I’m pretty sure there have been, but I’m not into horror as a genre so can’t name a single one. I’ll bet someone will shortly be along to mention a couple, though! Well, besides One Few Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Which isn’t a horror film, exactly.
She reached out to mental health servives several times, but was turned down each time.
Post partum psychosis is a very serious and also an issue that isn’t really talked about. It’s highly treatable, but when left untreated it can make a mother harm herself or others.
So I think that she should get 15 years maximum, because yes, three lives were lost, but she was psychotic and couldn’t really do much. It’s unfair to jail a mentally unstable person for life, because they might not know what they even did.
That is not quite true-
In September 2022, Lindsay began seeing psychiatrist Jennifer Tufts, virtually via telehealth. Tufts diagnosed her with generalized anxiety disorder, prescribed Zoloft,[14] and completed paperwork to extend Lindsay’s maternity leave.[15] Lindsay delayed starting the medication until mid-October,[14][16] and soon reported adverse effects.[16] Tufts prescribed Ativan for her on October 21.[16] On October 26, Lindsay reported that Ativan reduced her anxiety but not her insomnia and said she was using Benadryl as a sleep aid. Tufts prescribed Buspar, but Lindsay was afraid to try a new medication and did not take it.[16] Tufts warned her that Ativan could be addictive and reduced her dosage on November 2.[16][17]…
On November 20, Lindsay’s mother-in-law, a nurse, contacted Julie Paul, a psychiatric nurse practitioner at her hospital’s perinatal clinic. Paul called Lindsay later that day.[20] Paul prescribed Prozac but, a few days later, Lindsay said she could not tolerate it. On November 25, Paul asked her to discontinue both Prozac and Ativan, offered a one-time dose of Ambien to help her sleep, and prescribed Remeron and Klonopin.[21] When Paul left the hospital in December 2022, Lindsay’s case was transferred to nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta.[20] Jollotta prescribed Seroquel, an anti-psychotic and off-label sleep aid, on November 30.[17]
Hybrid sentences such as you appear to be advocating for are not a thing.
Either she could distinguish right from wrong or she couldn’t. If she could, then she should be found criminally liable and punished for her crimes. If she couldn’t, then she cannot be found criminally liable and should be treated for her mental illness until restored to sanity.
That’s the question this jury was deciding, and in the instant case, they found she could not make the distinction between right and wrong, 11-1.
My prediction: The case will be retried.
ETA: IANAL.
So I’m curious if she’s mentally sane now that all this is over with. Normally when people commit crimes while psychotic, they remain at risk of psychosis for the rest of their lives, so it makes sense to keep them institutionalized.
With something like this, I presume the period of instability would be temporary and had the immediate cause of childbirth. So the result I’m guessing is that she is now living in reality. Would they put her in a mental institution until she was mentally stable and then release her, or would it be too high a risk? I’m not sure how decisions are made like that. Presumably you can’t sentence someone to a lifetime in a mental institution.
I generally trust juries - not always, but generally. I assume they have access to all kinds of information and evidence that we do not. I assume that if 11 people of varying backgrounds concluded that there was sufficient evidence that she did not know right from wrong, that a lot of evidence did exist to support that conclusion. I assume that 11 people learning in detail about this horrific crime would find it difficult to let the guilty party off unless they were thoroughly convinced by the evidence that she could not be held criminally responsible for her actions.
So yeah, I think they probably got it right.
I think the process is similar no matter what state you’re in, but there will be some differences, for sure. In California, if a person is found to be NGI (Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity), then they are committed to a mental institution until it is determined they are restored to sanity – if that is possible. It is for some, not for others. If not, then it is indeed a life sentence in a mental facility.
And this is what review hearings are for. When initially committed, she will be evaluated for treatment and medication. She will be monitored and reports on her progress will be regularly made to her file. Those will be summarized and given to the judge (or jury) to determine her progress in treatment. If/when it is determined she is restored to sanity, she will be released under supervision. Every case is different, but generally, it’s a long slow process to regain unsupervised freedom.
Juries are squirrelly things. Having watched hundreds of jury trials, I can say that one of the most common causes of mistrials is juror misconduct. And I often saw cases where juries really didn’t understand their function in a trial. As a result, I’m an advocate for professional jurors.
That said, they do often get it right, and most jurors take their responsibilities very seriously. In this case, I agree with you and would say that was true. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I think we can trust their judgment.
I do have my doubts about the one hold-out that caused a mistrial, though.
There is no doubt that she has been convinced that she did. But there is substantial reason to doubt whether she did it. Off the top of my head I can’t recall everything I’ve heard that makes me question this, but there’s a lot. Here’s a good factual review of the reasons that people have doubt.
- Her DNA was not found on the exercise bands that were used to strangle the children. Her husband’s DNA was.
- She is a nurse. If she wanted to die, she knows how to kill herself. And she knows that’s not enough of a drop to cause death.
- Patrick Clancy’s Uncle is the local Sheriff (or was at the time of the deaths).
- She had an extremely tight timeline to accomplish all of this in the time he was gone from the house.
- She “jumped” out the window head first, and did not raise her arms defensively during the fall. It’s instinctive. Highly unusual.
- She was wet. Her hair, clothes and body were wet as if she had been hosed down outside in the cold. And her body temperature was far too low for the time period described. As were the children’s.
