OPINION:
Lindsay Clancy, who has admitted to strangling her three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — in the basement of her home after sending her husband to run errands, has received an outpouring of support from women across the country.
Wearing pink, hundreds of “feminists” gathered outside Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts, where Ms. Clancy’s trial was heard, and they were there when the judge in the case declared a mistrial Friday.
A GoFundMe fundraising campaign created to assist Ms. Clancy’s parents, who are funding her defense, raised more than $1 million.
Ms. Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, told reporters that Ms. Clancy had received enough fan letters from around the world to fill three banker’s boxes.
“She knows that there are people out there that have not judged her and know that she is a wonderful, wonderful person,” Mr. Reddington said, according to NBC.
A “wonderful person” who, before strangling her children one by one with exercise bands, sent her husband out of the home to pick up dinner and MiraLax at the local drugstore, mapping out the exact time she had to commit the crime.
When her now-ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, returned home half an hour later, he immediately called 911 after seeing his wife’s attempted suicide. When the first responders arrived, he left her to go check on his children.
“Guys? Guys? Cora? Cora? Dawson? Oh no. Oh no! Wake up!” the 911 transcript reads. There was then screaming and gasping for an extended stretch. The dispatcher asked: “What’s going on?”
He replied: “Basement! Basement! Oh my God! I need help in the basement right now. Dawson! My buddy! My little boy! My buddy! AHHHHH, SHE KILLED THE KIDS!!! Oh my God!”
Yet somehow, the focus of Ms. Clancy’s trial shifted from her committing the triple homicide of her own helpless children to a debate on postpartum depression and medication.
Women are posting social media videos on TikTok and YouTube portraying Lindsay as the victim: She was on too many drugs, the healthcare system failed her, and no one took her postpartum depression seriously. Conspiracy theories have run wild, alleging that Ms. Clancy’s husband did it or drove her to it, as if she had no agency herself.
An accused stone-cold killer has somehow been justified in her crimes because she was mentally unwell. I would contend that all killers are mentally unwell, but their crimes should not go unpunished.
Contrast this with the case of Karyann Parkinson and her five children. The Virginia mother just received a six-month suspended jail sentence and is now on the commonwealth’s child abuse registry for allowing her 5-year-old son to walk alone in their gated community to collect goose feathers.
It was an activity he had done hundreds of times before, including six times that morning.
A nosy neighbor saw the boy walking alone and called a security guard, who picked him up and brought him back home. According to Reason magazine, which broke the story, the security guard told the boy that his mother had done something wrong and that “bad people” would take him if he was out alone.
Mrs. Parkinson got mouthy with the guard upon her son’s return and asked where in the homeowners’ association rules it said that a child could not walk by himself. The guard said it was against the law and called the police.
Child Protective Services ended up investigating her for abuse and neglect, the cops charged her with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and a judge found her guilty.
“While the judge immediately suspended the sentence, pending good behavior and compliance with CPS’ conditions, the conviction remains,” Reason reported. “Parkinson assumes this means she will not be able to volunteer in her kids’ schools. She fears it could also mean she will not get her law license” — a credential she was actively pursuing.
Nothing in Mrs. Parkinson’s history indicates abuse. As Reason reported, she was “no newbie to parenting.”
“She graduated from Brigham Young University in 2012 with a degree in family science. She then became a family life educator and spent three years as a live-in behavioral specialist at a residential treatment center. There, she and her husband, a marriage and family therapist, oversaw the care of 35 girls,” Reason reported.
Mrs. Parkinson was eight months pregnant with her fifth child at the time of the incident. Although she regrets getting cross with the security guard and the police (she told them she had no intention of speaking with them, which prompted the police to call for backup and CPS), she still has no problem with her son collecting the goose feathers.
“I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks in order to grow up non-anxious,” her husband, Dallin Parkinson, told Reason. CPS responded, he recounts, that “a 5-year-old child can never be unsupervised.”
Mrs. Parkinson’s attorney argued that the only “evidence” against her was that her son was 5 and, hypothetically, something could have gone wrong.
Even more infuriating is that Virginia has a Reasonable Childhood Independence law to protect families who practice “free-range parenting.” Under the law, a child is not considered abused or neglected solely because their parent or guardian allows them to engage in independent activities without adult supervision.
So, are hypothetical dangers more damning than actually murdering one’s children?
In the court of public opinion, in the cases of Karyann Parkinson and Lindsay Clancy, it would seem so. No women in pink are coming to Mrs. Parkinson’s defense. In all probability, it was one of them who reported her in the first place.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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