Why are people more sympathetic to Lindsay Clancy than Andrea Yates? (Child death mentioned)

[Anonymous]

Massachusetts has two legal defense options when mental health is central to the crime...

Insanity or lack of criminal responsibility due to mental disease or defect
- unable to appreciate the criminality or wrongfulness of the act OR unable to conform conduct to the requirements of the law

OR

Mental impairment short of insanity
https://www.mass.gov/doc/9220-mental-impairment-short-of-insanity/download

[Anonymous]

There is also the possibility she was abusing benzodiazepines and that contributed to her mental state at the time. They can be quite addictive and she had access to a cocktail from all the prescriptions she had had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So now we know she intentionally plotted and planned to kill the kids.
It wasn't psychosis. Let that be a lesson learned to not really around someone so quickly just because they fit your image of ideal.
So why?
I'd put money on their being marital problems.

She probably found out her husband was cheating or planning to leave and this was her vengeance.
Picture perfect relationship it wasn't
It's happened before.

When I read posts like this I automatically hear it in Keith Morrison's voice and assume you watch too much Dateline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kevin Reddington is one of the most elite trial attorneys in the country with a great record defending his clients. As a former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney myself, I can attest that what people on this board think about his performance is irrelevant in the face of his record of success. He connects with juries and persuades them with the better story. I remain convinced this woman won’t be convicted as charged.

https://www.patriotledger.com/story/news/2023/02/08/duxbury-lindsay-clancys-attorney-kevin-reddington-history-high-profile-clients/69880508007/

Many of the clients listed in that article either plead guilty or were found guilty. None of the listed clients seem like upstanding citizens with bad luck.

This defense attorney won an acquittal for a woman who killed her partner while he slept, successfully arguing a battered woman defense - this is an outstanding outcome.

Your comment merely reveals how little you know about the workings of the criminal system. Winning acquittals in cases with the most egregious facts is not really the expected objective- it’s great if it happens, but the defense attorney’s goal is often to hang a jury or convince them to settle for lesser included charges which preserve their client’s opportunity for release and returning to a life outside incarceration at some point. That’s true even when you may believe wholeheartedly that your client is actually innocent - the worst cases because it’s soul crushing to see our system wrongfully convict innocent people and leave victims without actual justice.

Defense attorneys know that the vast majority of their clients will be guilty and culpable to some degree with mitigating factors considered. Their oath is to defend the Constitution with zealous advocacy on behalf of individuals at the mercy of the state. They hold the sacred role of keeping the state to account for acting within the law and protecting the rights of all citizens, including the accused.

Anyone who knows the criminal justice system knows that the greatest defense attorneys are not measured by the number of acquittals they’ve won, but by how they’ve leveraged their skill and integrity to get the most justice for their clients within a system everyone knows is deeply flawed and in some places broken.

This woman was not abused as far as we know and, by all accounts, lived a pretty damn charmed life. Don’t even compare this to a battered woman syndrome defense. Just don’t.

I didn’t. And you are a self righteous moron. Women with post partum depression devolving into psychosis who kill their children are victims of mental illness, just as much as abused women are victims of an abuser. Neither woman had control of her fate. Actually, battered women at least have an opportunity to leave - you can’t leave your own head.

And before you come back at me with some vile crap, I want you to know that my earliest childhood memory ~3 years old is being trapped in my play pen screaming in terror as I watch my father beat and rape my mother on the floor right next to me. 3 years old. I endured repeats of the performance for years afterward, too. I became a DV advocate as an adult, then spent years as a prosecutor putting abusers and molesters in prison. There is NOTHING you can educate me about when it comes to domestic violence. I would kindly suggest you just shut up.

Calm down and stop projecting. You know nothing about PP and are being an arrogant jerk. She makes a valid point and she could very well be far more knowledgeable about DV than you. LC does not have a diagnosis of PPP and you know nothing about her than the trickles of information the public is getting, so I guess you need to shut up too.

