A Massachusetts mother who admits she strangled her three young children has attracted nearly $830,000 in donor support for her parents — while the pharmaceutical companies that prescribed her a cocktail of psychotropic drugs face zero accountability for the mental health crisis they profit from.
The Lindsay Clancy trial, now in its fourth week in Plymouth Superior Court, has laid bare a mental health system where doctors prescribed powerful medications over Zoom, never coordinated care, and discharged a suicidal mother after a single day. Yet the only person facing consequences is Clancy herself. The corporations behind those prescriptions will never see a courtroom, thanks to liability shields that insulate the pharmaceutical industry from the wreckage its products leave behind.
Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the January 2023 deaths of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, at the family's Duxbury home. She admits to the killings. Her defense attorney Kevin Reddington argues she should not be held criminally responsible because she suffered from postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder — conditions he says were worsened by the antidepressants prescribed after her third child's birth.
The defense has shown Clancy's care was disjointed: doctors weren't speaking to one another, appointments happened over Zoom, and notes weren't shared, according to AP News. She was discharged from one psychiatric facility after a day and denied a higher level of care at another because she couldn't demonstrate a suicide plan. Meanwhile, digital forensics testimony revealed Clancy searched "how does Wellbutrin work for depression?" and "ketamine for suicidal ideation" in the days before the killings, CBS News reported. She also searched "symptoms of postpartum psychosis."
Prosecutors counter that Clancy was a deliberate killer who sent her husband Patrick to a pharmacy and a restaurant to create a window to murder the children before attempting suicide herself. Her doctors testified they never observed signs of mania or psychosis, though she repeatedly expressed suicidal thoughts. Prosecutors also highlighted that Clancy performed normal activities the day of the killings — taking the children to the doctor, playing with them in the snow — and noted she wouldn't always take the medications prescribed for her insomnia, anxiety, and depression.
Patrick Clancy, who has since divorced Lindsay and remarried, testified that about a week after the killings she called him and said she "heard a man's voice telling her if she didn't do it now she would lose her chance," according to AP News.
A former coworker, Margaret Hamp, told jurors that Clancy once cried upon hearing about the Andrea Yates case — another mother who killed her children and was ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity — asking, "How could a mother hurt her children?" the New York Post reported.
Fox News reported that the GoFundMe for Clancy's parents, Paula and Mike Musgrove, has surpassed $830,000 toward a $2 million goal, with donors from Belize, Australia, and the UK. The fund covers the parents' travel, lodging, and living costs. The page states: "Nothing about this fund asks anyone to share their view of Lindsay or the criminal case."
Three children are dead. Their mother was pumped full of psychotropic drugs by a fragmented system that couldn't be bothered to coordinate care. Nearly a million dollars in private charity flows to the family — while the pharmaceutical companies that profited from every prescription sit comfortably behind a wall of legal immunity. The trial will determine Clancy's fate. Nobody is putting the drug companies on trial.
