Should Lindsay Clancy be in jail or a psychiatric hospital?

**Ana Garcia** (0:00)
A word of warning. This podcast explores graphic and disturbing stories and includes some strong language. It therefore may not be suitable for our young listeners or other folks who may find it disturbing. Hello and welcome to True Crime News, the podcast covering high profile and under the radar cases from across the country every week. I'm your host, Ana Garcia. Our case this week, it is the murder trial that everyone has been talking about. Was Lindsay Clancy suffering from postpartum psychosis when her three children were strangled to death in January of 2023?
And therefore, she would not be criminally responsible. Or, as the prosecutors say, this was premeditated and that she should be incarcerated for the rest of her life. Well, at the time of this recording, the jury is deadlocked. After 23 hours of deliberations, the judge told them to go back and try and reach a unanimous verdict.
Is forcing the jurors to compromise on what they believe in the best interests of justice? We're recording this on Tuesday, September 1st of 2026 Our guest today is Dr. Eleni Marcantonis, a therapist and forensic psychologist who has testified as an expert witness for the state of New Jersey, a friend of the show. Eleni, welcome back. It's a pleasure to see you.

**Eleni Marcantonis** (1:19)
Thank you, Anna. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

**Ana Garcia** (1:23)
You know, I know we're gonna do a recap of the trial and of the case, but I have to ask you this. Does everyone just stop you to talk about this? Because everyone wants to talk to me about this case.

**Eleni Marcantonis** (1:38)
Yes. Yes. Everyone is just so taken by this case because of, you know, it's such a horrific and sad story.
And everyone is just so, it seems a little polarized as to what has happened here. You know, and because it requires such a deep, specific understanding of certain mental disorders and psychosis and postpartum psychosis, which is extremely rare, you know, and then it requires such a balance, and that's why we have the scales of justice, because it can get tipped either way here, as we're seeing, you know, the jury still deliberating on this.

**Ana Garcia** (2:25)
I know it's amazing. Four days, more than 23 hours, the jury in Massachusetts is deadlocked. More than 80 witnesses, more than 300 pieces of evidence that they've had to analyze. Five weeks of trial, an exhausting trial with a lot of experts talking about a lot of very specific medical health conditions, and then the gruesomeness of the triple homicide. I just, I just, I'm amazed at the jury kind of pushing back a little bit, not on the deadlock part, but when the judge today said, please go back in there, see if you can work out your differences.
They went back in, and then they also told the judge earlier in the afternoon, they said, we're done for the day. We're done. And the day before they asked to leave a little early. So clearly, the jury is exhausted, exhausted, frustrated, trying to do their best. And the question that I'm dealing with, besides the bigger question of what happened here is, in a case like this, is it really fair and is it justice? And I'm going to ask all of you to weigh in. In fact, I have a poll on Instagram.
Is it really fair? Is it justice to say to these jurors, you know what, make a deal here? Well, for me, this is not a business transaction. So to try and negotiate a compromise to me seems contrary to what I believe justice should be.

**Eleni Marcantonis** (4:01)
Yeah, I agree. You know, I would not want to be a juror on this case. This is, the jury has a very difficult decision to make.
You know, they're not being asked to decide whether or not Lindsay was mentally ill or how she was suffering from a mental illness. That seems to be pretty well documented from her, you know, issues from September up until the time of the killings.

**Ana Garcia** (4:29)
May I just interrupt one second though, Eleni, only because I saw a change in the prosecution. They started with, oh, we're not so sure, we believe this is all premeditated. They got a lot of pushback, even from some of their own witnesses saying, no, this woman was seriously mentally ill. And when the prosecution presented their closing statements, all of a sudden they conceded.
They finally conceded, Lindsay Clancy has been suffering from severe mental illness. For me, that was a very big change, which is not how things started. And I'm sorry to interrupt, but that to me was such a big deal.