Brandee Mulligan, the Wisconsin TikTok mom who launched a $1.2 million GoFundMe for Lindsay Clancy’s parents, says she has never spoken to the accused child killer herself.
Mulligan, 42, told The Post she set up “The Musgrove Family Fund” last month without contacting Clancy, 36, her ex-husband Patrick, or Clancy’s parents Michael and Paula Musgrove beforehand. The separated mother of three from Wisconsin has no affiliation with any of them. After creating the page, she spoke with Michael Musgrove and made him the fund’s sole beneficiary.
“They had no idea and they were just extremely grateful and overwhelmed by all the support,” Mulligan told The Post.
“And as a mom, like your heart just goes out to Lindsay,” she said of why she started the fundraiser. “And I don’t want to focus too much on the Lindsay aspect of it. But I mean, it’s a huge part of it.”
The fund has collected donations from more than 1,000 people, mostly women, with an initial goal of $2 million that Mulligan raised to $3 million after a mistrial was declared Sept. 4. The money is intended to cover travel expenses for Michael, 70, and Paula, 73, from their home near New Haven, Conn., to Plymouth, Mass., where their daughter stood trial.
“They’ve been in hotels, they’ve depleted their savings, and they’re the ones that footed the bill for her legal things,” Mulligan said of Clancy’s parents. “They’ve been the ones supporting Lindsay.”
“Her parents have uprooted their whole life for three and a half years. They’ve given everything to this.”
Massachusetts has no law barring accused criminals from accepting donations to fight charges against them. It is one of 23 states without a Son of Sam law, the statute enacted in New York after filmmakers offered serial killer David Berkowitz money for his life story. Without such a law, Clancy’s father could hand the money to his daughter or use it to pay for her defense.
GoFundMe does not allow campaigns to pay for criminal defenses against charges for violent crimes, but the platform has not answered repeated questions about what safeguards exist to prevent the money from being used for Clancy’s legal defense.
“Everybody’s very clear on what it can and can’t be used for. And the families, they know that,” Mulligan claimed.
Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, previously said “every nickel” spent on Clancy’s defense had come from the Musgroves, who were “pretty much depleting everything they have” to fund it. The fund is the only GoFundMe page publicly confirmed by the platform as being connected to the family.
Mulligan regularly posts on social media in support of Clancy and has faced criticism for doing so. She shares comments from detractors, including one where someone said she was “psychotic” if she supported Clancy killing her children.
“You’re setting women back decades,” she said.
After the Sept. 4 mistrial, Mulligan gushed on TikTok: “This is truly a jury of her peers.” She then lashed out at the lone holdout juror: “And then one total idiot … one f–king man.”
Several posts Mulligan shared appeared to cast suspicion on Patrick Clancy’s involvement in the murder of his three children. In one TikTok she shared, a former prosecutor questioned why Patrick appeared to be wearing different clothing in surveillance footage from two locations during his alibi and why investigators apparently did not obtain his phone records to corroborate his movements.
Patrick Clancy’s attorney slammed the “escalating campaign of misinformation” being waged by influencers earlier this week, threatening “every appropriate measure will be pursued to hold them accountable.”
Reached by phone, Mulligan did not walk back her criticism of the ex-husband, instead telling The Post: “I don’t have any comment on that.”
“Being a mom is hard, and it’s resonated with a lot of people all over the world. So many women. It’s incredible,” Mulligan said of the fundraiser’s appeal.
“They tell moms to reach out and get help and then when you don’t get that, then what? And I hope that this case helps change that.”
Clancy is accused of strangling her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — in their Duxbury, Mass., home in January 2023. She survived a suicide attempt and has pleaded not guilty to murder charges, with her defense arguing she was overmedicated and suffering from postpartum depression. The first trial ended in a mistrial when one juror refused to convict. Prosecutors have announced they will retry the case.
Clancy’s parents, Michael and Paula, have not returned The Post’s calls.