MA - Lindsay Clancy, Strangled 3 Children in Murder/Suicide Attempt, Duxbury, Jan 2023

Her husband said he was aware of all her struggles of course, totally involved with her/ the children that were his life, their care, her care. EVERYTHING. I'd think if he saw her NOT able to be with her babies and behaving not well in any way, he'd NEVER of left her to go pick up take out. No matter what he was told. IN that short amount of time, once he was out the door, she acted. That is what I can't get past. Then she went upstairs to the 2nd floor it seems, the children were in the basement, and jumped out. She was aware to attempt to harm herself /suicide. THis all happened as soon as her husband was out the door. She acted quickly. This to me is so tricky concerning the charges in this case. I am aware of the psychosis and mainly, to me, was due to the drugs affecting her mind for a while on top of the chemical changes due to post partum. It's just that in my mind, she waited for her chance. Yes, I'm sick about it of course. I think she is 34 and her life is over /any future. I also am not sure how long her husband can sustain himself emotionally and mentally as well, as he has been in this awful thing so far, once time and reality shows it's signs.
This is something I am struggling to think through as well. If she was in psychosis and didn't know right from wrong how did she know enough to wait for the window of opportunity. What happened that morning before the husband headed out. Was she faking that she was 'okay' so he felt he could leave for a short time? Was it a regular thing for him to go to the store etc. and leave her with the kids? How come she chose to murder the kids and not just herself. What's the story with the meds? Did she have mental health issues before and had been on meds? Was the condition (if there was one before) exasperated after baby #3 was born? Did the doctor(s) do her a disservice by switching her meds and/or adding more meds in such a short period of time? How come she was not on an involuntary hold in the hospital? I give the husband credit as I don't think I would be able to stand by my partner's side if they had killed my children. I would file for divorce and consult a lawyer and wait to see how this court case plays out. Sounds harsh but I know I couldn't move past it. If it was the meds that were the cause then I would sue the prescribing doctor(s).
 
I’ve thought about this some more and I think I have gained a little more understanding for them. I think in cases like this (and they are in roles that are privy to all the terrible details of what happened to the children) it is so hard for people who don’t have an understanding of mental illness to get how truly, truly disconnected from reality a person can be. People just don’t get it. The last time I experienced psychosis it happened somewhat out of the blue and I didn’t think, believe or even know- I accepted as truth as much as I accept as truth that I am holding my phone right now- that my very nice husband was a serial killer who was planning to murder me and sell our child to a criminal ring. For a solid week I was terrified, didn’t sleep and planned my escape. I installed seven cameras around my 1400 ft square foot house and sat on my couch watching the screens. I was silent toward my husband or telling lies because I didn’t want to tip him off to the fact that I knew about his secret life. When I had my chance I sure as hell took it, decisively and with intent and planning- I grabbed my child and ran.

But none of it was real. It was real to me, but it wasn’t real. It was illness. It’s traumatizing.

I drove across the state to my mother’s house and asked her for help, she wisely called my psychiatrist and the episode was resolved. And most mentally ill people including me don’t commit acts of violence. But I do understand how LC could have been completely disconnected from reality and still be viewed like she knew what she was doing- to her, she even might have known. But what she knew wasn’t real.

I think prosecutors are human and most people have to be educated about it to understand what is possible. I hope their emotions about the children and their drive for convictions don’t get in the way of their ability to learn and to see that in cases like this justice can’t look the same.

Severe mental illness is brutal. It’s just brutal. There is a terrible violence - the violence that the illness does to the person who has it. PPD/PPP - that’s your brain turning on you.

LC’s children- they are so beautiful and full of life in their photos. They are victims of that violence, too.

I find myself hoping the psychiatrist did something wrong, looking for problems with the medications because I want someone to blame for this. I want someone to pay. So I guess in a way I am like the DA, too.

Thank you for your openness. Truly.

I appreciate your insight here- this is also something that I had wondered about. Like could you be in psychosis but also aware enough to know that you need to wait until your spouse leaves?

