Blame?

by Joan Swirsky ©2026 | thepostemail.com | September 3, 2026

DeltaWorks, Pixabay, License

Quite a few years ago, I co-wrote a book about the serial murderer on Long Island, Joel Rifkin, who savagely murdered 17 young women without an ounce of remorse––earning him the grim distinction of being the most prolific serial killer in New York’s history.

At his lengthy and fascinating trial, which my co-author and I attended every day––along with the grieving mothers, fathers, siblings, children, and other relatives and friends of the victims––Rifkin’s defense team tried to make the case that the vicious crimes he committed were a function of insanity.

But when the famed forensic psychiatrist, Park Dietz, took the stand, he shredded that theory so persuasively that Rifkin was ultimately convicted of all his crimes and sentenced to life in prison, where he deservedly remains today.

Other American serial murderers also tried the insanity defense, but most juries didn’t buy it. In many cases, there was too much premeditation, careful planning, and higher cognitive functioning at work for juries to believe that mental illness or just plain craziness was a factor.

But every now and then, there is genuine insanity when the person in question demonstrates––clinically––an inability to think and behave in ways considered to be normal.

LET’S GO TO THE MOVIES

Since I spent over 20 years as a New York State certified psychotherapist, whenever the subject of mental illness or “insanity” comes up in conversation with friends who have either read about an interesting case or are sharing a personal experience with me, I’m always reminded of the movie, “A Beautiful Mind,”  in which Russell Crowe portrayed the brilliant mathematician and Princeton University professor John Nash, whose groundbreaking work in game theory won him a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

In the middle––actually, more at the beginning of his illustrious career––Nash, at the age of 30, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Usually, schizophrenia is diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 25 and is thought to be influenced by––but not the absolute cause of––the failure of the ventricles of the brain to close as they usually do in early adolescence. Common symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, social withdrawal, and generally bizarre behavior. To this day, the exact cause of schizophrenia is not fully understood, but it is believed to involve both genes and environment.

THE CRIME QUESTION

While Nash, like most schizophrenics, never resorted to any semblance of violence, there are countless examples of seemingly perfectly “normal” people undergoing a change in personality and behavior so dramatic and profound, so outside of the norm, that both lay people and experts search for words and theories to explain it.

Among those mysteries––especially now that Lindsay Clancy has been tried for murdering her three young children and is now awaiting the verdict—it is useful to look back at similar cases in order to establish the difference between a crime committed out of base instincts like rage or jealousy or revenge, and a crime committed as a result of aberrational changes in the brain.

SUSAN

In 1994, Susan Smith was convicted of murdering her two sons, three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander, by strapping them in their car seats and rolling her car into a lake in South Carolina. She tried to accuse a black man of kidnapping her sons, but that lie was quickly proven to be, um, a lie. She even went on national TV for nine days straight, sniffling on cue and making melodramatic pleas for her sons’ return. And her defense attorneys tried to say that mental health issues impaired her judgment, citing a genuine history of sexual abuse, depression, and suicide attempts. But when the real motivation for the murders was revealed––that her affair with a local wealthy man had ended when he sent her a letter saying he didn’t want children––the jury sentenced Smith to two concurrent life terms in prison, with the possibility of parole after 30 years. Her first appeal for parole in 2024 was denied.

ANDREA

In 2001, Andrea Yates from Texas––her high-school class valedictorian and a registered nurse––drowned her five children in their bathtub––Noah Jacob, 7; John Samuel, 5; Paul Abraham, 3; Luke David, 2, and Mary, 6 months.

In the years leading up to the murders, she had exhibited severe postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, and schizophrenia, as well as bulimia, and also suicidal ideation. In 2006, at her second trial, a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity and she was committed to a high-security hospital. Today, nearly 25 years after the killings, Yates remains in a state mental health facility in Texas.

DENA

In 2004, Dena Schlosser, 35, from Texas, told a 911 operator that she had cut off her 10-month-old baby’s arms. Police found little Margaret in her crib and Schlosser holding the knife and listening to hymns. Ultimately, after doctors testified that she suffered from severe mood swings, hallucinations, and bipolar disorder, a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity and committed her to a state psychiatric hospital. She was released in December 2008 into outpatient care but was recommitted in April 2010 after being observed walking on a street at 2:00 a.m. She remained in a state hospital until at least 2011, when she was again released. And you can’t make this up––she was roommates with Andrea Yates!

DIMONE… JUST THE OTHER DAY!

A few days ago, a judge in the Bronx, NY, ruled that Dimone Fleming, 26, would not go to prison because of mental disease or defect, i.e., insanity. She admitted to repeatedly stabbing and killing her two little boys––three-year-old Daishawn and 11-month-old Octavius Canada––who were found lifeless in a bathtub of water. The report of the medical examiner said that “the boys suffered extensive stabbing and slicing wounds to their necks and surrounding areas. The ME determined that each child had four fatal wounds.”

