The Lindsay Clancy Trial ~ An Epic Tragedy Unfolds

This is one of those situations where you cannot bear to look, and yet cannot look away. It is about a triple homicide, a mother who was an LDR nurse, who killed her own children, her own flesh and blood – in cold blood.

Many people are focused on poor Lindsay, and her psychosis. She is obviously sick, but she was also very deliberate, and calculating when it came to cutting off the air supply of each child. Yet she maintained her own airway, in spite of self injury, and a dramatic suicide attempt.

I pray she has the presence of mind to repent, to seek mercy and forgiveness from Jesus, because that is her only hope.

Whatever the outcome, so many people are traumatized by what happened. The first responders, the police officers, the neighbours, extended family, people she worked with, and countless others.

From what little I have seen and heard, she deliberately deceived, and manipulated her husband, setting it all up so she had time to commit three murders, one after another. She then staged a dramatic feigned suicide attempt. I question whether she was drawing attention to herself after committing the crimes, in order to delay getting help to the children. Clearly she was determined to make sure they did not survive.

Why do I think the suicide attempt was feigned? Because she just committed three murders by cutting off the airway of each of her children. Every nurse, doctor, and first responder knows the airway is the critical life and death issue that must be addressed before anything else. Every second counts when an airway is compromised. The ABC’s of first aid – Airway, Breathing and Circulation.

It takes four to five minutes of intentional strangulation to cause brain death, and stop the heart. Five minutes is 300 seconds x 3 children. It means she maintained the pressure, with a determined intent to kill, for around 1000 seconds, without ever letting up.

If she would have shot them, they might have lived, like two out of three of Diane Downs children survived after she shot them. They have had to deal with lifelong injuries, and trauma, but two of them lived because they still had airways, breathing and a heart beat.

Darlie Routier killed her two young boys, and then slashed her own throat far worse than what Lindsey did to herself. Routier also had an eight or nine month old baby who was upstairs with the father when the crimes were committed. As I recall, there was no mention of PP depression or psychosis in her case.

Routier stabbed her two young boys as they slept, and then did nothing to help them. They had a chance, but help arrived too late.

But in the case of Lindsey Clancy’s three young children, they did not stand a chance, because she specifically chose to target their airways.

Only God knows what contributed to her depraved state of mind. It seems prior to the murders, she was documenting her thoughts, and was completely self-absorbed with her mental health. Yet she went to birthday parties, went to the gym, was driving around, went to multiple appointments, and acted quite normal.

It is unclear whether or not she took her medications, or how much she complied with, or made an effort to get well. It would seem she had little incentive to protect her children from her own intrusive thoughts of harming them.

Regardless of all the talk of having “a moment of psychosis”, surely there were some lucid moments leading up to the crimes, when she could have made some other choices, or even surrender them to CPS. She could have packed up and left.

There is always more than what meets the eye, especially when it comes to what is going on in a marriage, in a home, and in the minds of the adults in the midst of an unfolding crisis.

Over the years, working as an R.N. I saw many psychotic people. None of them were driving a car. In fact most of them had such disordered thoughts, they could not make coherent sentences. They were often fearful, and paranoid. Some of them thought the police were after them. Others had visual and auditory hallucinations. One of them believed there was cement in his pants, pins in his bed, and glass in the couch. Interestingly, they all knew the disordered thoughts were not true, even though they were distressing.

I never knew any of the psych patients to act totally normal, and then do something violent. Usually there was a period of decompensation, where they would become disoriented, dishevelled, and increasingly unintelligible. That is how you could tell they were not doing well, and were getting sicker. They were unable to self care. Often they would not shower, or get dressed, comb their hair, shave etc.

Some people do get very sick in the weeks after giving birth, due to hormonal disruptions, and extreme mood swings. I recall a woman in Toronto who jumped in front of a subway train with her infant in her arms. The baby died before she did, and if she had lived, was facing a murder charge.

But in that case, the mother’s actions toward her child, and herself, were equally catastrophic. Lindsay took some pills, cut herself superficially, barely even drawing blood, and then jumped out of a second story window.

It would seem that if she wanted to cut a major artery, she could easily have done so, given the fact she is a nurse. I think her main miscalculation was how hard the ground would be, because it was frozen at the time. Most people do not expect to die from jumping out of a second story window.

Then there was the report that her very first question after she came to, was “do I need an attorney?”

At this stage, it is still way too early to tell what direction this is going. The jurors have a heart-breaking, and contentious case to sort out, with a plethora of medical and pharmaceutical jargon to sort out. A chemical soup of the worst kind.

What I find disturbing is that both Lindsey and her husband, who is now remarried with another child – are both suing the doctors, and seeking to profit from these crimes. No one else was in charge of those children but them!

It was reported in the news right after it happened, that her husband asked the public to forgive her, claiming he forgave her immediately. He cannot direct who is going to forgive her, and hopefully they will both look to God for forgiveness, not the general public.

Then her husband, or perhaps a friend of his, set up a GoFundMe (according to news sources at the time). They raised at least a million dollars.

In spite of his forgiveness, and support for Lindsay, he divorced her, has remarried, and has a child with his new wife. It all seems kind of surreal.

There is little doubt that psychiatric medications can be very dangerous. I would not take any of those drugs in a million years. The side effects are horrendous. A person can get irreversible Parkinson like movement disorders very quickly, sometimes within a week after starting certain drugs, due to the profound potency of some of those antipsychotics medications.

How many people have committed crimes, or died by suicide while on those meds is anyone’s guess. If you were not crazy before you met a psychiatrist, you are sure to be crazy within a short order after meeting one, unless you can manage to escape the clutches of the system. If it sucks you in, it may never spit you back out. If it does, you are not likely to be in one piece. Psychiatrists are the biggest pill pushers on the planet, in my opinion.

What is the alternative? Stay sane. I know many people will jump up and down and say, “Oh but you don’t understand” “You don’t know what it is like to go through this or that.” I do know, and understand what it is like to go through extreme trauma, and emotional pain. I don’t for one minute suggest we should be judgemental or callous.

However in the face of evil, there is a duty owed to the victims. The victims are the three children in this case, not the murderer. Societal values seeks justice for all those involved, including Lindsey Clancy.

No doubt she is suffering, regardless of what her motives were. I truly hope Christians around the world are praying for her soul, her repentance, genuine remorse, to take responsibility for her actions, and seek God’s forgiveness with all her heart.

A jury might work out a just solution in a secular world. But only Christ can bear the burden, know her heart, and help her through this.

Crimes against children goes right to our core. It is so disturbing, our minds cannot even grasp their final moments on this earth.

The only consolation is that we have a loving God who is overseeing all things. We know the children are now in His hands, one way or another.

Regardless of how much psycho-babble comes out of this, with so-called experts in every aspect of mental health, none of them really know what was going on in her heart.

Only Jesus knows out heart. The bible tells us to guard  our heart. We cannot separate a person’s thoughts from their actions, and we most certainly cannot separate their heart from their mind, or their deeds.

Proverbs 4:23

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.