I think those of us who haven't experienced psychosis see it as an "all or nothing" type of scenario.
I really appreciate your insight and willingness to talk about your experiences, spicyrock!

The former classmate I mentioned yesterday was hallucinating mounds of bodies in her backyard. At first, she believed it was her husband killing people and storing the bodies and she tried to report him to police. She then started to believe that police were in cahoots with her husband and he was allowing them to dump the bodies there.

She left him and fled the house to go to a friend. Before leaving, she had moved out of their room and was acting so oddly that her husband had contemplated taking her car keys from her, which of course would have just increased her belief he was up to no good.

The friend realized something was very wrong--this was before the schizophrenia diagnosis--and coaxed her into going to a crisis care center. While in the office, she believed she was being poisoned, so she slapped water out of someone's hand. It culminated in 5 people having to restrain a very petite woman who weighed under 100 pounds and injecting her with a sedative. She believed she was being murdered at this point, which just made her fight back even harder. On the way to the mental institute (she woke up cuffed in a police car) and while she was institutionalized that first time, she still believed that the bodies were real and felt like she had been kidnapped for uncovering a conspiracy and was going to be murdered to be kept quiet.

Interestingly enough, she was being treated for depression and anxiety at the time and had suggested to her then therapist that she believed she may have schizophrenia. Her concerns were dismissed. While she was in the hospital, she was told she had schizophrenia, and she thought it made a lot of sense and didn't dispute the diagnosis, though she continue to have a lingering belief she had uncovered a conspiracy involving a mass grave due to the vividness of her hallucinations. It took a very long time for her to accept that she had hallucinated those bodies, and she continued to have hallucinations requiring hospitalization about bodies at her house after her initial release, which culminated in her believing her mother had been sent by the FBI to spy on her when she was really there to care for her after her first release from the hospital.

Even when she was experiencing really significant symptoms of psychosis, she still had the wherewithal to try to report what she believed she'd seen to police, and there is a logic to everything she did (including, unfortunately, fighting with people at a crisis care center) once you understand what she was thinking had happened and was happening. And she also had the self-awareness to think she may have a mental illness that was causing her to think some of these things, but it still didn't dispel the very vivid things she was hallucinating.

Obviously everyone's own story and experience is different, but based on what my former classmate has shared, I don't find it hard to believe at all that LC could have been having very severe psychosis that she was actively trying to treat and still had such debilitating delusions about her and her children that she showed the awareness to wait until her husband was gone before acting on them but that she was still legitimately not responsible for her actions in a criminal way because of how out of touch with reality she was. MOO

I don't think LC gets a free pass on this because her kids are still murdered. Her mental illness absolutely doesn't justify what happened, but it does explain it. So, I don't think treating her like a Susan Smith and sending her to prison is really the answer to what happened. I suspect something like what's happened with Andrea Yates would be more fitting. MOO
 
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I really appreciate your insight and willingness to talk about your experiences, spicyrock!

The former classmate I mentioned yesterday was hallucinating mounds of bodies in her backyard. At first, she believed it was her husband killing people and storing the bodies and she tried to report him to police. She then started to believe that police were in cahoots with her husband and he was allowing them to dump the bodies there.

She left him and fled the house to go to a friend. Before leaving, she had moved out of their room and was acting so oddly that her husband had contemplated taking her car keys from her, which of course would have just increased her belief he was up to no good.

The friend realized something was very wrong--this was before the schizophrenia diagnosis--and coaxed her into going to a crisis care center. While in the office, she believed she was being poisoned, so she slapped water out of someone's hand. It culminated in 5 people having to restrain a very petite woman who weighed under 100 pounds and injecting her with a sedative. She believed she was being murdered at this point, which just made her fight back even harder. On the way to the mental institute (she woke up cuffed in a police car) and while she was institutionalized that first time, she still believed that the bodies were real and felt like she had been kidnapped for uncovering a conspiracy and was going to be murdered to be kept quiet.

