Lindsay Clancy Trial: Veteran Prosecutor Says Postpartum Illness Is Real but Child Killings Demand Accountability

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Questions about whether individuals, medical providers or broader systems failed Lindsay Clancy deserve to be examined, a veteran prosecutor said, but he warned that those issues should not eclipse a parent’s responsibility in the deaths of three children.

Clancy is charged in the killings of her three young children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — and is accused of attempting to take her own life by jumping from a second-floor window after sending her husband out to pick up takeout and an item from a pharmacy, according to the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office.

As the Massachusetts case has drawn national scrutiny, Clancy has gained visible support online and from people showing up at court. Some experts say that attention has shifted focus away from the children who were killed.

“Nobody who murders children is a victim no matter what they’re suffering through,” said Jonathan Hatami, a veteran child abuse prosecutor. “You’re never a victim if you murder people because victims don’t do something. Something happens to them.”

Clancy’s defense has not disputed that she caused the children’s deaths. She has pleaded not guilty, however, and is challenging whether she can be held criminally responsible.

Hatami has spearheaded a number of high-profile cases against child abusers in Los Angeles, California, including the murder of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez, who was tortured and killed by his mother and her boyfriend. Gabriel’s killing exposed a series of missed red flags by the county’s Department of Children and Family Services and inspired a Netflix docuseries.

“Gabriel Fernandez was tortured and murdered by his mom and her boyfriend — however, there were a lot of other people…that were responsible,” Hatami told News Outlet. “There were a lot of people that missed signs through the eight or nine months of Gabriel’s torture. There were a lot of people in government, in law enforcement, social workers, who missed all these different signs that really could have saved Gabriel — and they didn’t do it. However, Pearl Fernandez and Isauro Aguirre were ultimately responsible for the torture and murder of Gabriel and were prosecuted for that and they were convicted of that.”

In Clancy’s case, he argued, many of the people and systems around her deserve scrutiny — but that should not turn her into the central victim of the story. In his view, she’s been too much of the focus.

“Instead of about the three victims who were innocent kids,” he said.

While failures of government and the child welfare system were investigated after Gabriel’s murder, that didn’t take responsibility away from the killers, he said. And in the Clancy case, he said he sees a risk that the focus on her mental health could eclipse the three children who were killed in their own home.

“I didn’t see people out in the streets cheering on Pearl Fernandez because there were other people that were somewhat responsible for what happened to Gabriel,” he said. “And the same thing plays in this case. Lindsay admitted to strangling her three children to death. She admitted to strangling them to death with exercise cords.”

Clancy’s defense has said she sought help repeatedly as she struggled with depression, sleeplessness, suicidal thoughts and voices urging her to harm herself and the children.

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington has argued that Clancy was under the effects of postpartum psychosis, while prosecutors allege she acted deliberately and understood what she was doing was wrong.

“If you murder your children, you need to be held accountable and responsible for that,” Hatami said. “No matter what the whys are, no matter what reasons are.”

If convicted of any of the three counts of first-degree murder she faces, Clancy would see a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“Your children should be your life. And if you take their life, you should, as a person, want to be punished for that,” Hatami said.