Hundreds of Lindsay Clancy supporters wore pink and recited the Lord’s Prayer during a rally outside the Plymouth courthouse, where the Massachusetts mother is on trial for strangling her three children to death with exercise bands.
About 300 women, along with a few men, gathered outside the court on Thursday, according to The Associated Press. Many wore pink shirts with messages including “Believe,” “She Needed Help” and “Peace For Lindsay.” Thursday’s rally marked the first time during the nearly month-long trial that supporters have turned out in such large numbers, the AP added.
The demonstrators stood silently for more than an hour before proceedings began, during which a chaplain called by the defense testified about visiting Clancy in the hospital after the killings. Near the end of Thursday’s rally, the Clancy supporters formed a circle, said the Lord’s Prayer, raised their arms and formed their hands into the shape of a heart, according to the AP.
Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, is facing murder charges for the January 2023 deaths of her three children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan.
Most of the demonstrators said Clancy’s case resonated with them because of its focus on postpartum mental health and the difficulties women can face when seeking treatment. Researchers estimate that postpartum psychosis, which is more serious and less common than postpartum depression, affects 1 to 2 out of every 1,000 women after delivery, according to PBS NewsHour.
“Women are being dismissed, neglected and ignored when we speak up,” said April Vincent, a 52-year-old paralegal from Providence, Rhode Island, according to ABC News. “We’re scared because nobody takes us seriously.”
Jeanne Zaborski, a 72-year-old retired nurse from Rockland, Massachusetts, said she hopes the case raises awareness about postpartum health, according to PBS NewsHour. She and many others at the rally said they had been following the trial almost daily.
Some supporters carried flags from different countries to indicate that support for Clancy extended internationally, the AP reported.
Renee Kimball from Maine, who served as the event’s lead organizer, believes that every woman can identify with Clancy’s situation.
“ I think that every one of us women believe that it could be any one of us,” Kimball said in a statement to WBUR. “Any one of us who have dealt with mental health, anxiety, depression, postpartum, I think we just know that any one of us could be sitting in her chair.”
Several demonstrators cheered when they spotted Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington, and Kimball told the crowd to trust that he “has Lindsay’s fight.”
The demonstration comes as the prosecution and the defense present different arguments regarding the circumstances that resulted in Clancy killing her three children.
Prosecutors argue that Clancy planned the Jan. 24, 2023, killings and intentionally sent her husband out of the house on errands before murdering the children.
While her defense attorney doesn’t dispute that Clancy murdered her children, he argues she lacked criminal responsibility due to severe postpartum psychosis, bipolar disorder and being overmedicated.
According to earlier testimony during the trial, Clancy became increasingly anxious in the months before killing her children. Her mother-in-law, Susan Clancy, testified that her former daughter-in-law had been a “wonderful mother” who was nurturing and loving.
Susan Clancy also testified that the family had become concerned about Lindsay’s condition. A text message shown to jurors from Nov. 30, 2022, two months before the killings, said, “I’m not OK, and I’m terrified of taking meds tonight.” She was reportedly having difficulty sleeping without benzodiazepines but was concerned about becoming dependent on the medication.
The central dispute in the trial remains whether the mother deliberately killed her children or whether severe mental illness left her unable to be held criminally responsible.
On the day of the killings, Patrick Clancy returned home after going out to get food and medication. He testified earlier in the trial that he found his wife injured and bleeding after she had jumped from a second-story window in an attempt to kill herself.
Lindsay Clancy told her husband that she had tried to end her life and that their children were in the basement. She did not tell him that she had killed them.
Patrick Clancy then discovered the bodies of the couple’s three children in the basement, where Lindsay Clancy had fatally strangled them with exercise bands.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