Interestingly enough, she was being treated for depression and anxiety at the time and had suggested to her then therapist that she believed she may have schizophrenia. Her concerns were dismissed. While she was in the hospital, she was told she had schizophrenia, and she thought it made a lot of sense and didn't dispute the diagnosis, though she continue to have a lingering belief she had uncovered a conspiracy involving a mass grave due to the vividness of her hallucinations. It took a very long time for her to accept that she had hallucinated those bodies, and she continued to have hallucinations requiring hospitalization about bodies at her house after her initial release, which culminated in her believing her mother had been sent by the FBI to spy on her when she was really there to care for her after her first release from the hospital.

Even when she was experiencing really significant symptoms of psychosis, she still had the wherewithal to try to report what she believed she'd seen to police, and there is a logic to everything she did (including, unfortunately, fighting with people at a crisis care center) once you understand what she was thinking had happened and was happening. And she also had the self-awareness to think she may have a mental illness that was causing her to think some of these things, but it still didn't dispel the very vivid things she was hallucinating.

Obviously everyone's own story and experience is different, but based on what my former classmate has shared, I don't find it hard to believe at all that LC could have been having very severe psychosis that she was actively trying to treat and still had such debilitating delusions about her and her children that she showed the awareness to wait until her husband was gone before acting on them but that she was still legitimately not responsible for her actions in a criminal way because of how out of touch with reality she was. MOO

I don't think LC gets a free pass on this because her kids are still murdered. Her mental illness absolutely doesn't justify what happened, but it does explain it. So, I don't think treating her like a Susan Smith and sending her to prison is really the answer to what happened. I suspect something like what's happened with Andrea Yates would be more fitting. MOO
I don’t know how to quote a small part of a post but I am responding to your last paragraph. I wanted to say, you’re right that mental illness doesn’t mean you aren’t accountable for your actions. When bipolar people hurt other people during mania, for example, we are held to account and must take responsibility and make amends. If we commit crimes we must go to court and accept the outcome. A diagnosis doesn’t wipe away the damage done. It’s not fair. Life is not fair. But it’s the way it is.

If we are a danger to ourselves or others we have to be be hospitalized or committed, involuntarily if necessary. But it can be done with compassion. It doesn’t have to be punitive.
 
Nope. Not even close. Susan Smith murdered her children to be with another man. Susan Smith IS a monster.
Susan Smith, Diane Downs and Deborah Green are completely different in what they did, how they did it, and why they did it. For this case to be linked to theirs, everything we have heard so far about this case would have to be thrown out the window and replaced with completely different circumstances. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but I think it's highly unlikely. I think if there was evidence for that level of perfidy and diabolical selfishness, it would have come out already to some degree. But we'll have to wait and see how this case unfolds. Right now we're all just speculating.
 
If we are a danger to ourselves or others we have to be be hospitalized or committed, involuntarily if necessary. But it can be done with compassion. It doesn’t have to be punitive.
Agreed!

Incidentally, the woman I know with schizophrenia has said that part of what helped her to come out of her psychosis about the bodies and the police was realizing that she wasn't being hurt in the facility she was in. It took a while for her to get over her suspicions and she still wouldn't characterize the experience as pleasant, but being treated compassionately was a big part of her recovery from that episode.
 
Agreed!

Incidentally, the woman I know with schizophrenia has said that part of what helped her to come out of her psychosis about the bodies and the police was realizing that she wasn't being hurt in the facility she was in. It took a while for her to get over her suspicions and she still wouldn't characterize the experience as pleasant, but being treated compassionately was a big part of her recovery from that episode.
All humans want compassion from others. I experience this frequently - random stranger encounter in public. You ask, how's your day going? I'm amazed at the number of people who go into personal detail. Many times it ends in a hug and a mental note to add to prayer list. So I can see how someone in the facilty setting you describe, would respond well.

I appreciate that you are sharing her experiences. The RL scenerios are helpful, thank you.
 
