Clancy Psychosis - Pun Intended

Melanie Preston
7 minutes ago
8 min read

Thrown Back into a Dungeon, Squinting at the Light

I’d probably not have learned a thing about this case, - where today my country’s WATER supply was shut down, five out of six "desalinization plants," just after I’d finally paid my water bill, now owing only five months of taxes and four months of electricity. But I did learn about it, despite being on the other side of the world, from a friend who could empathize with Lindsay - and I suppose assumed I would, too, after my years of nearly dying and then being sent home by various “health systems,” having dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s after supposedly following various “protocols.” Yet, within a few minutes of finding Day One of the Lindsay Clancy trial on what I believe was Day 16, I texted this friend, “Wait - is this going to be the second family I watch supporting their child who has just murdered their three children?!”

— I was instantly transported to a hospital bed in 2018, where I was supposedly being watched, but where I really listened to five people outside my door talk about their sex lives and laugh 24/7, where nobody came to talk to me more than once every 48 hours, and when they did - they asked me nothing about what was going on, and when I tried to tell them, waved their hand away with disinterest, something I was more than used to.

Once left alone again, I flipped through channels on my high-up tiny hospital TV, and stopped when I saw Chris Watts, who I am ashamed to admit I found devastatingly handsome - despite his bone chilling crime. Donned in an orange jumpsuit, I recognized him as the father who had just murdered his two beautiful daughters and wife who was seven-months pregnant, then lied about it and joined the police in search parties - until he finally admitted he had met a new girlfriend he wanted to be with, and therefore - killed his entire family, stuffing his dead little girls into the oil chimneys where he worked.

As one does.

And here we were, three months later, at his sentencing, and my eyes continued to widen and my jaw continued to drop when I realized his parents and his sister were behind him in the courtroom, saying out loud, “We love you, Chris,” again and again.

“We forgive you…we only want to understand why…”

And here I was, trapped in a room, trying to get back to a different hospital, where I had actually been listened to for the first time in five years, about what I had been through since my mother died, the years of tears, solitude, exclusion from holidays and trips, isolation and what I referred to as “solitary confinement.”

I hadn’t seen my niece and nephew in years, which there was really no good reason for, and so watching this scene made me wonder something I couldn’t even fathom…

Just imagine if I had actually done something horrible…

I couldn’t even think it.

—

So now this Lindsay Clancy trial was helping my friend distract herself from her grief, and so I knew it existed, was curious, and turned it on.

Only now it just so happened to be ten years since I’d seen my niece and nephew.

Nephews - sorry.

There was a third baby I met only once as a newborn.

I guess he is now ten. Such is the nature of Complex PTSD. It's always, always there - triggering memories of all kinds - happy and sad - but this trial...was about to be a real throwback.

—

I tried to listen to the story of how Lindsay’s struggles had begun…her anxiety and her depression worsening, but I was blinded by the support of her husband, and of her mother continuing to show up in person to stay with her while she was struggling. I was blown away by the lack of stigma, of Lindsay’s never being alone, of her Christmas with the family, and mostly of her ability to share her struggles and all that she was going through and trying with everyone - her parents, her in-laws and her husband, Patrick.

Patrick Clancy testifies; Photo: Men's Journal

This was the support she had - as she was trying to get help and support - before she murdered her three children.

And yes - at the same time, her defense attorney’s argument that the “system” is deplorable, and deserves to be called out, sued, jailed and taken down - is 100% valid.

They don’t listen. They don’t track. They don’t care. They don’t check up. They don’t communicate with each other. They guess. They experiment, and if you don’t follow up - neither do they.

The system is an irresponsible disaster and it always has been - but she wasn’t navigating it alone, and she was only trying to solve her problems for four months.

Incomprehensible.

Try nine years. In an emergency. All by yourself. No emergency contacts. So, as much as I loved her lawyer, Kevin Reddington, and didn’t love “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” (as Assistant DAs Jennifer Sprague and Shanan Buckingham were so affectionately named online), as time wore on and I saw where her defense was going - many things stopped adding up.

Assistant DAs: Jennifer Sprague and Shanan Buckingham; Photo: Yahoo.com

She wasn’t “on” 13 medications. She barely took them, and the doses were less than minimal. The prescribed seroquil doubling from 25mg to 50mg to 100mg to 200mg within four days was the most insane thing that happened, but this occurred more than a month before the “event,” and she was weaned off of it within two weeks of starting it.

Most of the medications she didn’t even try.

She expressed the suicidal thoughts to many - including her therapists, husband and mother - and she called the hotlines twice. And yes - that is what suicide hotlines do. They talk to you, and if you don’t have a “suicide plan” - they tell you they have to go.

