Crime
Authorities allege the true crime content creator posted a secret recording of Christopher Clancy, whose son Patrick was previously married to Lindsay Clancy.
A Florida-based true crime content creator is facing a wiretap charge in Massachusetts after she allegedly posted a secret recording of Lindsay Clancy’s former father-in-law.
According to a police report filed in Hingham District Court, Christopher Clancy — the father of Lindsay Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick — flagged the recording to Scituate police on Sept. 4. That same day, Lindsay Clancy’s high-profile murder trial ended in a mistrial after jurors reportedly deadlocked on whether she can be held criminally responsibile for the deaths of her three children.
Christopher Clancy told Scituate police he learned that an audio recording of what he believed to be his voice had been posted to the Instagram account “saltylunatics” on Aug. 30, according to the police report. While the recording was mostly “unintelligible,” according to police, Christopher Clancy said he recognized some of the language as remarks he’d made about his eldest son, Brian.
He recalled receiving a phone call from an unknown number on Aug. 6 while driving around Scituate and told police he believed he accidentally answered instead of declining, “creating an open line of communication for the unknown calling party who proceeded to record Mr. Clancy’s comments without his knowledge or consent.”
According to the police report, Christopher Clancy “does not recall knowingly speaking to someone over the phone when these comments were made, nor was he made aware of his comments being recorded.” Notably, Aug. 6 was the same day Christopher Clancy took the stand in his former daughter-in-law’s murder trial, telling jurors Lindsay was “very, very good” as a mother.
A police detective traced the Instagram video back to Shawna Leigh Gramkow, 46, of Sanford, Florida, the report states. According to police, the video opened with Gramkow telling viewers, “at the trial, [Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney] Kevin Reddington released Patrick’s phone number and one of y’all decided to give him a call. Now on this particular call, Patrick’s dad was still on the line, he was kind of mumbling still on the phone, I guess he didn’t know that the phone was still going.”
It remains unclear exactly who recorded the call. Massachusetts is a two-party consent state, meaning both people on a call must agree before recording audio.
While the video in question no longer appears to be available on Gramkow’s Instagram page, dozens of other posts about Lindsay Clancy’s murder case remained visible as of Friday afternoon. In many of those posts, Gramkow seems to question Patrick Clancy’s role in the deaths of 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan Clancy.
Lindsay Clancy maintains she was suffering from postpartum psychosis following the birth of her youngest child and heard a voice in her head ordering her to kill the children and herself. And while she has not denied strangling the children at home in Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023, a swell of unfounded conspiracy theories has put Patrick Clancy under the microscope. His lawyers have since threatened legal action as a means of putting an end to the “vile” theories and the “spread of blatant and baseless falsehoods” that suggest he is somehow to blame for the killings.
Gramkow is scheduled for arraignment Nov. 20. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday, though she posted a cryptic message on Instagram Thursday stating, “The allegations are false. And easy to prove.”
In the meantime, Lindsay Clancy is awaiting word on whether Plymouth County prosecutors intend to retry her for first-degree murder, reduce the charges, or attempt to negotiate a plea deal. She has filed a motion to dismiss her charges, and the case is due back in court Monday.
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