All humans want compassion from others. I experience this frequently - random stranger encounter in public. You ask, how's your day going? I'm amazed at the number of people who go into personal detail. Many times it ends in a hug and a mental note to add to prayer list. So I can see how someone in the facilty setting you describe, would respond well.

I appreciate that you are sharing her experiences. The RL scenerios are helpful, thank you.
To add a little to that irl experience- delusions are fed by ever-growing confirmation bias coming from your environment and continuous triggers. When you are in the hospital all of that is removed. There is routine and stability and people trained to see what is happening in the environment that is contributing to what is happening in your head. I remember the last time I had to go to the hospital, I was filled with the most immense comfort by the hospital staff around me, feeling they were safe. They were there to take care of me and I was safe.

You have to be in an environment that feels safe and has decreased stress and absence of triggers in order to recover. The outside world is just an assault on an acutely psychotic mind. So the element of human compassion and the element of needed medical care are aligned.

ETA: why wasn’t LC in the hospital is a very reasonable question to ask imo.
 
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My personal contribution with hallucinations and altered thinking.
A 47-year-old parent had terminal cancer and was living between the family home and a hospice. I was 16 years old, my sibling 13, and my surviving parent was 44 years old and working to support the family.
My sick parent, when home, had a curio cabinet of medications, as you can imagine.
Sometimes, I would be called to their room to hear very detailed stories about the people at the train station who all had the same face, and how Santa was knocking at the door. I must go immediately to let him in and give him a newspaper, or, I needed to go and collect the mail right that minute because there was a special delivery.
In that situation, you just play along, you make them smile.

LC's situation is so very, very different. I understand that.
IMO. There are so many facts we do not know, but the information that we have suggests mismanagement of an MH diagnosis. JMO.
 
In taking a BIG step back for a moment, something is really starting to bother me.

This is being considered a homicide/suicide. For the homicides, Lindsay was able to quickly and efficiently kill (or ensure the death of) all 3 of her children.

The suicide attempt, however, is looking very “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” in contrast. IF, and this is a big if, the injuries to Lindsay’s wrists and neck are in fact from self-inflicted suicidal cuts, her lack of success to put it bluntly is troubling.

**Speculation here.** She kills/mortally wounds all three kids fairly quickly. Then, for her own death, she slices her wrists, slices her neck, and throws herself through a window and out of a 2-story home. While that’s all very dramatic, it’s not very likely to result in suicide. Even if she had inflicted deep cuts, the commotion of breaking glass and a woman on the ground would have alerted people pretty quickly (which it apparently did, since MSM reported it was her neighbor who saw a woman on the ground and first called 911). Surely, staying inside and continuing to bleed undetected would seem like the choice to make if you were as intent on killing yourself as you were your children. And wouldn’t causing a scene outside the home possibly result in delaying anyone from finding and rescuing your children?

I’m not saying she wasn’t mentally ill, legally insane, psychotic, delusional, etc. But this did seem like a plan, similar to Andrea Yates. Yates carried her plan through with frightening, disconnected efficiency: kill children, call police, get arrested, be executed/punished for crimes, destroy the Satan that lives within her.

I don’t see that here. I see efficient homicides, immediately followed by a bizarre hot mess of scattershot incompetent suicide attempts/suicidal gestures that brought the action outside the home.

*EDIT: Re-reading my post, it might sound like I’m saying LC callously, with malice aforethought, killed her children and then embarked on a premeditated fake suicide attempt. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that her actions indicate no ambivalence about killing her children, but they do reveal a good deal of ambivalence, conscious or unconscious, about taking her own life.
 
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ADMIN NOTE:

Insinuating or accusing a Websleuths Member of being involved or the perpetrator of the crime being discussed is grounds for an automatic Time Out or a possible permanent ban from the board.

Just don't do it.

Thank you.
 

<modsnip: Quoted post was removed>

Bills to give access to better mental health services are regularly introduced and then unceremoniously killed on the floors of Congress. It's just that people aren't paying attention.
 
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Arraignment tomorrow from the hospital.