It’s brutal - yes, and it’s awful, but if she told her mother and husband that she was having thoughts of harming the children - that is when she should have been committed, and that is when she should have never been alone with the children again.

The “professionals” were not aware of that, so can’t be judged on what they didn’t know - so maybe her husband and mother failed her - or more importantly - failed the children - who we have not heard nearly enough about.

After all of the therapists and psychiatrists were finally tried and cross-examined on the stand, experts on how psychosis works, and on “criminality” took the stand - and the details of January 24th were gone over in great detail - and this is when it became clear to me - “beyond a reasonable doubt” - that Lindsay had planned these murders on the final day for sure - and perhaps before.

She had never heard a “commanding voice” ordering her to do something before this event, and she hasn’t heard one since. This is completely not normal, and therefore completely unlikely.

She googled the distances for how long it would take her husband to go to the take-out place - a place they had never gotten take-out from that was further away from their home than their usual places. She also called CVS earlier in the day to check that they had the medication for Cora, yet she waited until he was on his way out the door - just to pick up dinner - to casually add on the pharmacy errand:

“Oh, while you’re out - can you also grab this at CVS?”

Seems normal, right? But this was all google mapped in her phone, earlier in the day, for how long this would all take him to do at 5:30ish pm.

Which means the minute he left the house, she took Dawson, their three-year old son, down to the basement, and strangled him for seven minutes with her exercise band, then went upstairs and got Cora, her five-year-old daughter, who she had taken to the pediatrician that day for her check-up, and who Daddy was out getting medication for, and strangled her for seven minutes with a different exercise band.

She then got Callan, her eight-month-old “happy baby,” and strangled him almost to death - he was somewhat resuscitated, but his brain was too swollen for him to survive.

Then, she raced upstairs - (her iPhone tracked all of these flights) - locked her bedroom door, and did her suicide attempt, as she had genuinely wanted to die.

This was real. And the reasons for parents killing children were divided into categories and one of them was “altruistic - out of love.”

She had decided to kill herself, which I don’t fully understand, given her short time of suffering, except that she seemed like someone who had never experienced anything like this and like someone who knew how to solve things quickly - and her inability to control getting better quickly - was too much for her.

Once she decided to kill herself, in her mind, she needed to take the children with her, and that is why she said to them, “Go to G-d,” as she was murdering them.

I’m sorry - but NO.

She had the authority to decide to end her own life - that was her prerogative - but not the lives of three innocent children.

She left them face down on the basement floor, for their father to find - no thought for him whatsoever, yet even he is suing the health system and blaming them for what happened to his wife.

This is love, this is support and this is him understanding who he knew his wife to be - and that is generous, admirable and compassionate of him, but it doesn’t erase her crime and he knows that, despite finding it in his heart to forgive her.

And her parents, who of course loved their grandchildren, have sat in that courtroom every single day, and visited her in the hospital every single day, and the mother of her now ex-husband also testified for the defense about what a wonderful mother she had been and what a wonderful delivery nurse she had been.

Lindsay Clancy’s parents support their daughter in her murder trial; Photo: aol

So many things can be true about a person at the same time, that she was wonderful and lovable - but also that this wasn’t a “moment of psychosis,” but a decision where she was criminally aware and responsible, but planned on being dead right after, so wouldn’t have to experience the pain, grief, guilt, remorse, or the punishment or paralysis.

The “What happens if this all goes wrong?” entry was missing from her meticulous journal. I ended up watching every second of this murder trial, not recaps and not TikTok meltdowns, and her actions in this case were not because of the mental health system or the treatment she received or didn’t receive - as terrible as it might have been; they were premeditated - and as serious as postpartum depression and psychosis are - it was proven by many experts that her symptoms and her actions on that day did not meet the criteria for them to have caused the murders. From my vantage point, which I admit is emotionally broken, she is a very lucky woman, for she is loved, supported and forgiven and has never been judged, stigmatized, or neglected by those closest to her. Her family wants her to spend the rest of her days in a mental hospital, getting help - and not in a prison, and that is commendable, for them to stand by her side both before this horrific tragedy and since it. Wherever she ends up, she will have regular visitors and plenty of support. It is a shame that she stigmatized herself and didn’t take the time off that she needed to check herself into a hospital for a much longer period of time to see if she could get the help she needed for these thoughts to disappear, and if they didn’t, to keep herself committed to ensure her children were never harmed. Had she done that, told the truth to her doctors that she was thinking of harming her children, was still cleared and then this still happened, I might have a different opinion, but Cora, Dawson and Callan were the three beautiful victims of a mother that they loved and trusted and they suffered terrifying deaths at the hands of their mother... And they should be the ones that America is obsessed with.