The Lindsay Clancy murder trial has sparked conversations around maternal and postnatal health. Dr. Mary Kimmel, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating women during pregnancy and the postpartum period, joins CBS News to discuss.
Page H2From§Eachthe supper edition — 4 September 2026
DA says Clancy case "is not about the healthcare system," psychiatrist says it proves there isn't one
As it ran on the front
I called the Registry about a title that still shows my father's name on it, sixteen years now, and the recording said please stay on the line, my call was important to them, and gave me a wait time of "up to twenty minutes," which is the kind of number I write down because it never means what it says.
While I was on hold I had the radio on low and heard that a judge had declared a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy case — that's the young mother, the labor and delivery nurse, who admitted in court she killed her three children in January of 2023 and argued she wasn't responsible for it. I wrote the date down. I don't know why, except that a jury needed a weekslong trial and closing arguments that called what happened "a choice" — that's the prosecutors' phrase, from the 27th of August — and still, on September first, that jury told the judge they couldn't agree, and got sent back to try again. I have that in my notebook too, though it took me a minute to find the page.…
…(cont) I want to be careful here, because I'm an old man on hold with a government office about a piece of paper, not a lawyer. But I do the same thing with every form the Registry ever sent me: I read it twice, because the second reading is where you catch what the first one skipped over you.
So on Friday, after the mistrial, the district attorney — Plymouth County's Tim Cruz — took questions from reporters, and I read that he said the case "is not about the healthcare system." That's the quote. Not about the healthcare system. I wrote it exactly like that because when I copy something wrong I hear about it, and I've heard about it.
Same day — same Friday — a psychiatrist who treats women during pregnancy and after, a Dr. Kimmel, went on the news and said the trial has "shown how much maternal mental healthcare is needed." Same case. Same courtroom. Same week a jury couldn't reach a verdict on whether the former labor and delivery nurse was criminally responsible for what she admitted doing. One says the system isn't the subject. One says the system is the whole lesson. I don't have a way to hold both of those in the same hand, and I've got a glovebox full of forms that don't agree with each other either, so I notice when it happens twice in one week.
There's a drawer back at CBS from the first week of August, before closings even started, where a survivor of postpartum psychosis and a perinatal psychiatrist were already on the air asking whether the healthcare system is failing mothers. That's four weeks before the DA's remarks. So the question was on the table before he said it wasn't the question.
And then the president was asked about it Friday too, at a signing ceremony, and he said, "It's a shame. It's a horrible tragedy." I read that one twice as well, just to be sure I had it — one "horrible," not stacked, just the one, sitting next to "shame" the way a form sits next to its own footnote.
I still don't have my father's name off that title. The Registry called back forty minutes after they said twenty, and asked did I have my ID number handy, and I said hold on, let me get my notebook — and while I had it open, one more thing, since I've got you on the phone: does a case get to be about a system that a jury spent a weekslong trial failing to reach a verdict inside of, or does that get decided by whoever's holding the microphone that day?
“The DA says the case isn't about the healthcare system the same day a psychiatrist says it's the proof there isn't one — that's not two readings of the same trial, that's a dodge. Call it a personal tragedy and you don't have to put a number on the beds, the staff, or the funding it would've taken to catch her before three kids were dead. That's the whole trick: keep it about one woman so it never has to be about a budget.”
“The DA's job is prosecuting a case, not writing health policy — that's not spin, that's the org chart. Is it his fault the legislature hasn't funded enough psychiatric beds? Wait, did I just concede there aren't enough beds? Forget I said that — the point is a jury doesn't vote on Medicaid rates, and if Dr. Kimmel wants to talk policy, Dr. Kimmel can find a legislative committee instead of a cable hit.”
The receipts
Prosecutors must now decide whether they want to try the case again.
President Trump responded Friday to a judge’s decision to declare a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, weighing in for the first time on the legal battle that has captured national attention. “It’s a shame. It’s a horrible tragedy,”
Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz took questions from reporters on Friday after a judge declared a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy murder case. Watch his full remarks.
· Judge sends Lindsay Clancy jury back for deliberations after they could not reach a verdict from the morgue, 1 Sep 2026
· Closing arguments conclude in Lindsay Clancy trial as prosecutors argue murders were ‘a choice’ from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
· The Truth About Postpartum Psychosis from the morgue, 7 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.