I have three other things that need my urgent attention but here I am because I think the case of Lindsay Clancy deserves my attention too, and I need to work on some thoughts about it. In case you didn’t know, the jury is to decide whether she is criminally responsible or not for the strangling murders of her own three precious children back in 2023.
I really had this hope “post covid” we USians would be less gullible and susceptible to obvious traps. It’s been very sad to see people consumed by taking one strong stance or another based on “commonwealth versus the defense” in the Lindsay Clancy case. That’s not to diminish either side’s effort because this procedural is supposed to be how things work when we’re faced with such unconscionably evil acts humans are known to do. But I don’t think it’s more or less than that, and a lot has been read into either side. The YouTube production and streaming of the case is hitting record numbers for viewership outside of what has become known as “true crime”.
“True crime” as a genre should end with the Lindsay Clancy case if USians are to be judged as human at all. Just last month when the trial began, I observed that this is “content creator” participation in and deference to ruling class child sacrifice.
I haven’t seen such blanket dismissal of victims and supposed – performative perhaps fits here – sympathy for a defendant in a while. Maybe not since Botham Jean [murdered by Dallas cop Amber Guyger 2018 for simply existing in his home who went on to receive the weirdest courtroom displays of forgiveness by his own surviving family members], but he at least received tributes and tears. Any tears shed for the horrific end these children faced is couched in [meaningless gestures toward] tragedy (as an inescapable occurrence we don’t have any control over).
Lindsay Clancy plotted. She is an educated nurse who had a rich white husband. Knowledge of postpartum disorders has increased greatly in the last quarter century, especially in affluent suburban Massachusetts. She shows no remorse. She is guilty and these children deserve justice we adults are supposed to demand. What she did is wrong and people need to be real and stop making lame excuses. The ones who stay making them see something of themselves in Lindsay Clancy.
The coverage is making me so angry. Psych grifters hopping on in defense, true crime types calling it “fascinating” with regard to the defense and the victims are completely erased by both, and they find a million excuses to not blame the actual culprit.
Many “observers” are proving just how deranged they are. Its media production seems to be a multivalent dragnet. Content creators are un/subconsciously showing their deference to ruling class child sacrifice, that’s what I think is really going on.
Clancy’s attorney is one Kevin Reddington who defense supporters refer to as “Red”, as if they are buds, as if he is doing something good for Clancy. He is not. I respect criminal defense attorneys immensely and I have been proud to support those doing important work in my career. But despite all the drama anyone wants to see and that is a possibility every now and then, the theatrics he has worked on this case are insulting, damaging, and terrible. He calls her innocent when she through he stipulated to killing her innocent children that involved manual strangulation, murdering one in front of another, and bloodshed.
That is not right, that is not moral, and I don’t think it’s an effective defense. From what could be thought of as a very pollyannaish perspective, a good defense attorney will never ask you if you did it. Of course the fact that she did it tracks with the type of defense Clancy is attempting and all the rules that apply to it in Massachusetts, but Reddington’s posture in the press and in the courtroom doesn’t attempt to alter the act itself to which she has already admitted, and it is rightly held is extreme contempt by society. You could be charged with murder, for instance, but the M word doesn’t need to leave your lawyer’s mouth if you acted in self defense or had some similarly justified reason for homicide.
But Reddington seems to get off on how Clancy “killed the kids”. I don’t know how many times he has repeated this throughout 21 days of trial that she “killed the kids”. And to her supporters and everyone trying to turn this into a debate on postpartum depression and psychosis, it’s simply a forgone conclusion that they are gone, and that’s basically how it had to be.
The double-triple-quadruple think moves at a clip I haven’t witnessed before. Things were going fine until these terrible doctors who only had dreams of getting her hooked on widely prescribed drugs and then Clancy had no choice but to strangle her children – this is actually a generous read of Reddington’s closing argument today, and it would be shocking to know if he still has fervent supporters left after his bawling theatrics that sounded assisted in part by co-counsel Jim Beam.
But this is the USA of course where child murder means next to nothing. Personally I have been pretty shocked by women who have asked me about the case. I chewed the fat through some other business with an acquaintance last week and once that was done, she asked, “so you still think she did it?” I was taken aback. Clancy’s entire defense rests on the fact that she did it. Another – “have you heard about the theory about her husband doing it?” yes, yes I have, and I didn’t want to hurt feelings about dumb ass expectations of Perry Mason reveals, but they exist here for some very carefully seeded reason, for some women who seem to be comfortable admitting to feeling of wanting to kill their children, or who try to justify their mind games and abuse they’ve already carried out.
