Lindsay Clancy's Case Made The Internet Lose Its Mind

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dre.

**Tony Brueski** (0:09)
What is going on with this world, I guess, is the question. There is essentially a culture war that has stemmed out of the Lindsay Clancy trial. I didn't expect this. Honest to God, I thought this was going to be kind of a passing trial, not a ton of attention, but some of, you know, from folks who are in the true crime community.
Why was I wrong? Lindsay Clancy's defense told the jury she killed three children. The prosecution agrees, both sides, same fact. However, however, thousands of people on the internet had decided prosecution is wrong and the defense is wrong. They know better. It's something nobody sees. Nobody. They're just inventing shit. And a lot of people are believing it.
How did we get here? Why are we here? That's what this episode is about. We're going to dive into this in three different chapters as we discuss the Lindsay Clancy situation. Shavaun Scott, psychotherapist and author is with us as well as Robin Drake, as always, retired FBI Special Agent, Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. Let's start.
Both the prosecution and the defense agree, Lindsay is the one who did this. Her own attorney conceded this at the opening. Shavaun, how does someone watch this and decide that's a lie?

**Shavaun Scott** (1:35)
You know, this is an intensely disturbing case, right? Children dead, killed by mother, mother admits it. This hits everybody, I think, in that amygdala, that emotional part of the brain. And people want a monster, because we like these nice, simple narratives, you know, with the good guys and the bad guys. And this is not a case where you have a monster. If you think critically and you analyze the facts, which I think are in front of us, the mental illness piece, it's not disputable. But people aren't thinking critically, and they're in their amygdala, and they're not in their thinking brain. They're incapable of, you know, analyzing what has been proven here and what is false. And it's become this almost cult-like war, these teams. And I mean, I know there are people like us who are looking at the evidence and trying to put things together and taking notes and being careful in how we give opinions. But this amygdala-driven rage where people are projecting their own histories onto, you know, I do see that there's this trend now, particularly on X, which I don't really follow, but it's been pointed out to me a lot, where men are going after Lindsay as the monster that they want to see tortured and killed. They don't understand mental illness. And a lot of women now are going after Patrick, that Patrick is this evil, malevolent monster that drove Lindsay crazy and somehow managed to kill everybody and throw her out the window. And it's crazy, it's crazy. But in truth, both sides are exactly alike in the process of what they're doing. And when you ascribe malevolence to a monster, anybody that doesn't support that side, they become a monster too.
And so, it's not just we have a difference of opinion, it's you're evil, you're evil too. And so, while the case testimony, of course, it's emotional, of course, it's disturbing, we feel upset about it. But what has been really even more disturbing to me is watching this war go on where people are saying such incredibly vicious, vicious things about Lindsay and about Patrick. And in truth, this is a case, there is no monster. It's like Lindsay's brain was broken, copious amounts of evidence about that. It's not in dispute if you understand anything about mental illness or psychology, which shouldn't be that hard to do a bit of reading and understand it. It's not. And we talk about it all the time as other podcasters are talking about it. But people don't care and they're not listening to the evidence. So I don't see Lindsay as a monster.
Her brain is broken. She did a monstrous thing. She acknowledges it.
She wants to be dead because she regrets it so much. Patrick, I think, did his best. I'm giving my whole diatribe here.
But families do not know how to manage mental illness. And that kind of severe mental illness, they're not equipped. They don't know what to do.
And to then turn Patrick into the monster because, oh, he wasn't supportive. I mean, we heard from her mother, her family was supportive, Patrick was supportive. But the big flaw here was the incredible lapse in the treatment providers. And that's well-documented. And yes, I was telling Robin earlier, I definitely got my 26 legal pads full of data now. This could easily be another book if I wanted to punish myself by writing another book, which books are not fun to write. So I don't know that I'll go there, but I'll be putting more on Substack because that's kind of-