A few days ago I shared some cursory thoughts about Lindsay Clancy and her murder trial. What immediately shocked me was the sheer number of medications that she was on. As a former mental health professional, as someone with a mental health condition myself who has experienced issues with meds, I was absolutely floored by all the drugs that Clancy was taking. What I was thinking most was about the very significant probability of drug interactions that would have possibly clouded her senses, including her moral judgement.
Intrigued, I looked into the case further. One friend alluded that he couldn't believe I had been unaware of this trial going on. What can I say? I've been very busy lately: everything from starting a new job to getting a new car, to the past few days when I've been working on a horror story (that will absolutely outrage some people if it ever gets published). And I'm not really all that much a fan of sensationalism, something the Lindsay Clancy murder trial seems rife with.
But I took a harder look at the case. And now, what do I think?
There are three possibilities that I see going on with her. There is the notion that she suffered from post-partum psychosis, on which her defense is hanging their chances on. There is the possibility of a condition like bipolar disorder. And then there is the possibility that she is a full-blown psychopath: something that there is no cure for and it could perhaps be said there is no hope either.
Folks, mental illness can distort thought. It certainly has to me, too many times since the onset of manic depression in the winter of 2000. It suppresses inhibitions. I've written about it in my book, how being manic led to me doing some horrible things because of an outraged libido that could not be satisfied. I did other things too, that I am not proud of.
But there was always a choice. Unfortunately I chose wrong, more times than I can count.
There remained moral choice though. And that is where Lindsay Clancy went horribly wrong and deviated straight into pure evil.
Clancy, apparently, researched ways on how to kill her children. She planned this. Clancy spent an inordinate amount of time looking at methods of ending her children's lives. That is something that mental illness can never bring about. Can mental illness lead to murder? Yes, when passions go out of control. But to premeditate the harming of others? That takes free will. She had every opportunity to pull away. If she was going through psychiatric issues she could have addressed those. But she didn't. If she truly has a mental illness she spent far more time indulging her dark fantasies than she did in doing her damndest to stave off the dark thoughts bedeviling her.
I don't believe that mental illness, including post-partum psychosis, can be used as a viable excuse of what Lindsay Clancy did. She maintained enough reason to spend time studying how to kill her own children. That alone invalidates her defense.
Which leaves us with psychopathy. Something almost entirely removed from the concept of traditional mental illness. A complete disregard for others. A detachment from moral restraint that makes anything justifiable in the eyes of the psychopath.
There is no real treatment for such a person. There is no "getting better" for a psychopath. Thankfully true psychopathy is a rare condition. And not all psychopaths are necessarily evil. It's been suggested that psychopathy is a trait that can be found in many among the executive business community. It might make them exceedingly cutthroat in their dealings but there seems to be at least some realization that bad things will happen if they go too far.
That isn't common among psychopaths however. But I'm digressing.
What Lindsay Clancy did in murdering her children involved either a chosen course of action in researching how to kill her offspring and she's trying to hang that on a temporary mental condition. Or she is a psychopath who did what she did without feeling moral compunction.
However it is, she does not need to be given the opportunity to ever again be a free woman. She chose her actions. Or she has no restraining morality at all. One or the other.
The jury needs to find her guilty. Send her to prison for the rest of her life. Not just to hold her accountable for her temporal sins, but as a service to society as a whole. She is too dangerous to treat with overbearing kindness that does not adequately address the severity of her crimes.
If there is no justice in this case, then there will not be true justice in a lot of other situations that will come about.
I originally expressed the belief that Clancy might not have possessed enough sense to keep from murdering her children. I see now that I was wrong in that assessment. She did what she did of her own volition.
And I hope that the jury in her trial will do the right thing and make damned sure that she never sees an iota of freedom again. Ever.
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