Clancy Parents' Fund Tops $1.1M After Mistrial
Clancy Parents' Fund Tops $1.1M After Mistrial

The News
A GoFundMe for the parents of Lindsay Clancy — the Massachusetts mother who admitted strangling her three children — has passed $1.1 million a day after her murder trial ended in a mistrial.
TMZ reported the "Musgrove Family Fund" had collected $1,167,727 from 34,400 donations as of Saturday. Newsweek put the total at $1,170,642, with a $5,000 anonymous gift as the largest single donation.
The organizer, Brandee Mulligan, raised the campaign's target from $2 million to $3 million on Friday, hours after Judge William Sullivan declared the mistrial in Plymouth County Superior Court.
The money is earmarked for Clancy's parents, Mike and Paula Musgrove — not her legal defense.
The Numbers
Newsweek and TMZ both report the fund was created last month. Its goal is now $3 million. Snopes, checking the campaign page, counted more than $1.1 million from over 33,500 donations at the time of its Sept. 4 fact-check.
Timeline
Clancy strangles her three children with exercise bands at the family's home in Massachusetts, according to the Associated Press and Reuters reporting cited by Snopes. The children were Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months.
Clancy pleads not guilty to initial charges that included three counts each of first-degree murder, strangulation, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Prosecutors later dropped the strangulation counts as redundant to the murder charges.
Brandee Mulligan creates the "Musgrove Family Fund" on GoFundMe for Mike and Paula Musgrove, who moved from Connecticut to Massachusetts to stay near their daughter through more than three years of court dates, travel and lodging.
After nearly six weeks of testimony and roughly 38 hours of deliberations, jurors tell the judge they cannot reach a unanimous verdict and a mistrial is declared. Notes discussed in court suggested the panel was split 11-1 in favor of acquittal, Newsweek reported.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington immediately asks to appeal the mistrial ruling to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. A justice hears arguments and rejects the request, letting the mistrial stand, per TMZ.
Mulligan announces the higher fundraising goal. Snopes publishes its fact-check of the viral meme comparing the Clancy fund to a Swedish mother's.
The fund passes $1.1 million.
Reactions
"I've decided to raise the goal of this fundraiser since this process has been extended, so is the time Paula and Mike will remain away from their home, continuing to carry the costs that come with being there for their daughter every day," Mulligan wrote, according to Newsweek.
Mulligan has said the campaign does not ask donors to take a position on the case or on Clancy herself, that the money will not fund the legal defense, that she has no access to the funds, and that Clancy's attorney is aware of the effort. TMZ reported the fundraiser was created with the Musgroves' knowledge and consent.
"The purpose of this fund is to help Mike and Paula rebuild the financial stability they have sacrificed over these past three years," Mulligan wrote last month, per Newsweek. "The case will eventually reach its conclusion. Whatever that outcome is, Mike and Paula will still have to pick up the pieces of the lives they have put on hold to be there for their daughter."
Reddington argued at trial that "there is evidence of lack of criminal responsibility" and that "a required finding of not guilty should be entered on the case," according to trial transcripts cited by Snopes. He repeatedly argued Clancy suffered from postpartum psychosis. Prosecutors argued she knew what she was doing.
TMZ and The Post Millennial both reported that President Trump weighed in on the mistrial, saying Clancy did "a horrible thing."
What's Next
Judge William Sullivan has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 29, Newsweek reported. Reddington is expected to ask for a finding of not guilty — an unusual move permitted under Massachusetts law.
That hearing could also give the first signal of whether prosecutors will retry the case. They have not yet decided whether to try Clancy again, drop the case, or seek a negotiated resolution.
Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse, remains in custody.
More
The million-dollar total went viral through a meme contrasting Clancy with Emma Schols, a Swedish mother who saved all six of her children from a house fire in Edsbyn on Sept. 3, 2019, suffering burns to 93% of her body over three trips into the flames. The meme pegged her fundraising at $42,000 against "GoFundMe: $1,044,318+" for Clancy.
Snopes rated the meme a "mixture" of true and false on Sept. 4.
What checks out: the Clancy tally, and a Swedish outlet's 2019 report — quoting church deacon Christer Schwartz — putting one fundraiser for Schols at 400,000 Swedish krona, about $42,000 at current exchange rates.
What the meme leaves out: that fundraiser was one of several. A February 2020 charity hockey match, "Playing for Emma," collected another 200,000 krona, roughly $21,000, and Schols wrote in her 2022 book that people and companies pledged to sponsor the rebuilding of her house — though she said some pulled out after she separated from her partner.
Snopes also noted the meme claims Clancy herself will one day collect the money and never mentions her parents, the fund's stated beneficiaries.
Poll
Should a fundraiser for the family of an admitted child killer be allowed on GoFundMe?
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