'I Stand With Clancy': Accused Child Murderer's Support Groups Gain Traction

A growing number of women are crashing out online over a child murder case that has turned into a demented cause célèbre.

Let’s not get it twisted: You can have sympathy for mothers. You can have sympathy for mothers who have post-partum psychosis. You can have sympathy for mothers who have been failed by a medical system.

But let’s not have too much sympathy for mothers who strangle their own children with exercise resistance bands. Because when you turn a heartless monster into a poster-woman for your movement, you might have a slight problem.

Just in case you’ve somehow been able to dodge this mortifying story that has exploded onto social media, Lindsay Clancy is on trial in Massachusetts on three counts of murder in the deaths of her children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months.

Her lawyers do not dispute that she strangled the children with exercise bands in January 2023. So, we’re not debating whether or not she killed her children. Clancy is not even disputing it.

This has become a battle over a simple question: Who is the real victim here?

Her defense team is contesting whether she was criminally responsible at the time, arguing that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, and doctors had prescribed her a startling series of benzodiazepine-derivative drugs and even an anti-psychotic medication for sleep.

There is plenty of circumstantial evidence, however, that points in the direction of her having planned the execution of her children, such as sending her then-husband Patrick out on errands, checking his travel time, and the heinous manner she strangled each of her children, one by one.

What is happening outside the courtroom is something else entirely.

Rep. Nancy Mace (SC-1) recently drew attention to the online movement surrounding Clancy, where supporters have adopted slogans such as “I Stand With Lindsay,” worn coordinated pink clothing, produced merchandise, and flooded TikTok with videos presenting themselves as emotionally connected to her case.

This CANNOT be real. pic.twitter.com/a9msF3kUKK
— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) August 22, 2026

There is no evidence Casey Anthony posted the meme. But the movement backing Lindsay Clancy is very real.

Hundreds of women dressed in pink gathered outside a Massachusetts courthouse this week in a show of support for Lindsay Clancy, the former labor and delivery nurse accused of killing her three children.
Wearing shirts bearing slogans including "Believe," "She Needed Help" and "Peace for Lindsay," supporters lined the streets outside Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts as Clancy's murder trial entered its final stages. For many, the demonstration was not simply about one defendant but a broader belief that women's mental health concerns are too often dismissed by the medical system.

But the phenomenon is much bigger online.

Women have posted videos of themselves holding their own babies and crying while excerpts from Clancy’s writings play over the footage. Some have used captions such as “same, Lindsay.” Other posts have framed the case as something almost universally relatable to motherhood.

They’re using Lindsay Clancy’s diary words read in court to make videos with their babies and they are fake crying. pic.twitter.com/wy4d0IZo7w
— Luka (@LukaLev) August 18, 2026

This is the woman I posted about earlier who I said her child was in danger.

If listening to a child killer’s diary makes you relate to her and post these reactions, I stand by what I said. I think the child is in danger. pic.twitter.com/2Hpq1RuHxU
— Luka (@LukaLev) August 18, 2026

There is now even “I Stand With Lindsay” merchandise — shirts, hats, stickers, mugs, socks and bags marketed as expressions of “solidarity, compassion, and support.”

Then there is the money.

A GoFundMe established for Clancy’s parents has blown past $1 million, with nearly 31,000 contributions as of Friday night. The fundraiser is formally intended to help Michael and Paula Musgrove cover the enormous expenses they have incurred while relocating and supporting their daughter through years of court proceedings.

There is nothing inherently objectionable about helping elderly parents who have watched their family collapse.

But 31,000 donations tell you something about the extraordinary emotional constituency that has formed around this case.

We need to bring back mental institutions. ASAP.

We can start with these 31,000 monsters https://t.co/fNq79g2HZn
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 21, 2026

The internet has taken a courtroom dispute over criminal responsibility and transformed it into something bordering on fandom.

I understand the argument being made by many of these women: postpartum psychosis is real, it is rare, and in severe cases it can involve hallucinations, delusions and catastrophic behavior. Estimates commonly place its incidence at roughly one or two cases per 1,000 births.

Clancy’s defense called forensic psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, who testified that he believed she was psychotic and unable to distinguish right from wrong when the killings occurred.

But recognizing a psychiatric condition is different from building a social movement around the person who killed three children.

Something culturally sinister is happening. Social media rewards emotional exhibitionism. It rewards people for showing everyone how compassionate, how understanding and how virtuous they are.

Apparently, saying “three children were killed and their deaths should remain the center of this story” is now too straightforward.

You need a pink shirt. You need a crying TikTok. You need the slogan. And eventually the cause can become detached from the victims entirely.

This isn't an entirely new human impulse. Ted Bundy's 1979 murder trial drew large numbers of young female spectators, some of whom openly admitted they were fascinated by him. Scholars studying true-crime culture have documented similar fan behavior surrounding Bundy, Richard Ramirez, Charles Manson and other notorious killers.

the usual suspects pic.twitter.com/3zau6BPxP5
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 21, 2026

Social media has simply industrialized it. The difference now is that everyone gets to become a broadcaster, amateur psychiatrist and detective at once.

The Guardian recently described the Clancy phenomenon as “forensic fandom”: online communities treating real homicide cases like serialized television mysteries, searching for hidden clues and alternative villains because the ugly reality is emotionally unsatisfying.

Some Clancy supporters have even pushed theories accusing her former husband Patrick of killing the children despite surveillance and phone evidence placing him at CVS when the killings occurred. So much for following the actual defense.

Clancy’s own lawyers aren't arguing that Patrick did it. They are arguing that Lindsay did it while legally insane. That apparently isn't sensational enough for TikTok.

All of this is occurring against a broader cultural backdrop in which the value society assigns to children has become increasingly contested.

Massachusetts just enacted a law changing its rules for abortions after 24 weeks. Beginning November 8, the previous list of qualifying medical circumstances will be replaced by a standard allowing an abortion after 24 weeks based upon the physician's “professional judgment.”

The statute also removes the ability of a medical review process to override that judgment.

This is a culture that is getting way too comfortable trivializing the lives of human beings, even babies who are about to be born into this world.

And that’s where something is very broken: The Lindsay Clancy fangirls are signaling that they don’t think that this is a world worth being born into or that lives are very precious.

So the real victims — Cora, Dawson and Callan — are just collateral damage in a fairy tale that is all about them: Why they are upset at the world and may not want children.

While people are understandably avoiding this case, because it is too disturbing, and giving these unstable harridans too much attention is counter-productive, there is a healthier response to all of this.

We need to rebuild a culture that treats children as precious, motherhood as vital, mental illness as requiring serious treatment, and victimhood as something that is not universal.

Whatever the jury ultimately decides about Lindsay Clancy's criminal responsibility, there is no dispute about the real victims: The children who died at the hands of their mother.

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