- A nurse would not have to look up on the internet to find out where the carotid artery is. Her husband would.
- The only person she supposedly admitted guilt to was her husband. . . while she lay on the ground with a broken neck.
- Patrick Clancy testified that his son was eating when he left the house, but all three children had empty stomachs.
And while not factually relevant to the case, two things that make me question his character: Patrick Clancy was dating his current wife for at least a year before the children died. So while his wife was sinking from exhaustion and depression caring for three children, Patrick had time to maintain a side relationship instead of being at home helping with his children.
-and-
The 60 Minutes interview with Patrick was just disgusting. When they asked him what he learned from all this, he said something like “You can love your children, but you should also have a life.” Not “Treasure every moment with them” . . . not “Be there for your spouse when they are vulnerable” . . . but “have a life outside of your kids.”
John Hinckley is out of the hospital now.
I think there is factual relevance there, as it goes to motive for the implied framing: getting a clean cut from his previous life to be able to marry the side girlfriend. If the husband has a motive, that would add to the reasonable doubt that she did it herself.
She has literally admitted to doing it. In court.
She slit her wrists.
Then she jumped out of a second-story window.
Her husband is on camera at a store when this happened.
How else do you think this went down?
All right, I just spent a few minutes looking for the sources for any of these claims. This whole list seems pretty suspect.
1 - Wiki says that her DNA was found on one of the bands, and the cite verifies it. So this one is bunk.
2 - She took pills, slit her wrists, and then jumped, so the height of the window seems irrelevant.
3 - I didn’t try to verify this because it doesn’t matter.
4 - I don’t see how the timeline is “extremely tight.”
5 - I couldn’t find any evidence of this, which makes sense – why would there be? I think conspiracy theorists are making something out of a lack of broken arms, but there’s no reason to make that logical leap.
6 - I couldn’t find any evidence of this.
7 - There were a lot of odd searches in the days leading up, this argument is not convincing.
8 - And her defense attorneys, who put on a case that required stipulating that she killed the children.
9 - I couldn’t find any evidence that the children had empty stomachs.
Seems like a bunch of nonsense.
Does postpartum happen as long as 8 months after birth?
Yes. An easily verifiable fact.
I think in a lot of cases of family murder-suicide, the person commits murder because they don’t want their family to feel the pain of their suicide. It’s not that they want to kill their family. It’s that they want to kill themselves, but they worry that their family will be hurt by their suicide. So to prevent their family from dealing with the pain, they kill their family. Then they can commit suicide and their family won’t feel the pain. That logic doesn’t make sense to us, but it makes sense to them. And it doesn’t have to have anything to do with postpartum depression. Even men commit these kinds of acts.
If you haven’t been up close and personal with someone going through a psychotic episode, it may not make sense. But to them, it does make sense. I might compare it to how everything makes sense in your dreams. You do all kinds of crazy stuff in your dreams, like fly out of your bedroom window to go to the store, and you don’t think twice about it. When you wake up you have your logical ability back and know that doesn’t make sense, but in your dreams that part of your brain is turned off. Your brain links up whatever it wants with whatever kind of logic it decides is necessary. It’s kind of like that with some kinds of mental illnesses. Stuff makes sense to them because their misfiring brain says it makes sense. If someone doesn’t want their suicide to hurt their family, their brain comes up with the solution of killing their family so that their family members won’t have to deal with the trauma of them committing suicide.
The thing about this that’s most hard for me to understand is how they knew things were going south with her and still left her alone with the children. One of the last meds she took was an anti-psychotic which suggests some medical professional thought she might be losing it.
It’s not the only reason to prescribe an anti-psychotic, but it’s a common reason. I’m not sure to what extent her struggles were really understood by those around her. But if someone said to me, “I think I’m losing touch with reality” I would not leave them alone with children.
So I think there’s also a conversation to be had about how much women are expected to sacrifice themselves for their children and how often stuff just gets dumped on them without consideration of whether that’s really the best idea right now.
But I don’t know all the details in this instance.
No, she didn’t. Look at the cite I gave you.
Can you just explain what you mean without linking to a video? Her defense stipulated that she did it. Was she unfit to stand trial? Was her defense acting unethically? These are strong claims that require strong evidence.
Patrick testified that she had told him she had thoughts of harming the children. But he was the ONLY one who did. It’s incredible the amount of the testimony that comes down to “Patrick told me” even from the court experts and Lindsay’s doctors. IF he was gaslighting her, it’s clear that everybody participated.
To be clear, I am not one of those people who have trouble believing that a sick woman might kill her children. I am just arguing that this case has an awful lot of holes in it. Most of the holes by themselves don’t prove much. But in the aggregate, they are compelling to me.
So you are arguing that she killed one of the children?
There are a lot of people who bury their heads in the sand because they don’t know how to process the situation in a helpful manner. Having had to deal with a close relative with a mental illness, I can understand the stress of not fully understanding what the problem is or not knowing the right course of action and just ignoring it while trying to move forward as best you can.
No, they didn’t. And no, I can’t. This is a very complicated case, and I am neither qualified to summarize, nor interested in typing out everything that is in my cites. Nor are my cites all encompassing. If you want to have an informed opinion on this case, you are going to have to put in some time on it. I haven’t found the kind of bullet list that you are looking for.