The Postpartum Case India Almost Got Wrong
Years before the Lindsay Clancy trial, an Indian mother was convicted of doing the unthinkable.
For the last few weeks, millions have been waiting with bated breath to hear about Lindsay Clancy’s fate. The 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse is on trial for strangling her three children before attempting suicide in 2023. Unlike most murder trials, the question isn’t whether Clancy did it. Everyone, including Clancy, said she did. What the court is trying to decide is whether she was aware of what she was doing when she put four lives at risk.
Clancy’s defense has argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, a mental health condition that can cause mothers to think about — and in the worst cases, actually go through with — hurting their children. After days of deliberation, on September 4, the jury declared it couldn’t reach a verdict, leading to a mistrial. The judge will be providing updates by September 29.
While Clancy’s case has taken over global headlines, India had a strikingly similar case of its own that concluded only months before. This is the story of a young woman who killed her daughter, and how the case became a mirror to something else entirely.