Who Deserves Our Sympathy In This Tragedy?

Empty courtroom with wooden benches and judge's bench — Photo: B Brown / Shutterstock

Reality TV star Spencer Pratt says America has flipped its moral compass, feeling more sorry for a mother who killed her three kids than for the babies she strangled.

Story Snapshot

Spencer Pratt posted a viral video slamming public sympathy for Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mom convicted in the strangulation deaths of her three young children.
Pratt says compassion has flowed to Clancy while ignoring the murdered kids and their father, who found his children unresponsive.
TikTok removed a related video challenging the postpartum psychosis narrative, citing “Community Guidelines.”
Pratt argues insanity pleas should not stop life-long imprisonment, saying protection matters more than punishment.
Researchers say the public’s split reaction fits a known pattern where extra background on an offender softens blame.

Pratt Says Sympathy Went To The Wrong Person

Spencer Pratt released a widely-watched video calling out what he sees as a twisted response to the Lindsay Clancy case. Clancy, a Duxbury, Massachusetts mother, strangled her three young children in the family’s basement in January 2023. Pratt said empathy went “solely toward the woman” instead of the children or their father.

Pratt described the father coming home with takeout, only to find his babies unresponsive and dying. He argued the public conversation skipped past that horror and focused instead on defending Clancy’s mental state. Pratt called this an “inverted morality,” where blame gets questioned instead of placed where it belongs.

Pratt Draws A Hard Line On Child Killers

Pratt did not stop at criticizing public reaction. He laid out a blunt standard he thinks society should follow. “It is a perfectly reasonable standard for a society to set that if you murder a child, your life is over,” Pratt said. He added that an insanity plea can spare someone the death penalty, but “they must die in prison”.

Pratt framed his view as protection, not revenge. He compared child killers to a dangerous animal that must be permanently removed from society, arguing the goal is keeping people safe rather than settling a score. That comparison drew heavy backlash online, but Pratt held his ground across multiple videos and posts on the case.

TikTok Pulls Video Challenging The Official Story

The controversy grew louder after TikTok banned a video that pushed back on the postpartum psychosis explanation for Clancy’s actions. The platform cited a “violation of Community Guidelines” without giving more detail. Clancy’s defense argued she suffered from postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible for the killings.

Separately, Clancy’s defense attorney tried to call a former McLean Hospital social worker, Emily Thorndike, as a witness. Thorndike had criticized the hospital’s care of Clancy in a TikTok video that drew over a million views. A judge ultimately barred her from testifying before the jury.

Why The Public Reaction Split So Sharply

Researchers who study crime coverage say Pratt’s frustration reflects a well-known pattern. Giving people more background on an offender tends to soften blame toward that person, while sympathy for victims depends on separate emotional cues. Media coverage of mothers who kill their children often leans on a “flawed mother” or mental-illness framing that can build sympathy for the offender.

That framing shift matters because it can quietly reshape how juries and the public view responsibility. Even Clancy’s own psychologist testified she “really loves” her children and thinks of them daily. Pratt’s point is that this kind of testimony keeps drawing attention away from three dead children and toward the woman who killed them.

A Warning About Where Empathy Gets Spent

Pratt’s message lands hard with readers who believe basic accountability keeps eroding under sympathetic framing. He is not asking for cruelty. He is asking why a society debates the feelings of an admitted child killer while three small victims and a grieving father get treated as background noise. That question, however you view Clancy’s mental state, deserves a real answer.

Whatever the jury ultimately decides about Clancy’s mental state, Pratt’s broader challenge stands on its own. A culture that reserves its deepest compassion for perpetrators instead of victims has its priorities backward, and Pratt’s viral pushback shows plenty of Americans agree.