Decades-old Maine infant murders echo in Massachusetts postpartum-killings trial

Louise Marcoux Bowker, now 81, remembers her sister Constance Fisher, who killed three of her children in 1954 and again in 1966 after repeated postpartum depression and denied hospital care. Fisher was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent years in Augusta Mental Health Institute before escaping and later drowning. Bowker blames doctors and the state for ignoring her sister’s pleas for help.

The recent trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother charged with killing her three children in 2023, mirrored Fisher’s story, ending in a mistrial when the jury split. Both women had sought treatment for postpartum mental illness, but the system failed to protect them. Psychiatrists interviewed suggest auditory hallucinations and severe depression drove the tragedies, highlighting systemic gaps in postpartum care. Bowker urges clinicians to listen more closely and for society to provide better support for mothers in crisis.