[Anonymous]

Even if it was pre-meditated, couldn't her lawyers argue that the medications she was on contributed to irrational thinking? It's similar to when someone plans to kill themselves. They plan out the act and carry it out--it doesn't mean this was intentional. They were experiencing a psychotic episode that resulted in irrational thinking that led to suicide. This is a heartbreaking case. I do not think this woman intended to kill her children. If you took away the PPD and medications she was on, she would not have planned this murder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if it was pre-meditated, couldn't her lawyers argue that the medications she was on contributed to irrational thinking? It's similar to when someone plans to kill themselves. They plan out the act and carry it out--it doesn't mean this was intentional. They were experiencing a psychotic episode that resulted in irrational thinking that led to suicide. This is a heartbreaking case. I do not think this woman intended to kill her children. If you took away the PPD and medications she was on, she would not have planned this murder.

You can say that for any murder…if you take away xyz they wouldn’t commit the murder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if it was pre-meditated, couldn't her lawyers argue that the medications she was on contributed to irrational thinking? It's similar to when someone plans to kill themselves. They plan out the act and carry it out--it doesn't mean this was intentional. They were experiencing a psychotic episode that resulted in irrational thinking that led to suicide. This is a heartbreaking case. I do not think this woman intended to kill her children. If you took away the PPD and medications she was on, she would not have planned this murder.

So now anyone on a few psych drugs isn’t responsible for their actions? Do you hear yourself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if it was pre-meditated, couldn't her lawyers argue that the medications she was on contributed to irrational thinking? It's similar to when someone plans to kill themselves. They plan out the act and carry it out--it doesn't mean this was intentional. They were experiencing a psychotic episode that resulted in irrational thinking that led to suicide. This is a heartbreaking case. I do not think this woman intended to kill her children. If you took away the PPD and medications she was on, she would not have planned this murder.

You can say that for any murder…if you take away xyz they wouldn’t commit the murder.

Exactly. There is a series on Netflix called “I am a Killer” and a common theme of these killers was unimaginable childhood abuse, mental illness, and subsequent drug addiction. They are all serving their life sentences in jail. If she gets off a lot of old cases will need to be re-opened and tried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was the Ortega / Krim case with the nanny murdering the children. She used being mentally ill as a defense but was unsuccessful and sentenced to life in prison.

This story has gotten a lot of press but a quick google search led to me finding lots of other stories just from the past year of mothers murdering their children - variety of circumstances but with quite a few being mental health related. I was surprised that one phrase being searched brought up about 10 recent cases. You would think this one is in the news because it is so rare but it isn't that rare. Most of them had made national news. According to FBI stats there are ~ 500 deaths a year in the USA of children killed by their parents. 72% of the deaths are children under 6. Of the 500, 57% are killed by fathers and 43% killed by their mothers.

With Ortega, the prosecution had a really good narrative about why she killed those two kids. That case gutted me. There’s not a convincing motive in this case - yet.

I personally believe that even more infants are killed by their parents than reported because the deaths are attributed to SIDS when in reality the parent either intended to kill the baby or engaged in unsafe sleeping habits.

A lot of the children murdered by their parents suffered long term abuse prior to the murder and the parent just went too far. If the autopsies here show unhealed injuries consistent with child abuse, Lindsay Clancy is done. But I suspect these kids were not abused.

I think that is a big part of why this case has gotten so much national attention vs. other filicide cases. Sadly there are kids killed by their parents way too often. But generally there are warning signs so to speak. Drug addiction, history of domestic violence, custody disputes, parents are unmarried or there is a step parent/boyfriend involved, an affair comes to light, or there were hidden financial problems, etc.

Obviously we don’t know all the facts yet, it is entirely possible more will come to light. But by all accounts so far, these children were not in a high risk demographic to be murdered by their mother. It is highly unusual to go from never so much as hitting your child to horrifically strangling your children (a very aggressive/personal way to kill). She didn’t even just drive a car off the cliff in a moment of anger. She killed them one by one, over minutes each.

Every case of child abuse/murder breaks my heart. But this one is hard to even conceptualize because there seem to be no aggravating factors to lead up to this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So now we know she intentionally plotted and planned to kill the kids.
It wasn't psychosis. Let that be a lesson learned to not really around someone so quickly just because they fit your image of ideal.
So why?
I'd put money on their being marital problems.

