Can We Learn Anything from the Lindsay Clancy Trial?

24:55I think he really felt he owed it to her as her spouse, as someone who'd seen her spiral to clarify to the public that this was someone who was loving. This wasn't someone who, you know, wanted this outcome. And it's tragic now to look back at that and see that the nature of the misinformation that I think is frustrating him is very different. where in that now Pat has been vilified on completely baseless claims. But a lot of what was driving him, I think, to speak with me was wanting to tell the story of his family and his children in a way that wasn't sensationalized and that didn't fuel perceptions of Lindsay that he felt were inaccurate.

25:34Now, whether that was accomplished, I think, remains to be seen. But for him, it was very much about sort of setting the record straight because he'd been reading a lot and seeing a lot about his family that didn't feel true to him. There's a part in the piece where you write that Pat's tendency to extend Lindsay the benefit of the doubt seemed both credulous and entirely rational. I'm wondering if you can explain that line a little bit, just because I feel like, you know, in your answer to the last question, you know, it kind of sounds as though he just sort of immediately after this tragedy, he was very quick to publicly come out in support of her.

26:10But obviously his feelings about the situation were extremely complicated. And that really comes out in the piece when you're talking to him. And so I guess I'm wondering if you can just talk a little bit more about like, yeah, just like that line and kind of like the ways in which there was still this very much like this internal battle happening inside of Patrick's head. Pat had known Lindsay as a loving wife, a loving mother, his best friend, a well-respected nurse. I don't think there really was a world in which he could accept that it was the Lindsay he knew who'd done what she did. And so our conversations had a kind of end point near the very specifics of the action and the timing of it.

26:50a lot of the prosecution's arguments have kind of homed in on this less than an hour-long period in which Pat left the house. And the questions are sort of, did she plan it? Did a voice just kind of suddenly come over her? And I tried to bring up those questions delicately with Pat in the course of the reporting. And he was very sort of rooted in the sense that it was just a kind of strike of lightning. And I think that that was credulous in a way that I don't mean pejoratively. I think he was willing to sort of believe what Lindsay told him. I also think he questioned the benefit of really raking it over.

27:32For him, there isn't really an explanation or an outcome here that is satisfactory. Nothing that happens is going to clarify how the person he was married to, the mother of his children, did this. Nothing is going to bring justice, right, as we say, of criminal proceedings. So that was the case where I think he was willing to kind of trust or just let certain questions go unanswered or certain answers go unchallenged. And of course, that's very different from the jury's mandate in this case, which is to kind of relentlessly consider everything from every angle in order to come to some fair conclusion.

28:15Was Pat's willingness to forgive Lindsay, did it seem like emblematic of just like the general feeling that the Clancy family had toward her and that people in their social circle and in their lives sort of had toward her? Like, I guess, was forgiveness and sort of the acceptance of the defense's argument, like, was that kind of the collective response or were there actually varying reactions like among, you know, members of the family? My understanding is that people followed Pat's cue and sort of deferred to him as the authority on it. They may have thought, you know, who am I to judge if this person who witnessed her decline up close has forgiven her and has urged people to do so.

29:01So I think there's the question of forgiving Lindsay. And then there's also the question of supporting Pat in his forgiveness of Lindsay. And to some extent, they're inextricable. But I will say that Pat is a very friendly, affable, optimistic person, even amid tragedy. And I often interview people who've experienced traumas. In the course of speaking to Pat, I was struck by his openness and his willingness to kind of tolerate questions. Now, of course, you always take breaks. You say, we don't have to discuss this today. We can think about it in general when talking about difficult subjects or doing sort of trauma-informed reporting.

29:48But he was very accommodating in that sense. Whereas with some of the interviews with his family, I had a much clearer worry of sort of impinging. Interviewing his parents in particular was very painful because it was clear that they were grieving it in a slightly different way. And they both now testified. And I think everyone has different natural, acceptable reactions to horrific tragedies. But it was clear in some cases that the urge to stand with Pat maybe collided with discomfort about how to think about Lindsay's actions. Yeah, that makes sense. One thing that I'm curious about just as someone who's been, you know, very much like observing this from afar is like, and I think you even mentioned this earlier, you gestured to it, but just like the sort of the different accounts of what the voices that Lindsay may have heard, like what they sounded like and sort of, you know, there's this initial version, which is that she heard a voice that commanded her to kill the children and that this was her, this was her last chance to do that.

