In a special episode of Daily Mail’s Trial USA podcast, presented by The Crime Desk, senior reporter Rachel Sharp speaks with misinformation scholar Professor Michael Wagner about the flood of conspiracy theories that surrounded the Lindsay Clancy case.
Wagner, who leads the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studies how people absorb information, shape their beliefs and, in some cases, become drawn into conspiracy-driven narratives.
The discussion comes after Clancy’s murder trial came to an abrupt end on Friday, following seven days of jury deliberations that failed to produce a verdict on whether she was legally responsible for the deaths of her three children.
Clancy did not deny strangling five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan inside the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Her defense team argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time and had spent months trying to get help as her mental health declined.
But while the courtroom focused largely on Clancy’s mental state, online speculation took the case in a very different direction. Across social media, users spent weeks constructing alternate theories, seizing on minor details — including the shoes her ex-husband wore the night the children died — as supposed clues.
Professor Wagner told the podcast that this rush to find alternative explanations is primarily because people struggle to make sense of a mother killing her own children.
On an exclusive episode of the Daily Mail’s Trial USA podcast, Rachel Sharp sits down with misinformation expert Professor Michael Wagner to discuss the wave of conspiracy theories that engulfed the Lindsay Clancy trial
‘So many people on Earth are parents and virtually all of those people love their children and cannot imagine doing something like this,’ he said.
‘When even the defence doesn’t dispute that she killed her children, people are often inclined to think: well, how can that be? There must be some other explanation, because I cannot make cognitive sense of the fact that someone would do this willingly.
‘This particular case really hits a conspiracy sweet spot, because it’s something almost all of us can identify with in some way. Whereas election fraud or other kinds of political claims only really get excitability amongst people who really care about politics.
‘This is something almost everybody intuitively understands.’
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He added that while more contradictory information, including the evidence heard at trial, can sway some people, others simply double down.
Many baseless online theories centred around Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick, yet both surveillance footage and phone records proved he was not in the house at the time of the killings.
‘People engage in what psychologists call motivated reasoning,’ the professor explained.
‘So, if I believe something, I am motivated to keep believing it. If you provide me evidence that I am wrong, I start to look for other evidence that can allow me to keep thinking what I already thought.
‘You could imagine someone going through this internal monologue: ‘Well, this mother is accused of killing their kids and I don’t believe that. I know men are way more likely to commit acts of violence than women are. So, how could it be that the mother did it?’
Clancy never disputed strangling Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and eight-month-old Callan at the family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts
Many baseless online theories centred around Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick, yet both surveillance footage and phone records proved he was not in the house at the time of the killings
‘If someone is sure of something, evidence isn’t enough. If facts were enough, more people would get their children vaccinated.’
Judge William Sullivan, who declared the mistrial, said he would like to retry the case later in the autumn, while Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington has pushed for it to begin within weeks.
The decision rests with Plymouth District Attorney Tim Cruz, who said on Friday he would not be announcing it immediately.
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