Tina Tro

Massachusetts native, now in CT- I’m proud to be a mom and to volunteer my time in youth organizations

[Billy Binion @billybinion]

A lot of people confidently opining on the Lindsay Clancy trial have clearly not watched any of it.

Witness after witness, including her ex-husband, has described how she was in crisis: intensely paranoid, scared to be alone, repeatedly begging for help. The prosecution has had a *very* hard time rebutting it. Some of the government's cross-examinations have been painful to watch, like when prosecutors asked her Catholic ex-MIL—who testified in Clancy's defense—if she was aware "murder is considered a mortal sin." At times they've been desperate.

If Clancy is acquitted by reason of insanity—and I think there's a chance she will be—a lot of people are going to be shocked and outraged. But this is quite literally why the insanity defense exists: because the law understands there is an obvious and meaningful difference between a sane person plotting out a murder, and someone who would otherwise never kill but does so because of a disease outside of their control.

No, that doesn't mean any normal person thinks murdering children is excusable—an accusation so profoundly stupid and bad-faith that I'd expect it from someone with the critical thinking skills of a 12-year-old. It means people recognize the distinction above.

Nor does it mean Clancy would go free, which a strangely large number of people seem to believe. She would be confined to a state hospital—which is a lot like prison in many ways—where she could plausibly remain for the rest of her life. The biggest question here is where, not if, she will be locked up.

It's a horrible case. Her children are the victims. What she did to them is beyond appalling. I feel awful for her husband, who has lost so much. And yes, I also have compassion for Lindsay Clancy, who did something terrible when it seems she was very ill, and whose life—no matter what the jury decides—is forever broken in so many ways. All of these things can be true at the same time.

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@marcorandazza @mistrialmisfit Every person that knew her for years that testified said she was a terrific mom who tried to do everything right for her kids- the events of Jan 24 were wildly out of character and she had begged for help- docs didn’t talk to each other or do bloodwork. She & her fam was failed

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@ConnorElderJr @DrJosefWD Not even remotely the same

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@Peter_Wolfgang I’ve watched every day and listened to people like Dr Josef Witt (specializes in tapering people off psychotic meds & worked in drug safety at a big pharma) LC likely was toxic from the med cocktail and had a psychotic break. No one checked blood levels. She was failed.

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@GlammaSooz That’s a big part of it, but I think it’s also the prosecution sinking so low. God forgives even mortal sin, but so many have zero compassion or empathy or forgiveness. It’s so heavy- I can’t imagine being Kevin Reddington, or LC’s parents- God bless KR & all LC& PC family

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@FormanLaw1 Very disappointed in your take on this case

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@GlammaSooz When I was in high school I went with friends to people watch at Logan- at the gates- we walked all over that airport.

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@AndrewZywiecMD @CTLake14Patriot Not a doctor but I got to this point about 14 years ago. The more I learned the more I refused them for my kids

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@kelly_steffee I don’t believe anyone thinks she’s a hero- I see her as another victim in all this- she vainly tried for months to get help and no one was able to help her- I see justice as changing healthcare so this doesn’t happen to other families

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@Howie_Roastman @CPTDennisMcCall @IanRunkle More doctors agree whe was ill

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@CauseofourJoy The money is for her parents who sold their home in CT and drained their savings to be near their daughter

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@Howie_Roastman @CPTDennisMcCall @IanRunkle Except that top forensic psychiatrists who have examined her and her records say she did not have the ability to choose what she was doing

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@KristiTalmadge No mad just frustrated- people deserve better care we are way behind Europe in women’s health (and healthy food) I think she needs to be in a mental hospital not jail- she is/was ill

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@Howie_Roastman @CPTDennisMcCall @IanRunkle Nope- she has tons of documentation that she tried to get help and was declining and the country’s best forensic psychiatrist saying she was in psychosis- few others will have that- changing how healthcare treats women is the best path forward

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@KristiTalmadge @SwickSpeak I do think the machines can be rigged to flip votes to Marx- I have honestly lost hope in this state’s elections- but yes I will still vote for him and Fazio

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@CPTDennisMcCall @IanRunkle Actually l, shining a light on the broken mental healthcare system may lead to changes that will prevent other children from the same fate- that honors their memory.

[Kristi L. Talmadge @KristiTalmadge]

(Long) People are missing my point on the Lindsay Clancy murder case because they are emotionally invested and do not want to listen. We need to fix the f***ing mental health system, or we are going to continue having this same conversation every time something like this (or similar) happens that actually could have been prevented BEFORE children are murdered.

Lindsay Clancy is guilty of killing her children. She strangled her three young kids—Cora (5), Dawson (3), and Callan (8 months)—in the basement of their Duxbury, Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023. That fact is not in dispute. Her defense has acknowledged the killings while arguing she should not be held criminally responsible due to a severe postpartum mental health crisis. What happens to her is for a judge and jury to decide.

The deeper failure, and the source of legitimate anger, lies elsewhere. Our current laws and payment systems do not adequately allow or encourage psychiatric hospitals to hold people experiencing a dangerous mental illness crisis for the time often required. Clancy and her husband knew she was in serious trouble. She was admitted to McLean Hospital for inpatient psychiatric care on January 1, 2023, and discharged after only five days—on January 5. She murdered her children 19 days later.

Before the major legal and financial shifts of recent decades, patients in acute crisis were far more commonly retained for 30, 60, or even 90 days when clinically indicated. That longer window of locked, structured care is largely gone.

The modern framework began taking shape with California’s Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act of 1967 and the wave of “dangerousness” standards that followed in the 1970s through Supreme Court decisions and state reforms. These changes ended indefinite, often abusive institutionalization and required clearer criteria—danger to self or others, or grave disability—before someone could be held against their will. The full consequences became clearest in the 1990s.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, private locked psychiatric wards frequently kept patients (including many adolescents) for weeks or months because insurance would pay for it—usually longer than necessary. Then, almost on cue, patients were declared mentally stable the day coverage ended. Essentially, they were committing fraud for profit with patients who did not actually need to be held as long as they were holding them on these locked psychiatric units.

The managed care crackdown of the mid-1990s changed that overnight. Facing skyrocketing costs and fraud investigations into certain private psychiatric chains, insurers imposed aggressive utilization review. They refused to authorize continued locked inpatient stays unless the patient was actively suicidal or homicidal in the narrowest sense. Average lengths of stay collapsed from several weeks to just 3–7 days. Hospitals could no longer secure payment for longer treatment even when clinicians believed it was needed.

The Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C. delivered another major blow to the system. The Court held that, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, unjustified institutional isolation of people with mental disabilities constitutes illegal discrimination. States were pressured to move patients into community-based outpatient care whenever possible. The intent was liberation from unnecessary confinement. The practical effect, combined with the earlier payment changes, was the near-disappearance of longer-term locked psychiatric capacity for those in genuine crisis.

The result is a system that discharges people like Lindsay Clancy after a handful of days—often before psychosis or severe instability has fully resolved—and hopes outpatient follow-up will suffice. In too many cases, it does not. The children who died on January 24, 2023, are the human cost of that broken framework.

Fixing it requires more than local hospital policy or insurance tweaks. Only Congress can restore a realistic balance: protecting civil liberties while giving clinicians the legal authority and financial tools to hold people who are actively dangerous for the length of time their illness actually requires. Until then, the next tragedy is already waiting.

That's your job @SenateGOP @HouseGOP @SenateDems @HouseDemocrats @SecKennedy @realDonaldTrump so fix it!

[Tina Tro @TTro70]

@dr_ericberg He about taking a heavy metal binder like bentonite clay with the sardines?