30:54And then there was another description of a voice she heard. And I'm wondering if you can talk about that second description and kind of like how that complicates the case a little bit, just these two different, I don't know if it's two different summaries that Lindsay has given after the fact or what exactly accounts for like the discrepancy, but that was one thing that I was surprised by. I think it's fair to say that there has been a discrepancy in these accounts of the voices. I think perhaps most damning for Lindsay's case is the fact that there are no contemporaneous misaccounts of voices prior to the killings.

31:29So one expert for the prosecution, I think earlier today, or maybe yesterday, it's sort of ongoing, testified that it's almost convenient that the voice appeared only in this, you know, 18 minute window between Pat's departure from the house that evening and Lindsay's having killed the kids. And now there are elements of the timeframe frame that I think are slightly disputed, but the sense is that the emergence of a voice coincided with the crime, and that's always uncomfortable, I think, for people. Yeah. As far as how she described it, she told Pat on the phone that a man's voice said, you know, it's your last chance.

32:14She also, I think, told a chaplain who was visiting her in the hospital and whom she's visited with, I think, 200 or so times, developed a sort of relationship with, that the voice said that she had to sort of kill the kids so that they would be safe. And this chaplain, I think, has also testified that the first thing she said, that Lindsay said, once Lindsay had been extubated in the hospital after the killings, was something to the effect of, I'm so glad that my children are safe. And so the question of whether the voice said, you have to kill the kids so you can kill yourself, or you have to kill the kids to keep them safe, is a little murky.

32:56And the prosecution, I think, their experts have tried to point out that rationality here is really up for debate. When Lindsay was disclosing suicidal thoughts prior to the killings, and she was, she was telling providers, I have dark thoughts, I want to commit suicide. She was calling suicide hotlines. One thing she described as a protective factor, as something deterring her from committing suicide, was her love for her family, her children, and I think her mother, she said. So the prosecution's expert very recently pointed out that killing one's children in an attempt to sort of unblock that possibility of suicide isn't necessarily psychotic.

33:39On the other hand, a lot of clinicians who look at these kinds of And crimes describe what's called altruistic filicide, in which the mother kills the child because she believes that it's in the child's best interest. And often that corresponds to a kind of delusion where the child is in danger. In Lindsay's case, she seems to be very worried about the well-being of the children throughout her life as a mother. That's a theme, a kind of fixation on their well-being. of it went hand in hand with her reputation as I think a very attentive and caring mom. And so the sense of, well, if I'm not there to take care of the kids, they're not going to be okay, could be construed or argued as a delusion.

34:28But it is also grounded in a kind of rationality or care for the kids that isn't the same as, you know, the kids are being possessed by demons, and so I need to kill them. And I think that's very uncomfortable, the way in which any delusions that Lindsay had are kind of coextensive with normal parenting concerns. It's not, they're being possessed, the devils come for them, I need to see this through. It's very much tied to a sense of, can they survive without her? Can she survive without them? And whether you see that as delusional or rational, I think is a question to be debated by the jury that depends on a lot of factors and narrative and storytelling.

35:15So most of this conversation has been about what's happening inside the courtroom, but I want to talk a bit about what's going on outside of the courtroom. So we'll come back to the political scene from The New Yorker in just a minute.

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36:10Score up to 70 % off during their Labor Day clearance on furniture, area rugs, mattresses, and more. Plus, surprise flash deals you can't miss. Whether it's one room or the whole house, Wayfair has pieces for every style and budget. Shop Wayfair's Labor Day clearance now through September 7th at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. I'm Jessi Sefciak. And I'm Shilpa Oskokovic. And we're senior test kitchen editors at Bon Appetit and the hosts of the Bon Appetit Bake Club podcast. Bake Club is Bon Appetit's community of confident and curious bakers. We love to bake. Some might even call the two of us obsessive.

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37:23Join us here on the first Tuesday of every month as we debrief about our latest bake. Find BA Bake Club wherever you get your podcasts. Happy baking.

37:40So, Irene, I want to go back to something that we talked about at the very top of the conversation, which is just the public response to this trial. And in particular, I'm thinking of like the hundreds of women who have gathered outside the courthouse wearing pink, saying that they're there in solidarity with Lindsay, and even this TikTok trend of mothers filming themselves holding their kids and using the caption, same Lindsay. I guess I'm wondering what you make of this outpouring of support, given that postpartum psychosis and infanticide is extremely rare. Like, I think it's one thing to believe that Lindsay Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for her children's deaths because she, you know, had postpartum psychosis or, you know, I feel like the jury might very well end up deciding that.

