Dr. Phil McGraw is weighing in on the shocking Lindsay Clancy murder case after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the deaths of her three young children.
The television psychologist said the case raises disturbing questions about postpartum psychosis, mental health treatment and accountability — but stressed that the three children who died must remain at the center of the story.
Speaking on “Fox News Live” with Aishah Hasnie on September 5, McGraw said Clancy’s children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — are the ones who deserve the most attention.
“They are the real folks we need to give our attention to here,” McGraw said. “Three innocent children did lose their lives, and you can never explain these situations away simply.”
Clancy admitted to strangling her three children in 2023. Her attorneys argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not in control of her actions at the time.
After days of deliberations, jurors were unable to reach a unanimous decision, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial.
McGraw said cases involving severe mental illness can quickly become emotional courtroom battles, with each side attempting to frame the psychiatric evidence differently.
He warned against treating mental illness as a “political, ideological football” instead of focusing on what actually happened and what role Clancy’s mental condition may have played.
Despite the mistrial, McGraw said Clancy is unlikely to simply walk away from the case.
“She’s not going home,” he said, adding that there will eventually be accountability.
McGraw said Clancy will have to live with the deaths of her children for the rest of her life and could potentially remain in a psychiatric facility if she is ultimately found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
He also stressed that he was not attempting to excuse what happened.
“I think people underestimate the power of psychosis in taking over someone’s life,” McGraw said.
He compared severe psychosis to a physical condition such as a brain tumor that can dramatically affect a person’s behavior.
“I’m not excusing what she did in any way,” he said. “I think she should be held fully accountable, but I think we need to understand causation.”
McGraw also offered a blunt assessment of how prosecutors presented their case.
He described the prosecution’s presentation as “pretty clunky,” although he said prosecutors managed to pull their arguments together toward the end of the trial.
McGraw, who noted that he has spent much of his professional career working in trial sciences and studying juries, said jurors typically search for a clear and understandable explanation of what happened.
In his view, Clancy’s defense team gave them one.
He said the defense presented a story that was “much more understandable and much more coherent” than the prosecution’s explanation.
McGraw also warned about the broader cultural impact of the case, including the possibility of copycat incidents.
“We certainly don’t want that to take place here, so we need to look at what the cultural effects are,” he said.
One of McGraw’s biggest concerns was what he described as confusion between postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis.
“There’s a huge difference between postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis,” he said.
McGraw described postpartum psychosis as a psychiatric emergency requiring immediate hospitalization.
“It’s not a time to adjust medications,” he said. “It’s not a time to schedule an extra appointment during the week.”
Instead, he said someone experiencing postpartum psychosis should receive inpatient care and be separated from their children immediately.
“Not tomorrow morning, not tomorrow afternoon, but immediately,” McGraw said.
He described Clancy’s case as a “psychiatric emergency that wasn’t treated as such.”
McGraw said the tragedy could become a major “teachable moment for the country,” particularly when it comes to recognizing and responding to severe postpartum mental illness.
But he also warned against portraying Clancy as a sympathetic hero because of her mental health struggles.
“There’s nothing to be celebrated here,” he said.
McGraw said the larger lesson is that something in the system failed before three young children lost their lives.
“This was a woman who asked for help,” he said. “She admitted herself to the hospital. Was that enough?”
