Sep 12, 2026 · 32 min · 8 segments
*Warning: This episode includes descriptions of violence against children, adult language, and mentions of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by…
Shumita BasuHost
This episode includes descriptions of violence against children, adult language, and mentions suicide.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, please contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting nine eight eight.

For weeks, people across the country have been gripped by the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused in twenty twenty-three of killing her three children, five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan, before allegedly attempting to end her own life.

Clancy's defense team didn't dispute that she killed her children, but they've argued that she shouldn't spend the rest of her life in prison, that she should be found not guilty because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis after being prescribed more than a dozen medications for mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety.

After seven days of deliberation, a jury couldn't come to a unanimous decision, and it ended in a mistrial.

The trial was livestreamed and picked apart on social media in a way that's so excruciatingly of this moment, in part because it touched on so many high-stakes systems: postpartum care, criminal justice, mental health.
I think in making sense of the case, it is representative of so many ills in our society.
It is representative of so many systems and structures and habits that we need to reform and break that it's really hard to look at the whole thing at once.

I spoke to her on this show back in twenty twenty-three when she first wrote about it.

Today, I'm bringing her back because I wanted to talk to her about why so many people have become so deeply invested in this case, and what does it say about us as we try to make sense of such a horrific story? What has it been like for you now watching this unfold over these past years and, of course, watching this trial unfold?
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This episode includes descriptions of violence against children, adult language, and mentions suicide.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, please contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting nine eight eight.

For weeks, people across the country have been gripped by the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused in twenty twenty-three of killing her three children, five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan, before allegedly attempting to end her own life.

Clancy's defense team didn't dispute that she killed her children, but they've argued that she shouldn't spend the rest of her life in prison, that she should be found not guilty because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis after being prescribed more than a dozen medications for mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety.

After seven days of deliberation, a jury couldn't come to a unanimous decision, and it ended in a mistrial.

The trial was livestreamed and picked apart on social media in a way that's so excruciatingly of this moment, in part because it touched on so many high-stakes systems: postpartum care, criminal justice, mental health.
I think in making sense of the case, it is representative of so many ills in our society.
It is representative of so many systems and structures and habits that we need to reform and break that it's really hard to look at the whole thing at once.

I spoke to her on this show back in twenty twenty-three when she first wrote about it.

Today, I'm bringing her back because I wanted to talk to her about why so many people have become so deeply invested in this case, and what does it say about us as we try to make sense of such a horrific story? What has it been like for you now watching this unfold over these past years and, of course, watching this trial unfold?