38:25But it's different than people saying that they actively identify with her. And so I guess I'm wondering, like, what are we supposed to make of the kind of like pure unadulterated sympathy that I feel like is very distinct from what we've seen with other trials that involve parents that have killed their children? A preface to the discussion of the reaction to this case should be that women's health, women's mental health, postpartum health, these are all under-researched, understudied, underfunded. we would all benefit from taking the subjects more seriously, investing more in the research, in part because I think we would have more answers to draw on and less shame around the kinds of struggles that are really experienced every day and very commonly.

39:16When I was interviewing experts, you know, doctors, forensic psychologists about the case a couple years ago, So what struck me was the complication that this was the moment when they were being listened to, that a kind of precondition for talking about postpartum mental health was a horrific tragedy like this. They were all very careful to clarify, you know, we want to raise awareness of this, but we don't want the effect to be new parents, new mothers not seeking treatment because they think that they're going to end up killing their children. That it's a rare psychiatric emergency, postpartum psychosis, but infanticide is obviously even rarer and these emergencies can be treated and they can be managed.

39:53So it's poignant to me that this broader topic that I think is so important is getting attention mainly because of a tragedy that is so horrific and unthinkable and that is causing some people, I think, to say, you know, this is an excuse and not to take it seriously. The sense of the outpouring in general, I think, is just that people relate to Lindsay's experience of struggling and trying to get help and not getting the help that she needed. And again, there's a broader conversation, I think a separable conversation to be had about what that means practically for someone in her situation, given that she did see a lot of providers and experts and did interface with the medical system a lot.

40:42But it seems like the root of this conversation is just a desire to speak up about issues that are getting a spotlight through this case, even if the outcome of the case isn't common and even if the outcome of the case causes some observers to sort of look askance at the broader issue that people are talking about. Yeah, it's like using this as an opportunity to have this larger conversation that we've needed to have for a while about postpartum mental health. I think like it's part of what's been weird is just that it seems like some of these videos that are kind of attempting to raise awareness about postpartum psychosis or postpartum depression actually seem to be kind of like mischaracterizing these issues and kind of framing them as an extension of just like normal maternal exhaustion.

41:36And I guess I wonder how much of this is actually then counterproductive because, you know, falsely conflating postpartum psychosis with someone who was incredibly sleep deprived but is obviously like not going to kill her child. Out of context, so much of the evidence in this case seems utterly normal. And I think that's why it's easy to pick up on it in social media, right? If you take a quote from one of Lindsay's journals or something she posted in a Facebook group for parents about parenting, about sleep schedules, about feeling like herself after giving birth, that does seem just eminently relatable.

42:15And, you know, there are counterfactuals to this scenario. There's one in which Lindsay had successfully killed herself, and I think the coverage of it would be so much different. I think it would still get a lot of attention, but the portrayal of her would be different. There's also a world in which Lindsay got a different form of help, and maybe things would have resolved differently. And it's very tragic to think about. Obviously, it's speculative. But regardless of the outcome, everything that sort of preceded that horrible night evidently does feel relatable to people. And I think that is the root of this, to put it generously.

42:51And then, of course, it's really sad to see a kind of tragedy like this be treated as a spectator sport in different ways. And I've wondered a lot about how the emergence of social media has complicated even things like instructions to jurors about neutrality. There was one episode where the jury had to be dismissed so that the defense could present a witness who ultimately wasn't allowed to testify. This witness was, I believe, a therapist who also makes videos on TikTok and had kind of gone viral because she made a video about her experience working at McLean, the very well-respected mental hospital where Lindsay was admitted voluntarily.

43:32And the therapist, the TikTok video creator, was challenging the depiction of this mental hospital as being top-notch. And she was saying, in fact, it wasn't. And my experience there was like this. And, you know, the patients only got so much attention. And there are this many nurses on staff. And the fact that that could then kind of be elevated to potential testimony to the point where she actually, you know, went to the court and there was a chance that she was going to be hurt by the jury is surprising to me. And it speaks to this, you know, new reality of constant coverage. There's also been the live stream of the case every day, which has provided, you know, ample material for people to work with.

44:11Much of it, I should clarify, has also been very rote and boring. You know, we're on day 20 of the trial now, and a lot of what goes on is not very interesting. And so I think people who are watching need to kind of make the most out of it or distort it in some ways to maybe justify the investment in watching, when a lot of it, unfortunately, is just very sad and very by the book. Do you think that's also, like, contributed to the proliferation of just conspiracy theories more generally? Like, that's another thing I've been wondering about is, like, again, kind of talking about what we started this conversation with.