She probably found out her husband was cheating or planning to leave and this was her vengeance.
Picture perfect relationship it wasn't
It's happened before.

I agree the prosecution needs to find motive here. If there’s something there - an affair, a pending divorce, etc. - they’ll have an easier time convincing a jury.

I know a lot of people think the act of mapping out the distance to the restaurant shows intent but I personally do stuff like that all the time! Like I do this if I’m hungry and I want to know how long it’ll be before I’ll be able to eat, lol.

But you have a pattern of googling how far your takeout spots are... So that’s just a quirky thing you do. Doesn’t look sketchy if you can prove that’s your normal behavior. Did Lindsay do that regularly?

[Anonymous]

"In her study of 48 perpetrators, Wilczynski (1995) found that 50 per cent (14) of female and 45 per cent (nine) of male perpetrators had received prior psychiatric treatment, with 31.3 per cent (15) in total having had previous suicide thoughts or attempts. Putkonen et al. (2010) reported that, in the year prior to the filicide, 32 per cent (25) of mothers and 29 per cent (13) of fathers had requested help for mental health problems. Kauppi et al. (2010, p. 234) stated that psychosis or psychotic depression was the diagnosis in 51 per cent (19) and 20 per cent (four) of maternal and paternal cases, respectively. Further findings in this study were of personality disorder, including ‘immaturity, impulsiveness, and poor control of affect’, in 67 per cent (13) of paternal and 41 per cent (16) of maternal perpetrators. Haapasalo and Petaja (1999, pp. 229, 233) reported that two-thirds of the 48 maternal perpetrators in their study had ‘documented psychological problems’ before the incident, in particular ‘depression and mood disorder symptoms’. Further, they found that three mothers who were psychotic believed that they would be saving their children from future imagined suffering by killing them. In a study of maternal perpetrators, Bourget and Gagne (2002) reported that a psychiatric motive was determined for more than 85 per cent (23), and that the majority had received prior treatment for depressive or psychotic symptoms. Friedman et al. (2005) stated that 49 per cent (19) of the mothers in their study had been patients in a psychiatric hospital, 44 per cent (17) of the maternal perpetrators had previous suicide attempts and 56 per cent (22) had planned filicide-suicides. In addition, 69 per cent (27) had experienced auditory hallucinations and 78 per cent (30) command hallucinations, often in relation to killing their children. Stroud (2008, pp. 491–492) noted in her study that the most frequently reported psychological problem was delusions, where the perpetrators' ‘actions and emotions were completely influenced by delusional beliefs’, predominantly ‘auditory hallucinations commanding individuals to kill and delusions of persecution’"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was the Ortega / Krim case with the nanny murdering the children. She used being mentally ill as a defense but was unsuccessful and sentenced to life in prison.

This story has gotten a lot of press but a quick google search led to me finding lots of other stories just from the past year of mothers murdering their children - variety of circumstances but with quite a few being mental health related. I was surprised that one phrase being searched brought up about 10 recent cases. You would think this one is in the news because it is so rare but it isn't that rare. Most of them had made national news. According to FBI stats there are ~ 500 deaths a year in the USA of children killed by their parents. 72% of the deaths are children under 6. Of the 500, 57% are killed by fathers and 43% killed by their mothers.

With Ortega, the prosecution had a really good narrative about why she killed those two kids. That case gutted me. There’s not a convincing motive in this case - yet.

I personally believe that even more infants are killed by their parents than reported because the deaths are attributed to SIDS when in reality the parent either intended to kill the baby or engaged in unsafe sleeping habits.

A lot of the children murdered by their parents suffered long term abuse prior to the murder and the parent just went too far. If the autopsies here show unhealed injuries consistent with child abuse, Lindsay Clancy is done. But I suspect these kids were not abused.

I think that is a big part of why this case has gotten so much national attention vs. other filicide cases. Sadly there are kids killed by their parents way too often. But generally there are warning signs so to speak. Drug addiction, history of domestic violence, custody disputes, parents are unmarried or there is a step parent/boyfriend involved, an affair comes to light, or there were hidden financial problems, etc.

