Some acts sit beyond the reach of ordinary understanding. Among the most unthinkable is the idea of a mother taking the lives of her own children.
It is that terrible incomprehensibility that has made the case of Lindsay Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse from Massachusetts, so closely watched and so bitterly debated in the US and beyond. During a snowy evening in 2023, Clancy strangled her three young children with exercise bands, then cut her wrists and tried to end her own life by jumping from a bedroom window.
She survived the fall, though her children did not. Now paralysed and dependent on a wheelchair, she remains alive in circumstances many would see as a punishment of its own: trapped in the aftermath of a night that destroyed her family and condemned her to relive it for the rest of her life.
Yet the central question before the court was not whether the tragedy happened, but why. Clancy’s defence argued that she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis — her youngest child, Callan, was only eight months old. Prosecutors, however, said she acted with purpose, describing her conduct as deliberate, clear-headed and fast-moving in pursuit of one specific aim: to kill.
Inside the courtroom, Clancy wept repeatedly, at times so intensely that proceedings had to be paused by the judge. Outside, supporters travelled from across the United States, many dressed in pink, casting her as a symbol of medical failure and the wider neglect of mothers after childbirth. Postpartum psychosis is rare, affecting around two in every 1,000 women, but postnatal depression is far more widespread, with an estimated 10 to 15 per cent of new mothers affected.
Ultimately the jury – three men and nine women – were unable to reach a unanimous verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial. This means that Clancy could stand trial again – although lawyers for her ex-husband and the children’s father, Patrick Clancy, were keen to stress how traumatic the whole process had been for him and warned that the prospect ‘of reliving this tragedy through another trial is extraordinarily painful’.
It’s hard to see what purpose another trial would serve. Her guilt is not in question – it’s her motives that remain unclear. But either way, she will be forever reviled as a child killer. Lindsay Clancy’s life is effectively over.
Lindsay Clancy with her then husband Patrick and their children, Cora, Dawson and Callan, whom she strangled with exercise bands
But for Mr Clancy, the children’s father, his is not. He has since moved to New York and re-married, to a doctor who specialises in infertility treatment. In all aspects of this tragedy, he has been incredibly magnanimous towards his ex. ‘I wasn’t married to a monster – I was married to someone who got sick,’ he told an interviewer in 2024. He should be allowed to move on as best he can in peace.
This case has shone a light on the whole issue of postnatal depression, and of how it should be treated. Years ago, after I had my son, I was diagnosed with quite severe postnatal depression. Reading some of the extracts from Clancy’s journals, which were recovered from the family home in the aftermath of the killings, I shuddered, recognising many of her feelings.
The entries chronicled desperation, insomnia, ‘crazy brain fog’ and guilt. ‘I’m so desperate to get a mental break that my mind is trying to make something physically wrong with me,’ she wrote in 2022. Sleep-training Callan ‘just about killed me’, she noted. ‘I feel like I can’t make a plan. I can’t carry it out. Like I just live moment to moment,’ and ‘I’m drowning every day’.
I recognise those feelings all too well, even at a distance of over two decades. When my son was born, my daughter was just 16 months old: She struggled to adapt to the new arrival. He then became very ill, which led to all sorts of other difficulties. A combination of exhaustion, hormones, guilt and anxiety left me struggling both physically and mentally.
I remember joking to a friend that I was desperate for something to happen to me so I could have a ‘non-fatal hospitalisation’ and get a few nights’ proper sleep.
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I also remember how at times I would be seized by an almost uncontrollable rage. There were moments when I genuinely scared myself. I remember once, for example, being unable to get the children’s double buggy to unfold in a supermarket car park.
The children were crying in the back of the car, it was raining and I just suddenly reached the end of my tether. I smashed the buggy on to the Tarmac like a woman possessed. God knows what any passer-by must have thought. The tiniest thing would send me into a tailspin. I was a nightmare of neuroses.
But I was lucky: At a check-up, my GP picked up on my low mood. He asked if I was OK, and my emotional dam just burst. Not long after, I found myself in the office of a psychiatrist, who diagnosed a textbook case of postnatal depression. He told me sometimes in cases like mine he might recommend a period of removal from the children (the thought of which was like a knife to my heart) but that he did not think I was a danger to them. More, he said, a danger to myself.
In court, Lindsay sobbed constantly, sometimes so loudly that the judge had to halt proceedings
Her defence team argued that her actions were the result of postpartum psychosis (her youngest, Callan, was just eight months old)
With a combination of rest, medication and help from family and friends, I recovered. But I remember only too well how desolate I felt, how convinced I was that I was a total failure as a mother (and wife). Until then I had never had a day’s mental illness. Since then, the black dog has only ever been just around the corner.
I was lucky: I had the right professionals and the right support. It seems to me that Lindsay Clancy did not. At what point she went from being a struggling mum to a killer we may never know, but at some point her troubled mind somehow convinced itself that this was the best course of action.
Had she been properly diagnosed and treated, her children might not have paid the ultimate price. Their futures have been stolen. For the sake of their memory, it must never happen again.
I quite understand that Nigel Farage has not had an easy time of things lately, but he would do well to stop whingeing and blaming everyone else for his woes. If he wants to be prime minister, he has to accept a degree of scrutiny. Otherwise… well, you know what they say about heat and kitchens.
How dare they troll dear Peter?
Last week Peter Hitchens and I celebrated the 80th edition of our podcast, Alas Vine And Hitchens. I suspect the reason we were first paired by the powers that be was because we are chalk and cheese. I am an eternal optimist, whereas Peter can be rather Eeyore-ish.
But despite our differences, I have become rather fond of him – which is why an incident a few days ago enraged me. Peter and I were standing in the street talking, when a well-heeled middle-aged man appeared from nowhere and slapped him on the shoulder. Startled, Peter sprang around, whereupon the fellow declared: ‘Your brother was much cleverer than you,’ and waltzed off, looking terribly smug. It’s the kind of thing that happens often on social media – but to see such vile trolling in real life was truly shocking. Do that again, sir, and you will have me to answer to.
Miriam Margolyes has a reputation for being outspoken, but even by her standards her latest outburst was shocking. In an interview with Andi Peters on ITV, she quizzed him about his lineage and then called him a ‘high yaller’ (aka ‘high yellow’), which is an old Southern American term for a black or mixed-race person with a light complexion. Aged 85, I don’t think she realised she was being offensive – but isn’t that the real problem here?
Sad news: Ski Sunday is no more. It was a staple of my childhood, something to look forward to on rainy Sunday afternoons. No doubt it will be replaced by something frightfully modern and woke. Another nail in the BBC’s coffin.