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While failures by people, medical professionals and systems around Lindsay Clancy deserve scrutiny, nothing should erase a parents responsibility for killing a child, according to a veteran prosecutor who said he’s concerned that public support for the Massachusetts mom is overshadowing the killing of her three young children.
Clancy is accused of killing her three young children â Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months â and trying to end her own life by dropping from a second-floor window after sending her husband to pick up takeout and something from a pharmacy, according to the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office.
But as the case has drawn national attention, Clancy has also attracted supporters both online and in-person at the courthouse, and that that support has taken attention away from the victims.
LINDSAY CLANCY’S THREE CHILD VICTIMS FORGOTTEN AMID CROWDS OF SUPPORT: MOTHER OF SIX
“Nobody who murders children is a victim no matter what theyre suffering through,” said Jonathan Hatami, a veteran child abuse prosecutor. “You’re never a victim if you murder people because victims don’t do something. Something happens to them.”
The defense does not dispute that Clancy caused the deaths â but she has pleaded not guilty and is contesting criminal responsibility.
Hatami has spearheaded a number of high-profile cases against child abusers in Los Angeles, California, including the murder of 8-year-old , who was tortured and killed by his mother and her boyfriend. Gabriel’s killing exposed a series of missed red flags by the county’s Department of Children and Family Services and inspired a Netflix docuseries.
LINDSAY CLANCY DEFENSE SCORES EXTREMELY HELPFUL PSYCHOSIS CONCESSION AS EXPERT FLAGS NEXT HURDLE
“Gabriel Fernandez was tortured and murdered by his mom and her boyfriend â however, there were a lot of other people…that were responsible,” Hatami told Fox News Digital. “There were a lot of people that missed signs through the eight or nine months of Gabriel’s torture. There were a lot of people in government, in law enforcement, social workers, who missed all these different signs that really could have saved Gabriel â and they didn’t do it. However, Pearl Fernandez and were ultimately responsible for the torture and murder of Gabriel and were prosecuted for that and they were convicted of that.”
In Clancys case, he argued, many of the people and systems around her deserve scrutiny â but that should not turn her into the central victim of the story. In his view, she’s been too much of the focus.
“Instead of about the three victims who were innocent kids,” he said.
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While failures of government and the child welfare system were investigated after Gabriel’s murder, that didn’
