Unlike the rest of the country, I have tried to stay away from the nonstop drama and news coverage following the Lindsay Clancy murder trial.
Every time I see Clancy’s face, all I can think about is her taking each of her three innocent children – one by one – and strangling the life out of them in the family's basement.
It makes me sick.
This trial wasn’t about whether she committed these heinous acts – it’s whether she should be held criminally responsible. After days of deliberation, a deadlocked jury forced the judge on Sept. 4 to declare a mistrial. That would likely mean a new trial.
Judge William Sullivan gave Clancy’s defense attorney an hour for a last-ditch appeal to remove the one holdout juror out of 12 who refused to acquit Clancy for her
actions.
Clancy’s defense has argued she isn’t criminally responsible because she was suffering from “postpartum psychosis” (the insanity defense) when she murdered her children. Prosecutors argued Clancy acted “intentionally, rationally, and swiftly” to kill her children. And one juror appears to have agreed.
Justice for Lindsay Clancy's children is all that matters
I’m not going to try to play armchair detective or attorney in this case.
All I care about is that justice prevails for the three young children who lost their lives at the hands of their mother.
Something that shocked me throughout this trial was all the women who spoke in defense of Clancy, as my colleague Nicole Russell has detailed. Many of them claimed they identified with Clancy’s disgusting actions.
Whether Clancy was in her right mind or not, she murdered her babies. It’s with them that my sympathies lie.
Hopefully, prosecutors learned from this trial and will modify their approach in a subsequent one. Because Clancy needs to pay for what she did, and she doesn’t deserve the adoring fans she’s amassed.
For instance, they’ve been showing in droves outside the courtroom, wearing pink in Clancy’s “honor.” I’m not sure what exactly that says about our society, but it’s nothing good.
Here's a mom who actually deserves our sympathy
If there’s a mom to feel empathy for, I would suggest you look to Karyann Parkinson of Virginia.
The mother of five was convicted recently of “the delinquency of a minor” – the child is her own. It’s a first-degree misdemeanor and comes with a six-month jail sentence. The judge suspended the sentence, pending good behavior, but the conviction remains.
Her crime? She allowed her 5-year-old son to go for a walk by himself in their gated community.
Lenore Skenazy, founder of the Free-Range Kids movement, recently detailed the case in Reason.
Someone saw the child walking and alerted security. Police were then called, and Child Protective Services also showed up and investigated Parkinson for abuse and neglect. They have since placed her on the state’s child abuse and neglect registry.
Talk about insane.
This is a mother who seems to love her family and was simply giving her son a little taste of independence. She didn’t harm him in any way.
If Clancy, who killed her children, could attract sympathetic women and moms to stand for her, I would like to think this mom could also garner an army of women to defend her.
Yet I doubt she will.
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Clancy mistrial distracts from moms who actually deserve empathy | Opinion