44:45Just, you know, it's like no one in the courtroom is disputing that Lindsay did this. They might dispute whether she should be held responsible for it criminally, but, like, no one's disputing that she did this. And yet there are all these conspiracy theorists who think that she didn't do it. And I've been trying to figure out whether that has something to do with like the facts of the case and ambiguities there about or if it's just like how much it's taken off on social media of people are just like looking for ways to go viral or something. But it's I've never seen anything like it. There's a lot that's unknowable.

45:19Yeah, it's been surprising. I wonder if I've just paid more attention to it because I'd covered the case, but I haven't seen anything like it either. the absence of information about what was going on in Lindsay's mind, the kind of fundamental and nobility of that, but then also just the number of things that can be turned over when they're presented as evidence and live streamed. I think that totality has given rise to all sorts of commentary. And you watch these court proceedings and you see that a lot of, you know, the testimony from the worker at CBS whom Lindsay called the hostess at the restaurant where Pat picked up takeout.

45:57Some of this testimony is, you know, arguably necessary because they want to get across how Lindsay sounded on the phone. They also want to introduce pieces of evidence, you know, through that testimony. But when it's just played out on a live stream, you get details about, did he buy Skittles or here's the, you know, CCTV footage. And is he wearing the same thing in this? Like at a certain point, it stops mattering whether it's accurate or even whether it's relevant. And it just becomes another thing to lash onto in the midst of this horrible and kind of unfathomable event. And so, you know, I feel torn as someone who spent a lot of time looking at this case between wanting to try to understand why there's so much information and misinformation out there, but also feeling very concerned by it because I've spent time with so many people who were affected by the case and whose, you know, lives and safety potentially are threatened by this kind of, you know, wild social media frenzy.

46:56I mean, would you be comfortable talking at all about how the conspiracy theorists have in some ways targeted you? Well, I should say I think it would be perverse to describe myself as having been targeted in any way. I think the real, you know, victim of this kind of attention is, you know, anyone who lost, you know, those kids, you know. Yeah. Lindsay's sister, Lindsay's parents, Pat's parents, so many people, you know, who have to watch as, you know, an element of their lives or relationship gets kind of scrutinized and in some cases, you know, wildly distorted. In my case, it's mostly just that we've, you know, re-upped the piece.

47:38And as a result, a lot of people have, you know, criticized it. I love when people read, ideally when they read rather than just comment on stuff The New Yorker has put out there. I think we all want the work we do to be engaged with and to be responsible. In my case, I think one thing that came up was that Pat and I are both employed by Microsoft, a company of... Famously small company. A famously small company, more than 200 ,000 people. I will say at the time I approached Pat, I'm not even sure I was aware of it, or I may have been dimly aware because I think in his GoFundMe note, urging people to forgive.

48:16Lindsay, he also, I think, acknowledged the Microsoft community or something to that effect. I have never worked with Pat at Microsoft. So I even kind of would contest the description of us as colleagues. I don't think I've ever had any communication with him there. I think people who would assume that working at the same company would inspire treatment one way or another in a piece maybe should spend more time in corporate America. The one I really want to know about, Aran, is the apartment. What is that about? Oh, the apartment. Yeah. I think some, I actually don't know where this one started, but I think the line is that Pat and I both worked at Microsoft, so we knew each other, which again, we didn't.

48:59But I should say I'm happy that we disclosed that. In a way, I admire readers for noticing that because I think when there is anything that could pose a potential conflict of interest, it's important to disclose it and let readers make what they will of it, even if we feel it doesn't affect the responsibility or the impartiality of the reporting. The landlord one, I can categorically refute and say, I don't live in New York. I don't think I've ever rented anything in New York. I'm certainly not a landlord in New York. I didn't rent Pat his apartment. I don't know where that came from, but it has been interesting to see.

49:29And again, topsy-turvy world where you see people say they both work at Microsoft, true, up to, you know, interpretation what that means. It is true. But this other landlord thing is not true. And so seeing those in kind of close proximity is a little mind-boggling for me. But it's not the craziest thing to be said about the case. So I think I'm, I don't see myself as having been targeted in any way. You know, to conclude, I figure we should, I guess like let's return to earth for the rest of the conversation. So, you know, just given what you were saying earlier about if we are in a situation where the jury decides that Lindsay Clancy is not criminally responsible for killing her children and kind of like what will what happen from there and the potential that she might be released from a state psychiatric facility, you know, kind of surprisingly quickly in some people's minds.