Obviously we don’t know all the facts yet, it is entirely possible more will come to light. But by all accounts so far, these children were not in a high risk demographic to be murdered by their mother. It is highly unusual to go from never so much as hitting your child to horrifically strangling your children (a very aggressive/personal way to kill). She didn’t even just drive a car off the cliff in a moment of anger. She killed them one by one, over minutes each.

Every case of child abuse/murder breaks my heart. But this one is hard to even conceptualize because there seem to be no aggravating factors to lead up to this.

I think there were aggravating factors leading up to it but she kept a lot of her rage and thoughts in her head because that’s what a umc woman does. On Reddit, people found a bunch of her old FB posts. There’s one where she describes her middle son as “the most difficult person she ever met.” And the rest of the post was restrained seething. It was polite but it was obvious she was miserable and resented this poor child.

I don’t understand why such people have kids. She had a career and her own life. There’s no excuse for having kids only to cruelly snuff them out later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How sad to have a life, a pretty nice life it seems, and for it to vanish in a blink. I feel so terrible for the grandparents and extended family and friends too. How tragic the whole thing. So many lives destroyed.

I feel bad for her, too.

I feel bad for Cora, Dawson, and Callan.

We truly lack understanding of severe mental illness.

Weird response.
We hold others accountable when they do bad things and are mentally ill. Why would she be the exception?

I have been saying this from the beginning, was Jeffrey Dahmer mentally stable? Ted Bundy? What about most of the school shooters, were they all stable mentally? No, as a matter of fact many of them were also on psych meds, like Lindsay, but we crucified these young mentally ill kids. How about all the other potentially mentally ill mothers who killed their kids who are now serving life sentences in general pop prisons? What about them? We gotta stop with the #iamlindsay crap, no, no you are not. Like school shootings, we’re going to end up with copycat crimes thanks to the media coverage and the misplaced empathy. If we as a society have never related to, or empathized with murderers, even mentally ill ones, we aren’t going to start now. Hell no.

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who embalmed and disemboweled people and hid them in his freezer. He had a long history of asocial and frightening behavior. This woman was a highly esteemed labor nurse with no criminal record. Postpartum psychosis is real.

She murdered a baby. The fact that you’re holding her up as “but she’s not as bad as Dahmer!” would be laughable if it weren’t so disgusting.

I'm sorry, but PPD is not "disgusting." It's a devastating diagnosis and worlds away from Dahmer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How sad to have a life, a pretty nice life it seems, and for it to vanish in a blink. I feel so terrible for the grandparents and extended family and friends too. How tragic the whole thing. So many lives destroyed.

I feel bad for her, too.

I feel bad for Cora, Dawson, and Callan.

We truly lack understanding of severe mental illness.

Weird response.
We hold others accountable when they do bad things and are mentally ill. Why would she be the exception?

I have been saying this from the beginning, was Jeffrey Dahmer mentally stable? Ted Bundy? What about most of the school shooters, were they all stable mentally? No, as a matter of fact many of them were also on psych meds, like Lindsay, but we crucified these young mentally ill kids. How about all the other potentially mentally ill mothers who killed their kids who are now serving life sentences in general pop prisons? What about them? We gotta stop with the #iamlindsay crap, no, no you are not. Like school shootings, we’re going to end up with copycat crimes thanks to the media coverage and the misplaced empathy. If we as a society have never related to, or empathized with murderers, even mentally ill ones, we aren’t going to start now. Hell no.

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who embalmed and disemboweled people and hid them in his freezer. He had a long history of asocial and frightening behavior. This woman was a highly esteemed labor nurse with no criminal record. Postpartum psychosis is real.

She murdered a baby. The fact that you’re holding her up as “but she’s not as bad as Dahmer!” would be laughable if it weren’t so disgusting.

I'm sorry, but PPD is not "disgusting." It's a devastating diagnosis and worlds away from Dahmer.

Murder is murder the psychological diagnosis doesn't make one worse

Also she never had PPD

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering why everyone feels so comfortable speculating here. The truth is, nobody on DCUM knows what her mental state was.
Let's wait for the facts regarding insanity (or not) to come out before jumping to conclusions.