Now here is the [incomprehensible] kicker: “Fleming is not being released. She remains in custody while another evaluation determines whether she continues to pose a danger to other people, and she is expected back in court on September 18.” Duh.

CONSTANCE

According to reporting by writer Johnathan Jones, “On March 8, 1954, a 24-year-old Maine housewife named Constance Fisher drowned her three children in a bathtub while battling postpartum depression and then attempted suicide…”

She was “sentenced” to spend five years at the Augusta State Hospital in Maine before her eventual release and a reconciliation with her husband, with whom she had three more children.

But in 1967––in a case impossible to wrap one’s mind around––she drowned those three children in another bathtub and was sent back to the hospital.

KAILEY

Then there is Kailey Erhart, a 22-year-old North Dakota resident who recently stabbed her 5-month-old and 3-year-old children to death and seriously injured a third child after waving a gun at her estranged husband and threatening to kill herself, according to police. So far, she has not entered a plea, no mental health or insanity defense has been publicly presented in court, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for October 6.

MADELINE

Wyoming resident Madeline Daly, 35, was recently convicted in a New Mexico courtroom for kidnapping and killing her infant son, shooting him in the face and then saying it was “worth it” to deprive his father of custody of the 11-month-old. Apparently, child murder is worth it if it devastates your spouse.

LINDSAY

According to Tierney’s Real News, “On January 24, 2023, Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children—five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan—at the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She then attempted suicide by cutting her wrists and neck and jumping from a second-story window. The injuries left her paralyzed from the waist down. Lindsay said she heard an auditory hallucination ordering her to kill her children and then kill herself and felt an irresistible urge to comply.”

Her defense attorneys maintained that Lindsay––a former labor-and-delivery room nurse––suffered from postpartum psychosis, bipolar disorder and was severely over-medicated and therefore was not criminally responsible for these acts. Lindsay and her former husband also filed lawsuits against her doctor(s) saying that she had been over-medicated and their malpractice contributed to the deaths of the children.

According to Tierney’s Real News, “During the four months prior to the murders…Lindsay was given 30 prescriptions for 13 different psychiatric medications including Zoloft, Ativan, Benadryl, Buspar, Ambien, Remeron, Klonopin, Trazadone, Prozac, Amitriptyline and Seroquel (an antipsychotic) ––all of which were found in her system. Seroquel (quetiapine) was found at DOUBLE normal levels.”

Suffering from many of the side effects of so many pills, as well as anxiety, sleeplessness, and thoughts of suicide, she also sought help from multiple therapists and institutions and did Internet searches on, among other things, “How to slit your throat to die.”

As of today, September 2, 2026, the Lindsay Clancy Jury Says It’s Deadlocked After More than 17 Hours of Deliberation.

In Massachusetts, the judge, Judge William Sullivan, can encourage the jury to go back to the jury room only twice, but after that, the judge can declare a mistrial.

BLAME?       

This case has aroused passions across the country. On one side are [mostly] women sending oceans of money to Lindsay Clancy in empathy for the suffering she has experienced and the hope that genuinely effective therapeutic hospitalization lies in her future. On the other side are those who see three innocent dead children and can hope for life imprisonment for a woman they don’t believe was insane at all.

The metaphor “Cancer is the schizophrenia of the body, just as schizophrenia is the cancer of the mind” is attributed to psychoanalyst and author Jane G. Goldberg. I personally believe that horrible afflictions––both body and mind––happen to human beings every minute of every day.

Should we blame Dolly Parton for the cancer that killed her? Should we blame theoretical astrophysicist Stephen Hawking for the hideous disease that afflicted and ultimately killed him, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)? Should we blame Bruce Willis for the dementia that robbed him of his senses, of his mind? The very idea is preposterous. And yet, mental illness is too often treated as a character flaw and not a very horrific physical malady.

Mental illness is as real and often as devastating as physical illness, although to this day it cannot be visualized on CT scans and MRIs and PET scans as the afflictions of the body can be seen. Yes, we can now visualize when the ventricles of the brain don’t close in schizophrenia, but that’s about it.

And yet, with all the astounding medical and scientific progress and innovation that has taken place over the past several centuries, we still don’t know how and why the human species can produce a Beethoven and a Mother Teresa and also a Ted Bundy and a Hitler.

My empathy lies with Lindsay Clancy, whose brain, I believe, was attacked not with cancer but with a disease so annihilating that it led to her unspeakable crimes. Yes, crimes.

Not to the point of Not Guilty…. but simply to the point of sending her, for life, not to a prison but to a mental hospital.

May her sweet children––and all the childhood victims of both mentally disturbed and malevolent murdering mothers––rest in peace in heaven.