50:20I guess I thought it might make sense to talk a little bit about a story that you bring up in the piece, which is the story of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in the bathtub in 2001 and then ultimately ended up in a mental hospital after a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity. And just like if you could talk a little bit about what ended up happening to her and how that might contextualize what a win looks like for Lindsay Clancy here, essentially, you know, sort of like even if someone is sort of, you know, decided to be not guilty, how obviously this is the kind of tragedy that stays with you forever.

50:55I feel compelled to say that Andrea Yates' case, although similar in some ways, is different in many ways from Lindsay's, just in terms of her medical history. But the expert, or one of the experts who testified in Lindsay's defense, Philip Resnick, was also famously on the Andrea Yates case. And he said, to some extent, the same thing happened. And so I think the extent to which Yates is a model for Lindsay's case, a point of comparison, has also been one of those things that's up to debate because in some ways it is so similar and in some ways you could draw differences. As far as the outcome, Andrea Yates, I believe, was first found, and I'm getting into the weed, she was first found guilty, but then there was another trial and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

51:37And I believe she is still in a mental hospital where she declines to be re-evaluated for release. So that is a kind of tragic outcome where being found not guilty by reason of insanity does not mean that she's walking the streets and posing a risk to anyone or that she even would consider it, I think, a win. As far as what can happen to Lindsay, I think it's just not as clear. I remember coming across a statistic while I was reporting that oftentimes people who are found not guilty by reason of insanity actually end up spending more time institutionalized than they would have if they were found guilty for the same offense.

52:18And I didn't include it in the piece because I remember thinking that there were so many qualifications about, well, does it depend what they're being charged with and so forth. In Lindsay's case, I think part of the reason that if she were found not guilty by reason of insanity, she could end up released is that the accounts of her in the hospital where she's been, you know, staying since the arrest and since the killings seem to indicate that she is stable, that she is being medicated and that she has not run into the kinds of issues and side effects that came up during her spiral. So there is a world in which that psychiatric emergency is confined to this postpartum period, and they maybe have been able to get it under control.

53:03And whether that speaks to a tragedy or a failure in the medical system at the time or something about the specific treatment she's getting now, it's not clear. but she does seem to be someone who in certain ways maybe would qualify for her release. It's not really clear to me what would happen. And I think that's been talked to and talked around in the trial. I think there was some testimony to the effect of, you know, maybe she said something about wanting to compete in a wheelchair marathon. And then, of course, this is taken in certain ways by people who want to attack her defense and in other ways by people who want to defend her.

53:39And it's all just tied up in this question of who is she? What was she thinking? What is she thinking now? Is there any life for her separate from this legal outcome? And it's hard to imagine, but it's not clear whether the jury will decide that Lindsay fits that category or even if she does what Lindsay will do with the rest of her life. And I think that's one thing that no one can really know until the future unfolds. Thanks so much for your time, Oren. Thank you, Tyler. I appreciate it. aren Orbi is a contributing writer for the new yorker you can find his piece a husband in the aftermath of his wife's unfathomable act at newyorker.com this has been the political scene from the new yorker i'm tyler foggett this episode is produced by john lemay with mixing by mike and engineering by pan bandy our executive producer is stephen valentino our cozy season is ahead and and you'll be spending way more time inside.

54:36Is your home ready? Don't worry. With Wayfair, you can upgrade your space without breaking the bank. Score up to 70 % off during their Labor Day clearance on furniture, area rugs, mattresses, and more. Plus, surprise flash deals you can't miss. Whether it's one room or the whole house, Wayfair has pieces for every style and budget. Shop Wayfair's Labor Day clearance now through September 7th at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. I'm Jesse Sefcek. And I'm Shulpa Oskoukowicz. And we're senior test kitchen editors at Bon Appetit and the hosts of the Bon Appetit Bake Club podcast. Bake Club is Bon Appetit's community of confident and curious bakers.

55:15We love to bake. Some might even call the two of us obsessive. And we love to talk about all the hows and whys and what didn't work that come with it. Every month, we publish a recipe on bonappetit.com that introduces a baking concept that we think you should know. Then you'll go bake, send us any questions you have. And we'll get together here on the podcast to talk about the recipe. And this month, we're making plum cheesecake karpatka. It is a spectacle of a giant Polish dessert, and it is so fun. Head on over to BA.com and come and bake along with us. Send us your questions, pictures, and any thoughts to bakeclub at bonappetit.com or find us on Substack.

55:54Join us here on the first Tuesday of every month as we debrief about our latest bake. Find BA Bake Club wherever you get your podcasts. Happy baking. Theme music is by Allison Layton Brown. Thank you so much for listening.