I'm not sure how many drugs she would have been on at one time. I don't think she would have been on more than one benzo at one time. It's dangerous, and doctors won't do it. She however, could have had some prescriptions previously prescribed, that the doctor might have switched, and she never finished taking the originally prescribed one. In that case, the pharmacy will prescribe it. She might have been self-medicating more than she was suppose to. Not sure what to think until the evidence comes out. She definitely could have been on a couple kinds of anti-depressants, some are used as an additive to lets say Prozac. Abilify, Seroquel, etc. are used as an "ad-on". My daughter suffered from panic attacks since she was an adolescent. At one time they tried to give her an add on to her prozac, (don't remember which one), but she was so spaced out, I made her stop taking it.

Lindsay Clancy, Duxbury mother accused of killing kids, to face charges Tuesday
 
I have bipolar and am in the UK. I’m on multiple drugs too. Zolpidem is a sleeping tablet and I took it for years. I would sleep walk and eat on it, with no recollection of it. I would go downstairs in the morning to find the back door open, the oven on, food everywhere etc. I also woke up with cut hands and feet from broken glass, burns on my pyjamas and once my neighbour heard my front door open, but not close and he found me wandering down the road. So many more examples. I have NO memories of them at all.


I also took Quetiapine. It made me incredibly suicidal. I planned ways to die. I’m agoraphobic and can’t leave my town, but I planned to travel hundreds of miles to stay in a hotel and jump in front of a train, off a building or off a cliff. I even contemplated killing my animals too, because I was worried about leaving them. They’re my world, I could never hurt them. It got so bad my friend wanted to take me to A&E and get me sectioned. This was terrifying. I asked her for one more chance and stopped taking in. It took a few days to get out of my system, but was so much better really quickly.

I’ve taken all the others of those mentioned. They all completely messed with my head and made me feel worse. Prozac made me sleep walk too. Extra drugs are added frequently and they make me so tired and out of it. Being like a zombie is really scary and I feel really vulnerable. I‘ve stopped taking all but two medications now and am just trying to battle through myself.

These are just my experiences, but I’m trying to say that her actions may not have solely been because of Post Partum Psychosis. These meds are powerful alone, mixed together, the side effects are seriously terrifying. When you’re already very depressed, these meds can make you feel so much worse.

I’m not talking about just starting these meds. Some I was on for years before I realised that it was them that made me so completely out of control. It’s really important that these meds are investigated as I’m certain they could have played a part in this unspeakably awful tragedy.
Thank you for sharing so openly your experience. I have experienced my own fair share of OCD and anxiety and major depressive disorder. I was prescribed zolpidem as well - I used to send incoherent text messages, order food, sleep walk, etc. I was living alone at the time and new I needed to stop using it. I can only imagine what might have happened if I'd tried to drive on it, etc.

And to all of you who have shared so openly - thank you. You don't realize how you are contributing to the removal of the stigma that seems to revolve around mental illness.

I simply cannot imagine what Lindsay was going through. As a woman who has had multiple losses and reproductive challenges, my first instinct is always to be angry when I read something like this, but I just cannot find the anger for her. I feel such extreme sadness - wish I could wrap my arms around her.

Such a horrific situation all around. Those sweet children. And their parents...I just really can't even find the right words, to be honest.
 
Thank you for sharing so openly your experience. I have experienced my own fair share of OCD and anxiety and major depressive disorder. I was prescribed zolpidem as well - I used to send incoherent text messages, order food, sleep walk, etc. I was living alone at the time and new I needed to stop using it. I can only imagine what might have happened if I'd tried to drive on it, etc.

And to all of you who have shared so openly - thank you. You don't realize how you are contributing to the removal of the stigma that seems to revolve around mental illness.

I simply cannot imagine what Lindsay was going through. As a woman who has had multiple losses and reproductive challenges, my first instinct is always to be angry when I read something like this, but I just cannot find the anger for her. I feel such extreme sadness - wish I could wrap my arms around her.

