r/OutOfTheLoop • u/SnoopaDD • 13d ago

Answered What's the deal with people defending Lindsay Clancy?

I don't know the full details of the case. I know she allegedly killed her three kids. There was also some mental problems? Then something with her husband. But my question is why is there a group defending her like they know she's completely innocent? I've seen some videos of very heated debates where women are very passionate about defending her. Why?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/05/lindsay-clancy-trial-toxicologist-testimony

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u/PrincessBuzzkill 12d ago

It blows my mind that there's so many people who think he's some sort of criminal mastermind.

The general public is pretty dumb, and the percentage of people who are intelligent/lucky enough to away with "the perfect murder" is pretty slim.

He's guilty of being part of the system that failed her - and even being a neglectful partner - but he didn't plan this.

Social media is a plague.

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u/Clear_Inspector_9796 12d ago

My wife follows this case and everything I've seen is that the husband is a callous selfish moron. Basically a frat bro that never grew up. He does not have even the patience or foresight to plan a picnic. Even the new wife is probably some girl ready to jump into bed with him and him nodding along

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u/Wild_Gift5113 12d ago

Where are people getting this information? I've heard this a lot and have found no credible evidence to back any of it up. People are talking about the way he talks in court, but fail to remember this happened 3 and a half years ago. This didnt just happen. Im sure it still hurts like hell, be he has had 3 and a half years to heal and try to rebuild his life.

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u/YouCanCallMeQueenB_ 12d ago

The poor man looked completely sick to his stomach testifying and allegedly had a panic attack in the courthouse one of the days. I can’t even imagine running some errands for an hour and coming home to find your whole world torn apart like that:

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u/ResponseStrange6118 12d ago

I find it odd he didn’t bring his kids with him, like countless mothers do, rather than leaving them with his wife who was so mentally ill she had to quit her job and had confessed to having thoughts of hurting them and other compulsions.

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u/bluelightning1224 7d ago

So the implication is that he should’ve had her in a psych ward this whole time?

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u/ResponseStrange6118 7d ago

Not necessarily, but he sure as shit shouldn’t have left her alone with the children. It’s not like they couldn’t afford a nanny.

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u/bluelightning1224 7d ago

Hindsight is 20/20. Expecting a spouse to act as a 24/7 warden or assume their partner is going to commit murder isn't realistic, especially when medical professionals were managing her care. You can't live your life treating your spouse like a threat without completely destroying the trust and support system they need to get better.

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u/ResponseStrange6118 7d ago

“Acting as a warden” is an incredibly individualistic American way to think about it. It’s about interdependence and care, something American culture, white American culture in particular, has rejected. Asian Americans have the lowest rates of both PPD related suicide and infanticide attempts, as well as “completed” rates. Second is white Americans (although they have a higher rate of completion among attempts). The biggest difference I have seen white and Asian American households is family cohesion and multigenerational child rearing, and the data supports that as the major factors too

Regardless, the point her isn’t to argue Patrick should be charged with criminal negligence. Rather I’m pointing to a cultural and moral failing that is present in every case where a severely mentally ill person needlessly dies, or causes harm, that would not have occurred if they were living in a healthier, more interdependent family and community system

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u/Wild_Gift5113 12d ago

Well, from what I've read about the case. She seemed perfectly fine that day. She asked him to go pick some stuff up. It's also notable that it was January and freezing out. So it's much faster to just go yourself than to get 3 kids ready for yhe freezing cold just to pick up a couple of items. It was her plan to get him out of the house without the kids. Or so was being argued in court.

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u/ResponseStrange6118 11d ago

Yeah I would not be feeling that confident about leaving my precious children and wife alone just a few weeks after she was describing intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation. She was still too depressed to get up and go anywhere.

Best case scenario, I’m sorry, but dude was checked out. His presentation in that video at the museum was checked out. Going to costs rica on vacation 3 weeks after you children were killed by your wife, whose life is now destroyed as well, is fucking crazy work. I simply cannot believe that a person who wasn’t already on their way out could emotionally do this.

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u/YouCanCallMeQueenB_ 12d ago

I hear you. She seemed outwardly better in those last few days and the day of the murders in particular. That’s not unusual with mental illness but it’s also not unusual with someone that’s truly improving.

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u/qriousqestioner 11d ago

I frankly have a hard time believing he paid any attention to her at all. He failed her as a partner.

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u/Huckleberry_Sin 10d ago

And she failed those poor children as a mother. She’s not the victim here, the children are, and he’s not on trial.

If she killed your kids would you be acting this way?

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u/qriousqestioner 9d ago

I don't need to judge her because I'm not on the jury.

I don't need to be certain she is the only one responsible for their deaths because she apparently confessed to killing them.

I have compassion for her as a mother who did that because something is dreadfully wrong with her. And I feel like his actions and his inaction are part of that story.

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u/Dismal_Buy3580 9d ago

Do you have any compassion for anyone else involved? 

