Some acts sit beyond the reach of ordinary understanding. For most people, the idea of a mother killing her own children is among the most impossible to grasp.
That is why the trial of Lindsay Clancy, a former maternity nurse from Massachusetts, has drawn intense attention and sharply split opinion in the US and beyond. On a snowy evening in 2023, Clancy strangled her three young children with exercise bands, then cut her wrists and tried to take her own life by jumping from a bedroom window.
She survived, though her children did not. Now paralysed and reliant on a wheelchair, she remains alive in circumstances that some might see as their own form of unbearable punishment: condemned to continue in a world shaped forever by the horror of that night.
Yet the central question before the court was not whether the children died at her hands. It was why. Her defence argued that Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis — her youngest child, Callan, was only eight months old. Prosecutors, however, insisted she acted “intentionally, rationally and swiftly to accomplish a very specific goal – to kill”.
Inside the courtroom, Clancy wept repeatedly, at times so loudly that the judge was forced to pause proceedings. Outside, supporters travelled from across America, many wearing pink shirts to signal solidarity with a woman they believed had been failed by medical care and by a system ill-equipped to support new mothers. Postpartum psychosis is rare, affecting about two in every 1,000 women, while postnatal depression is far more widespread, affecting an estimated 10 to 15 per cent of women.
In the end, the jury — made up of three men and nine women — could not agree on a unanimous verdict, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial. That leaves open the possibility that Clancy could be tried again. But lawyers for her ex-husband and the children’s father, Patrick Clancy, underlined the emotional toll the case has already taken, warning that the prospect “of reliving this tragedy through another trial is extraordinarily painful”.
It is difficult to imagine what another trial could truly resolve. The facts of the children’s deaths are not in dispute; what remains contested is Clancy’s state of mind. Whatever happens next, her name will remain inseparable from an act that appalled the public. Lindsay Clancy’s former life is gone forever.
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.
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.