Such a horrific situation all around. Those sweet children. And their parents...I just really can't even find the right words, to be honest.
I thank and so appreciate the sharing and painful they are for them with us. It has made a great difference in how I see what may have happened. Horrible misuse and experimenting it seems on very vulnerable people in need. Not their fault at all. It could be any of us with any kind of chemical in our bodies going off kilter and I so count my grateful blessings. Thank you all so much. I wish you all well and hope and it sounds that you have found health for yourselves. Such generosity.
 
In taking a BIG step back for a moment, something is really starting to bother me.

This is being considered a homicide/suicide. For the homicides, Lindsay was able to quickly and efficiently kill (or ensure the death of) all 3 of her children.

The suicide attempt, however, is looking very “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” in contrast. IF, and this is a big if, the injuries to Lindsay’s wrists and neck are in fact from self-inflicted suicidal cuts, her lack of success to put it bluntly is troubling.

**Speculation here.** She kills/mortally wounds all three kids fairly quickly. Then, for her own death, she slices her wrists, slices her neck, and throws herself through a window and out of a 2-story home. While that’s all very dramatic, it’s not very likely to result in suicide. Even if she had inflicted deep cuts, the commotion of breaking glass and a woman on the ground would have alerted people pretty quickly (which it apparently did, since MSM reported it was her neighbor who saw a woman on the ground and first called 911). Surely, staying inside and continuing to bleed undetected would seem like the choice to make if you were as intent on killing yourself as you were your children. And wouldn’t causing a scene outside the home possibly result in delaying anyone from finding and rescuing your children?

I’m not saying she wasn’t mentally ill, legally insane, psychotic, delusional, etc. But this did seem like a plan, similar to Andrea Yates. Yates carried her plan through with frightening, disconnected efficiency: kill children, call police, get arrested, be executed/punished for crimes, destroy the Satan that lives within her.

I don’t see that here. I see efficient homicides, immediately followed by a bizarre hot mess of scattershot incompetent suicide attempts/suicidal gestures that brought the action outside the home.

*EDIT: Re-reading my post, it might sound like I’m saying LC callously, with malice aforethought, killed her children and then embarked on a premeditated fake suicide attempt. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that her actions indicate no ambivalence about killing her children, but they do reveal a good deal of ambivalence, conscious or unconscious, about taking her own life.
I’ve wondered about this too. There are levels of disconnect from reality; I’ve wondered how disconnected she was exactly. It is strange to me that she would not have inflicted more significant damage to herself, I would think she would have had no hesitation in inflicting a great amount of violence on herself, similar to whatever violence she inflicted on her children.

I’ve reconciled it so far by saying well, I don’t know what happened to her kids. There are elements of the story that make me think their deaths were inefficiently done, too. That makes me think she was distressed, maybe reluctant, confused and messy about the whole thing, and that would make sense to me.

Whatever is going on I agree that I would expect basically consistent behaviors. I think for most parents, if anything we would automatically find it much easier to inflict harm on ourselves than our children.

No matter what I think she’s sick. I don’t think she was doing this because she was planning to run away to the tropics or get back at her husband for something, or whatever. But I guess it’s important to me to know the whole story to determine the causes of what happened. What should have been done to prevent it.
 
I was just reading a few msm articles about this case and I remembered why I don't read the comments.
Some of our species are just purposely ignorant and arrogant, and I know they cannot be reasoned with. I appreciate the level of rational thought and decorum at WS.
 
I was just reading a few msm articles about this case and I remembered why I don't read the comments.
Some of our species are just purposely ignorant and arrogant, and I know they cannot be reasoned with. I appreciate the level of rational thought and decorum at WS.
I agree. The older I am, I find I have more empathy for people. Maybe because I understand things aren’t always so black and white. And, when possible, I try to lead with assuming the best in people until proven otherwise. Obviously, that’s not always necessary since we read about a lot of evil here. But with cases like Lindsay’s and others, I’ll sit back and wait for the facts. So I notice too the comments on news sites can be horrible.
 

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