Dr. Phil McGraw Weighs In on Lindsay Clancy Mistrial: 'There’s Nothing to Be Celebrated Here'

Dr. Phil McGraw gave his two cents on Lindsay Clancy's recent mistrial, saying the court case is not something to "celebrate."

The TV personality, 76, shared his thoughts on Saturday, September 5, just one day after a jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the murders of Clancy's three children.

McGraw told Fox News that Clancy's kids — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — “are the real folks we need to give our attention to here."

"Three innocent children did lose their lives, and you can never explain these situations away simply," he continued.

The former talk show host also added he "hates we are focusing everywhere except" on Clancy's children. "There are a lot of fingers to point, but now’s not the time to do that," he said.

The Scary Movie 4 star then noted he has concerns when mental illness is portrayed in the courtroom, saying it becomes “kind of a political, ideological football that’s used to try to skew something or is kind of debunked by another side rather than looking at what actually took place.”

Clancy, 36, strangled her three children at her home in Duxbury, Mass., in January 2023. She then attempted to commit suicide by jumping out of a second-story window and slitting her wrists, with her injuries leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.

Her defense team argued she suffered with bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis.

McGraw also stated there will be “accountability” in the case, saying that even if Clancy is not found criminally responsible for the killings, “she’s not going home.”

“She’s going to have to live with this the rest of her life and probably in a psychiatric facility if, in fact, she is not guilty by reason of mental defect or disease,” the Life Strategies author said.

“I think people underestimate the power of psychosis in taking over someone’s life," McGraw explained.

"It’s not an excuse, but, for example, if she had a brain tumor you could see on an X-ray, people would go ‘OK, I get that.’ And when you have what took place here, it could be just as powerful as someone whose brain is hijacked by a tumor," he noted.

“I’m not excusing what she did in any way,” he went on. “I think she should be held fully accountable, but I think we need to understand causation.”

McGraw also called Clancy’s case a “psychiatric emergency that wasn’t treated as such.”

“There’s nothing to be celebrated here,” he discussed. “If there’s any lesson to be taken for our culture, it’s that there was a failure here. This was a woman who asked for help. She admitted herself to the hospital. Was that enough?”