The Children Are Dead. Why Are We Crying For Lindsay Clancy?

Interesting 911, jury, massachusetts, murder trial, oklahoma city admin August 21, 2026 0 Comments

The Children Are Dead. Why Are We Crying For Lindsay Clancy?

You’d have to be living on an island with no cell service and zero connection to the outside world not to see the constant stream of white women doing choreographed dances, recording tearful rants, or — best of all — holding a helpless baby while they cry for the camera with tags like “Same Lindsay.”

Really? REALLY?

If you’re saying “Same Lindsay” while holding a helpless baby, then please add your demographic information to your video so I can call the police. These women should be investigated. Their children should be checked on. A mother who looks into a camera, holds her own child, and publicly identifies with a woman who strangled three of hers is not making an empathy statement. She is raising a red flag.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: while I don’t enjoy every downside of being in my 40s, I am grateful to be part of a generation where accountability and human decency still mean something.

My first experience with public death and trauma came when I was six years old. A nun rolled a television on a cart into the cafeteria at St. Ursula’s so the entire school — kindergarten through eighth grade — could watch the Challenger explode live. We watched it. Nothing was said. Then we all went back to our classrooms. That night, my dad asked if I had seen it and if I understood what happened. He made sure I knew that seven innocent astronauts had died and that it was a time for the country to mourn.

I am lucky to have had him. I came of age watching the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine, and September 11th unfold in that order. By the time I was 22, empathy had a permanent place in my body, and accountability and justice sat high on my list of priorities.

I still remember the words on the television screen: “Houston woman drowns her five children.” I had just graduated from college and gasped at the news. Pictures of Andrea Yates’ murdered children came first. Then came a video of her being led out of her home by police. The kids first. Her second. She looked ragged. Depleted. She looked exactly like a woman who could do such a horrendous thing. No one rallied for Andrea Yates. Not even Andrea. She admitted what she had done with almost no emotion. People who examined her confirmed her mental health had bottomed out, but they also described what the rest of us could see: a blank gaze. A stare. Seemingly very little behind her eyes.

There were no T-shirts supporting her. No coordinated dances. No videos. Even though we were living without social media in 2001, it’s hard to imagine Gen Xers crying for the killer instead of the kids.

Twenty-plus years later, and here we are making an elaborate case for poor Lindsay Clancy. Excuse after excuse after excuse. Somehow, she is the victim. Even her own behavior is different. She’s been photographed posing and smiling with her attorney. She breaks down into hysterics in court. It feels theatrical — much like the behavior of her followers and supporters. That kind of display points away from pure psychosis and more toward performance. Yates was blank and empty. Clancy is not.

This suicidal empathy is pure Gen Z. I watched it up close in a master’s program for clinical mental health counseling. These were the future therapists. The ones who said America “deserved 9/11.” The ones who celebrated the October 7th slaughter of Jews. The ones who treated evil like a misunderstood underdog and tried to destroy anyone who refused to play along.

And now we’re supposed to believe Lindsay Clancy should walk because “the mental health system failed her.”

That’s rich.

I spent years sitting next to the people being trained to run that system. Too many of them already saw the world the exact same way she does: everyone is a victim, accountability is abuse, and someone else is always to blame. Clancy claims the mental health system failed her. From where I was sitting, they were speaking the same language. They didn’t fail each other. They recognized each other.

It’s not just students. Licensed counselors are saying it out loud on X. One recently defended Clancy by claiming “many of us see ourselves in Lindsay” and that “many of us know that we could have been only one step away from [murdering our children].” When the people trained and credentialed to protect the vulnerable start publicly identifying with the woman who killed three of them, something is deeply broken. The bar is on the floor, and somehow these educated women keep tripping over it. Self-awareness: zero. Logic: zero. Terror-inducing behavior: perfect score.

Twenty-five years ago, when Andrea Yates drowned her five children, the horror belonged to the children. We saw their faces. We said their names. We understood who had been robbed of everything.

Today, three more children are dead, and somehow the cultural spotlight has moved. Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy have become supporting characters in their own murders while strangers dance, cry, and announce “Same Lindsay.”

That is the difference between then and now. Andrea Yates was mentally ill, and we still knew her children were the victims. Lindsay Clancy may have been mentally ill, too. But somewhere along the way, acknowledging mental illness stopped being enough. Now we are expected to transfer our sympathy, our attention, and even the title of “victim” from the children who died to the mother who killed them.

No number of choreographed dances, crying videos, or “Same Lindsay” posts will ever change that. The children are still dead. And the rest of us still have a choice: keep making excuses for the people who killed them or finally remember who the real victims are.

Do I “stand with Lindsay Clancy”? Hell no. And neither should you.

Kelly Rae Robertson is a writer, commentator, and former criminal justice investigator. For more than 14 years, she worked where crime, courts, and accountability collide.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.