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The trial of Lindsay Clancy has pushed postpartum psychosis into the national spotlight and prompted an unusual wave of public sympathy for a mother accused of killing her children. That reaction raises a practical question: will attention and empathy lead to better care for other parents in crisis, or will it fade once the headlines move on?
Public sympathy around a tragic case
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As a crime reporter, I’ve never seen a public reaction like the one to Lindsay Clancy
Lindsay Clancy has acknowledged fatally choking her three children — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months — and later leapt from a second‑story window, an act that left her paralyzed from the waist down. In the months before the killings, she sought psychiatric care and was prescribed a series of medications. Her attorneys say she was in the grip of a postpartum psychotic episode when the deaths occurred.
The jury failed to reach a unanimous decision after a week of deliberations, and a judge declared a mistrial. Outside the courtroom, the response has been strikingly different from the usual public condemnation that follows violent crimes. Many women have rallied around Clancy, calling themselves “stay‑at‑home jurors,” wearing pink and turning out for a “Stand in Peace for Lindsay” demonstration.
Supporters point to diary entries Clancy wrote in the months before the killings, in which she described feeling disconnected and guilty about no longer breastfeeding. Some mothers have shared personal accounts on social media, saying they too experienced terrifying psychotic symptoms and came close to harming themselves or others. One birth and postpartum doula wrote, “I was Lindsay Clancy,” while another woman who survived postpartum psychosis posted photos and warned that the condition can affect anyone.
Not everyone agrees. Commentators have condemned public expressions of sympathy, arguing that the deaths are unforgivable. Yet other voices online say the case exposed systemic failures: family members and health providers, they say, missed repeated pleas for help or treated Clancy with quick medication changes instead of coordinated care.
A different outcome for another mother
Less than a month before the Clancy killings, in the same county, Latarsha Sanders received two mandatory life sentences without parole for the 2018 killings of her sons Marlon, 8, and La’Son, 5. Her prosecution involved the same district attorney and the same judge who later presided over Clancy’s case.
Sanders’s mental‑health history drew conflicting treatment in court. A neuropsychologist found her to be “grossly psychotic” at the time of the stabbings, and the prosecution’s own expert later concluded she likely had paranoid schizophrenia and was symptomatic when the killings occurred. But medical records documenting schizophrenia‑spectrum disorders, paranoid delusions, and auditory hallucinations were excluded from trial by Judge William F. Sullivan. Prosecutors also did not call their expert to testify. In August, an appeals court ordered a retrial, finding that evidence of her mental illness had been improperly barred.
Her lawyer, Robert F. Shaw Jr., described how race and poverty shaped the public and legal response: as a poor Black woman, he said, Sanders was treated as an outsider — an event to be observed from a distance rather than a crisis to be understood and addressed.
Understanding versus excusing
Psychologist Amanda Vicary, who studies women’s consumption of true‑crime, says the public’s willingness to see mothers accused of child homicide through a mental‑health lens reflects increased awareness of postpartum disorders. She points to earlier cases, such as Andrea Yates, who was initially convicted of killing her five children and later had that verdict overturned amid recognition of her severe illness.
Understanding what happened is not the same as excusing it. But advocates and some clinicians argue that asking how a woman reached this point matters for prevention. Labeling a mother a monster can close discussion of missed warning signs and failed systems precisely when scrutiny could reveal where help broke down.
Life coach Amna Awan framed the potential legacy of the Clancy case this way: while past tragedies cannot be undone, caring for mothers now might prevent future harm to children. That idea has animated much of the online support and the calls for improved maternal mental‑health services.
National Maternal Mental Health Hotline offers free, confidential support 24/7 in English and Spanish. Call or text 833‑852‑6262.
