THE LINDSAY CLANCY trial, which is ongoing in the United States, has not only blown up group chats everywhere, but over the last couple of weeks it has been like a bat signal, summoning every amateur armchair sleuth to the internet with a host of conspiracy theories about what happened.

While it’s tempting to get sucked into the noise, much of the viral narrative surrounding the case risks undoing efforts to break long-held stigmas around postnatal depression and perinatal mental health.

The trial centres on Lindsay Clancy, a 36-year-old Massachusetts woman who is accused of strangling her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three and eight-month-old Callan to death, before jumping out of a second-floor window on 24 January 2023.

Clancy, who is now paralysed after the incident and confined to a wheelchair, has pleaded not guilty. Her defence team are not disputing the circumstances of the killings but say she is not criminally responsible as she was experiencing postpartum psychosis at the time. The prosecution alleges that Lindsay intentionally killed the children and sent her husband Patrick Clancy out on an errand on the night in question to commit the acts.

The trial is being televised and streamed daily, turning it from a disturbing real-life tragedy into a whodunit true-crime documentary in real time. One poster in the United States even asked if it was being shown in any local bars.

For many of those raised on reruns of Murder, She Wrote and set on a path of amateur ‘detective-hood’ with the likes of Netflix’s groundbreaking Making a Murderer series or the Serial Podcast, weighing in on the Clancy Trial seems hard to resist.

Judge William Sullivan. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Even if you’ve not watched any of the livestreamed trial, it’s almost impossible to ignore the online algorithm. I’ve seen multiple posts and videos light-heartedly bemoaning that they are tired from their new full-time job of being a juror in the Clancy trial. Despite my best efforts, I have somehow found myself on the #Lindsay-Clancy-is-innocent-it-was-her-husband side of TikTok (all unproven theories), where multiple videos analyse and offer alternative theories about the case.

Think Excel sheets and........

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