are we so fascinated by the Lindsay Clancy trial?

While jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial deliberate on whether the former labour and delivery nurse is criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023, a fierce debate is also underway online about motherhood, mental illness and justice.

While it is not unusual that a horrifying case has sparked attention, what is different is the discussion playing out, both online and just outside the courtroom.

As internet sleuths fill forums with conspiracy theories, and groups dedicated to debating the case pop up on social media, hundreds of women have rallied outside court to support Clancy, and a crowdfunding page has raised more than $US1 million for her family.

Why are we so fascinated by this case?

Clancy does not deny that she strangled her three children with exercise bands in the basement of the family’s home in Massachusetts.

She then attempted to take her life, which has left her paralysed from the waist down.

The killings happened less than three weeks after Clancy was discharged from a psychiatric hospital.

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Her lawyer said she did it because she had lost her grip on reality due to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth.

The prosecution says she knew what she was doing.

They say she strangled the children because she was depressed and tired of living, and made a conscious choice to kill them before attempting suicide.

“Women who kill their children are seen as monstrous,” criminologist Dr Leah Williams from the University of NSW told nine.com.au.

“I think as a society, we really struggle to understand how a mother could kill her children.”

Not only is the case incredibly sad and livestreamed for all to see, Clancy also represents the cultural myth of the ideal mother, Williams said.

“Arguably, this case would not have received the same attention if Lindsay Clancy was not white, if she was not wealthy, if she was not seen to be representing that ideal mother or ideal woman kind of stereotype,” Williams said.

“There’s this huge contrast between what she’s alleged to have done and what her image is.”

The use of postpartum psychosis in a mental illness defence is rare, Williams said, and seemed to be changing the discussion usually reserved for women who kill their children.

“What we’re seeing through this case is a raising of awareness of how serious this kind of mental illness can be in a way that maybe as a society, but particularly in the law, we don’t see explored publicly very often.

“The discourse seems to be much more sympathetic towards Lindsay Clancy than we might expect based on the experience of other women who have been tried for murdering their children and maybe that’s a reflection of societal changes, but also when we’re talking about something like postpartum psychosis, which is not something that was argued for say Kathleen Folbigg or even for Lindy Chamberlain.

“Maybe because we have this defence as part of the discussion here, that has been moderating or insulating this case a little bit from the much more vitriolic responses we’ve seen to women who kill in the past.”

Which way will the jury go?

To find her guilty of murder, the jury must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that she was sane when she killed the children.

“Even if she was experiencing mental illness in the lead-up or she was experiencing mental illness, but that wasn’t the cause of her killing the children, then her defence would fail,” Williams said.

The jury can acquit her if it finds she wasn’t in control of herself due to her psychiatric illness.

“Because we have such a dominant and enduring stereotype of what an ideal woman is and what an ideal mother is, it’s really difficult for anyone to reconcile the act of a mother killing her baby with someone who has made a sane, rational decision to do that,” Williams said.

“If the jury does decide that they’re not satisfied that she was experiencing postpartum psychosis at the time, we can only speculate that there would be quite a tricky or very emotional decision for them to make about convicting a woman for killing her children.

“And even though the legal process is supposed to be all about rationality, it’s really difficult to see how 12 laypeople can kind of divorce emotions from their decision in this kind of case.”

There are nine women and three men in the jury in this case, which Williams said was notable.

“That’s an interesting dynamic to have so many women on the jury who, you know, may be mothers, may have experienced something like postpartum depression, and I guess it’s 50-50 whether that would help them empathise with her or whether that might colour their interpretation of the legitimacy of the evidence that’s been presented around her postpartum psychosis,” Williams said.

Clancy’s attempt to take her own life immediately afterwards may also have given more legitimacy to the argument she was not mentally well at the time.

“Perhaps there’s a a sense that she’s not walking away from this whole situation unharmed or unpunished in a kind of very kind of moral, social sense but it’s really difficult to know whether that’s actually going to have an effect on the jury’s decision... particularly because the prosecution has been arguing that the attempt to take her life was a false attempt and that it was deliberately ineffectual.”

Could Lindsay Clancy be freed?

If found guilty, Clancy’s sentence could be as severe as life in prison, or she could be released or remain confined in a mental health facility if acquitted.

“Being found not guilty by reason of mental illness is not a ticket to walk free from the offence,” Williams said.

“Unless the jury comes back with a straight not guilty verdict, there is going to be some level of detention for her, and the question is just whether that’s going to be in a psychiatric hospital or in a prison.”

Reported with Associated Press

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