Three Body Bags - by Faye🥀

Cora was five. Dawson was three and Callan was only eight months old. On the evening of January 24th, 2023, their mother, Lindsay Clancy took exercise bands and strangled the three children till they couldn’t breathe anymore. One by one. Cora and Dawson died on the cold floor. Callan fought for his life in the hospital but ultimately succumbed two days after. Then she jumped out of the second story window. When her husband came home, she said five words. “I tried to kill myself.” I’m not here to tell you how she wept in the courtroom when the prosecutor showed her Cora’s pajamas, Dawson’s dinosaur underwear or Callan’s red onesie. I’m here to tell you what Lindsay did, what led to it and ask a question that does not require asking. Should Lindsay be held criminally responsible for murder? Before we answer that, we need to understand what led her to that point. Postpartum psychosis is a serious mental health disorder that mothers face after childbirth. It breaks a mother’s grip on reality. She starts hallucinating and slowly loses the ability to tell what is true. I know it is real, cruel and I believe women who suffer from it deserve real care and compassion. Lindsay Clancy reached for that help. She sought medical attention on different occasions. She opened up to her husband about having thoughts of harming him and the children. Her own mother testified that the drugs were destroying her mind. Lindsay was placed on thirteen different medications in the span of just four months. A combination that experts have referred to as a “dangerous cocktail.” All thirteen were prescribed by medical practitioners that weren’t even coordinating with each other. Her big spiral started when she began taking the new antipsychotics she was prescribed. She checked herself into McLean hospital and was discharged four days after. She was drowning and they kept giving her pills and sending her home. The healthcare system failed Lindsay Clancy. This is me acknowledging her suffering not justifying her actions. Now let me ask a completely different question.If a man consents to being killed and there is both video and documented evidence of this— does it still count as murder? In 2001, Armin Meiwes posted an ad looking for someone willing to be killed and eaten. Bernd Brandes responded to it and the two of them agreed. There was no force or struggle. When the case got to court, the men were labeled as mentally deranged individuals with insane mental health issues. The first court called it manslaughter on the basis of a signed contract. But on retrial, Armin was sentenced to life in prison because despite it being “consensual murder,” no human has the right to take another person’s life. You might say this isn’t the case with Lindsay which is quite accurate. Lindsay wasn’t a willing participant. But that’s exactly my point. If the law refuses to call a consensual, signed killing anything other than murder, then “circumstances” cannot be the thing that decides if Lindsay shouldn’t be held responsible. Circumstances may explain a crime but cannot dissolve it. Stay with me. So why should the law treat Lindsay’s case as though the principle doesn’t apply? There is a reason we punish people. Punishment does four things: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation. Retribution—three children are in the grave and the law must answer for that. Deterrence— other women are watching so however this case is handled is a signal to them. Incapacitation— Lindsay should never be let back among us. Rehabilitation— she must be treated in a hospital, not a prison cell. But did she know what she was doing was wrong? Lindsay Clancy was detached from reality but she still took steps that only make sense if she knew what she was doing was wrong. She waited till her husband left the house. She took the children to the basement of the house, where no one could hear, and used a method that wouldn’t alert anybody. When she was done, she jumped. Hiding to do all this is the proof that some part of her knew it was wrong even if the sickness was urging her to go on. I believe we do not know the difference between empathy and justice. Lindsay, to a certain degree, deserves empathy. She didn’t just wake up one morning as a killer. She reached out for help and the system failed her severely. That’s a tragedy. But empathy stops where the bodies begin. Cora, Dawson and Callan are dead because of her and that is murder. Understanding her circumstances does not mean we should excuse her actions. Those children had rights. Right to life. The right to be protected by the adults around them. A right to grow up. And those rights were taken away by the one person that was supposed to protect them. The defense is saying: this is what she suffered.The prosecution is saying: this is what she did. They’re both saying half of the story. But I’m saying all of it. Empathy and justice in this case can exist side by side. The jury has forgotten this. Eleven jurors wanted to acquit Lindsay. Only one held out. And the thought of that genuinely scares me. Because once we start to believe that being “sick” enough excuses killing your children, there is no line left. It will become a shield. Other people will begin to pick it up as well. In my opinion, I believe Lindsay should be convicted. Not acquitted by reason of insanity. Convicted. Because those three body bags were children with hopes and dreams. And then she should be locked away in a secure psychiatric facility, medicated and monitored, for the rest of her life. She should never be let back into society for the sake of public safety. The Massachusetts law does not actually allow that outcome. Their system only offers two doors: insanity and freedom, or conviction and an ordinary prison cell. Neither is good enough. If they cannot build a third door— guilty, convicted, treated and permanently confined, then the law has failed those children. Lindsay is guilty. She is sick and should never be set free.

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