Of course, no, no! That’s not what this is about. It’s that USian women are uniquely afflicted by postpartum disorders. You wouldn’t get it. And even if you did suffer from something that could be classified in the DSM, or even diagnosed with it, it doesn’t matter because it’s not the experience they had – there is an intense amount of policing of the forums and livechats in which the case is discussed that follows these truly insane, so-called parameters that are in fact nothing of the sort to my mind. They are safe spaces in which we don’t judge your homicidal feelings toward your young. And to point that out is insensitive.
Unfortunately, a lot of misogyny is being shuffled in with this operation. Nothing too surprising in that regard, and any seasoned watcher is familiar. But the complete lack of accountability in the mere act of consuming or observing the trial among the Clancy supporters who look to anyone but her as the culprit is more than worrisome. How do you get out of bed every day? I really want to ask, since you have so little to work with and the universe put pregnancy on you apparently. One woman gave me a script she seemed to have adopted word for word from one Kontent Kreator or another, just given a pill when she was feeling low and sent on her way. And oh has she done everything at the expense of her own self – gasp – for her young. She didn’t go on to tell me she “gets it” because she didn’t need to. I know she does.
The mothers who have done the most for their children hang on minute by minute in Gaza and never in my time of knowing some women who have asked me about this case have they expressed concern for them. What must it be like to give, sacrifice, worry, survive, perhaps kill for your young in one of the most brutal mass crime scenes of our lifetimes? It is shocking that so many women in this country can’t seem to relate and don’t care to. I have a feeling that in the aftermath of the Clancy case we’ll get some “woke 2.0”-feminist-but-in-the-girl-math-sense NATO run at recruitment for one theater or another. The messaging and then the response is something so sinister that I have not seen before with regard to child victims.
It’s interesting among the Kontent Kreators who is and isn’t covering it. It is clear to me that checks went out with NDAs. Lesser known ones staying “open minded” or in open support of the defense have upped their dramatic AI-enhanced thumbnails with “the characters” in the background when that hadn’t been part of their “brand” before. You just want to stop and say, what is wrong with you?
Even asking that is somehow discriminatory now. This old drunk windbag Kevin Reddington speaks for the right of all mothers to kill their children, and many of the Kontent Kreators telling others to shut up, they don’t get it, are also men. Reddington mocked every female state’s witness as dumb and brainless in his cross examinations. For every accusation he made against a witness for not taking this seriously in his bourbon addled mind, he repeated “killed the kids” three more times in open court. It is shameful.
For the commonwealth’s part, I am really fucking angry that their theory of the case is that Clancy meant to commit suicide after murdering her children. I can only say that I don’t think they take this seriously as they should either. She did not mean to commit suicide; she meant to create an alibi and she paralyzed herself. A lot of dumb defendants thinking that doing something dumb shows that they are actually innocent because if they really meant to, if they’re really guilty, do you think they would have done something so stupid? Yes I do. It happens all the time. Lindsay Clancy is not unique, she is not a poster child (Reddington actually calls her a kid; she is a degreed woman, once credentialed, of about 36) for how the medical system treats vulnerable mothers. Clancy was not that. Clancy had privileges and advantages that don’t exist in much of the world, and she didn’t have to kill her children; she was not going through psychosis. She had presence of mind without prior acts that indicated she was not in control of herself. Whether one likes it or not, the basic facts show it. That’s it. There is nothing more to read into it based on whatever one is being told to free associate it with the enhanced media of our age.
Lastly, the “women and accountability” meme that’s being used in misogynist guises is frustrating because there needs to be accountability. Motherhood is something I personally couldn’t take on, in its norte americanist sense that rules what it is supposed to look like to a degree I don’t have the fortitude for, but I treasure mothers who love their children and take on the impossible every day. I think most mothers are like this: selfless, loving, and they feel privileged to have created someone to love and care for and see into the world on their own terms. I really do, and I know it’s hard. But this is 2026 and we all know the score; we know the past sacrifices and what has yet to be done. Or we can pretend we don’t and revel in hidden sadistic desires cloaked in martyrdom we didn’t earn instead of asking why this appeals to us and do no work to better ourselves and that of our collective young who have what should be a bright, intriguing, and exciting future. The theme for the mothers who have taken up unquestioning defense of Lindsay Clancy? You’re better off dead, because I said so.





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