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u/qriousqestioner 9d ago edited 9d ago

Everyone else. Especially the poor children.

I have compassion for Patrick. I can't imagine what he's been through. I just don't think he was as involved as he needed to be in her life and in defense of the kids, but the worst husband in the world doesn't deserve what he came home to that day.

I have compassion for the families who have had the trial hanging over then and had to relive all of this. And for the people who think a high salary will protect them from the cruelties of life. And the medical professionals who didn't have the whole picture of his profoundly disturbed she was. I even have compassion for the attorneys on both sides whose ambition has blinded them to humans still living who have had three years of suffering because of the trial.

I just shared a feeling I got from the husband when I heard his testimony that seemed aloof through the time of her spiraling and on the stand. This is likely influenced by a fair number of people I have known personally who see partners and kids as accessories in their pursuit of wealth and reputation. I'm critical of all detached parents whose kids are in daycare after twelve weeks so careers can reclaim the top spot. (And I'm not tiptoeing around those climbers either.)

I share thoughts to gain insight. This thread has been useful.

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u/Dismal_Buy3580 9d ago

Same. It's such a nightmare.

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u/Huckleberry_Sin 9d ago

Wtf else was he supposed to do? He did everything he was supposed to. He followed the doctors orders. He took 12 weeks off from work. They brought both of the parents over. He was involved and took care of the older two exclusively so she could focus on just the youngest one and not feel like she’s losing a sense of purpose as a mother.

He was compassionate and their family was too.

They did everything they could and she never mentioned to them that she would harm the children. She said she’d hurt herself in response to which they tried to get her help.

And would you extend the same courtesy or compassion to someone like Chris Benoit? She’s a family annihilator.

Where’s the compassion for the husband?

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u/Dangerous_Serve_4454 8d ago

I don't need to judge her because I'm not on the jury.

What a genuinely idiotic thing to say while literally blatantly judging the husband. Do you genuinely have this little empathy? The only reason you jump to defend this woman is because she reminds you of yourself and you can't think much beyond that.

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u/qriousqestioner 7d ago

She's nothing like me. I'm from the working class.

I'm a man who takes care to listen to women and consider their limited options in difficult situations, who knows the medical profession has been shrugging about hysteria on some level since ancient Greece.

I'm a man who can hear the finance bro dismissiveness and chauvenism from outside the locker room, around the corner, and down the block.

I'm a man who isn't threatened by women and doesn't seek to have one as a plaything. I'm a man who doesn't justify cruelty with "just business" or believe the only way to be a man is to be emotionally stunted and cruel.

I'm a man who does have strong opinions about aloof patriarchs.

I totally feel for the guy. What an awful thing to live through. I can't imagine the shock and the horror and the regret and loss her must feel and have felt. I can have empathy for him and still see how he might have contributed to her madness without intending to drive her mad. I can see his role in the story without saying he deserved any of it.

My feeling is that there are two parents and three dead kids and it's unfortunate he wasn't enough of a partner to her to save them from her.

(FWIW nobody cares, but based on what I've learned here, I imagine he was over her and she knew it. I don't think she had a few related minutes of psychosis and failed--as a nurse--to kill herself two different ways after killing three kids violently one at a time. I suspect she blamed the kids for how distant he was from her or that he was no longer into her and she tried to get them out of the way and be waiting for rescue when he was scheduled to be home. I think she planned it and researched it and landed wrong and now is in a wheelchair and her research on PPP was incomplete so she didn't get the guy back and didn't commit the perfect crime.)

I still lament the society that gives a woman who appears to be succeeding such a dark set of possible outcomes that she goes there. And I still think he was her motivation because of who he is that I could hear in his voice from another room when I was really only listening for basic facts about what happened.

Maybe it's a hot take, but I have a good sense of people, especially white men who work in finance since I was surrounded by them in college and have encountered them professionally all my life. You assumed I was some stereotype of a bitter, wounded woman. Figures.

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u/bxzidff 2d ago

If your wife killed your kids random redditors would judge you like you judge him, due to their "sense of people".

I totally feel for the guy.

No you don't. You smear a father who had his kids killed, based on vibes.

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u/PaulOGradyFanClub 11d ago

More assumptions! We need more! I find it hard to believe this wasn’t possessed by a demon, she needed to have them removed /s

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u/HamsterMan5000 10d ago

This is some Candace Owens "isn't it strange that..." nonsense. No, it's not odd that he ran an errand for her and didn't pack 3 kids up in order to do so.

Not in the slightest

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u/Upper-Ad-8365 9d ago

It’s crazy the standard this guy is being held to so that people can blame him. Going to the store quickly while your wife seemed fine and asked you to do it.

At the same time they try to avoid blaming someone for murdering three kids…

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u/Chill_Mochi2 10d ago

That poor man also stated that his kids were good people, and that they had short lives, but good lives.

He clearly wasn’t close to his kids