Not Carol Documentary Review: The Haunting Case Behind the Film
- Reporting Live
- 9 hours ago
- 6 min read
If you’re following the Lindsay Clancy case—or you’re interested in complicated court cases involving postpartum mental health and the insanity defense—I highly recommend watching the documentary Not Carol.
I watched it for free on YouTube after someone recommended it while I was covering the Lindsay Clancy trial, and I was completely drawn into it.
Not Carol tells the tragic story of Carol Coronado, a California mother whose life and mental state deteriorated following childbirth before an unimaginable tragedy involving her three young daughters. The documentary examines not only what happened, but also the warning signs, the family’s hindsight, the medical questions, and the complicated legal battle that followed.
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Why Not Carol Hit So Hard
What immediately stood out to me about Not Carol is that it doesn’t feel like one of those glossy, formula-driven streaming documentaries.
It feels raw.
It feels personal.
And because of that, parts of it almost feel more unsettling.
The documentary spends a great deal of time with Carol’s husband, Rudy, as well as family members, doctors, other women who experienced severe postpartum mental health symptoms, and people looking back at warning signs they didn’t fully understand at the time.
That hindsight is one of the most powerful parts of the documentary.
You hear husbands and family members essentially saying, “Now I understand what I was seeing.”
That is incredibly difficult to watch.
It is also incredibly informative.
A Documentary With a Point of View
One thing I think viewers should know going into Not Carol is that the documentary definitely has a perspective.
It leans heavily toward Carol’s mental-health history and the defense argument that she did not understand right from wrong when the tragedy occurred.
That doesn’t mean the prosecution is completely ignored.
The prosecutor involved in Carol’s case also appears and discusses the severity of what happened and why the state pursued the case the way it did.
But overall, the documentary gives much more attention to Carol’s mental state, the warning signs her family later recognized, and the argument surrounding her insanity defense.
I think that’s important to acknowledge.
You can still learn an enormous amount from a documentary while recognizing the perspective through which the story is being told.
SPOILER WARNING
From this point forward, I’m discussing details of Carol Coronado’s story and the outcome of her court case.
If you would rather watch Not Carol without knowing how everything unfolds, this is where I recommend stopping and watching the documentary first.
Carol, Rudy, and Their Three Daughters
Carol and her husband, Rudy, were raising three very young daughters in Los Angeles.
According to the documentary, the oldest child was only around two and a half years old.
The family was financially strained and living in a very small converted space while trying to make everything work.
Rudy describes Carol as the person handling the overwhelming majority of the childcare and household responsibilities.
He also speaks about her with an incredible amount of regret.
At one point, he essentially acknowledges that he wishes he had done more and recognized what was happening sooner.
Those interviews are some of the hardest parts of the documentary.
You’re watching someone look backward at the life he had and repeatedly ask himself what might have happened if he had recognized things differently.
The Warning Signs Became More Disturbing
The documentary describes Carol as having struggled with depression during previous pregnancies.
Her third pregnancy was reportedly physically difficult, and she was also severely sleep-deprived while caring for three young children.
There was financial pressure.
There was stress inside the home.
And according to those interviewed, Carol’s behavior began changing in ways that became increasingly concerning.
Family members described moments where she seemed emotionally absent or completely checked out.
There were also reports of strange behavior that was outside of her normal personality.
One of the most unsettling elements is hearing people describe those changes afterward, knowing what eventually happened.
The 20 Voicemails
One detail from Not Carol that has stayed with me is the series of calls Carol made to her mother.
According to the documentary, Carol called her mother approximately 20 times and left multiple voicemails on the day of the tragedy.
Her mother was working as a school bus driver and could not simply answer her phone while driving.
The documentary plays portions of those messages.
Carol sounds frightened.
She talks about things not feeling right.
She talks about being scared.
She asks her mother to call her and come over.
And again, this isn’t about blaming her mother.
There was no reasonable way for her to know exactly what was happening while she was at work.
That’s what makes the entire thing so devastating.
Everyone is looking backward.
The Tragedy
Carol’s mother eventually arrived at the home and discovered a horrifying scene.
The documentary describes Carol as being in an extremely disturbed mental state, and it became clear that her three daughters had been killed.
Carol also seriously injured herself.
I’m deliberately not going into all of the graphic details here because they are not necessary to understand why this documentary is so difficult to watch.
What matters is the scale of the tragedy and the questions that followed:
What was happening psychologically?
Were the warning signs understood?
Could something have been done sooner?
And legally, did Carol understand what she was doing?
The Insanity Defense Becomes the Central Question
That last question became crucial when Carol went to court.
The documentary discusses testimony and evaluations from mental-health professionals who examined her.
Her defense argued that her mental condition meant she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
The judge disagreed.
After a bench trial, Carol was found guilty, and the judge ultimately rejected the insanity defense, determining that she knew right from wrong at the time.
She received three consecutive life sentences, according to the documentary.
This is where Not Carol becomes much more than simply a documentary about one horrific case.
It raises an extremely difficult question:
How should the legal system respond when severe mental illness and devastating criminal acts intersect?
Other Women Tell Their Stories
Some of the most informative parts of Not Carol come from women who experienced severe postpartum mental-health symptoms themselves.
Several describe intrusive thoughts that frightened them because those thoughts felt completely disconnected from who they were and what they actually wanted.
Others describe overwhelming depression and emotional distress.
The documentary also introduces a woman who killed one of her children but received a very different legal outcome after being found not guilty by reason of insanity.
She later rebuilt her life and worked in an area connected with helping women experiencing postpartum issues.
That contrast makes the documentary’s legal questions even more complicated.
Two cases involving severe mental-health concerns can ultimately produce dramatically different outcomes.
Why I Kept Thinking About the Lindsay Clancy Case
Watching Not Carol while following the Lindsay Clancy case was particularly striking.
There are obviously different people, different facts, different jurisdictions, and different circumstances involved.
I am not saying the cases are identical.
But the documentary gave me more insight into some of the larger issues that come up when discussing postpartum psychosis, a bench trial, expert psychiatric testimony, and a possible insanity defense.
It almost felt like watching the aftermath of some of the questions currently being debated in another courtroom.
That was one of the main reasons I found Not Carol so fascinating.
The documentary helped put some of those legal and mental-health questions into a different context.
Is Not Carol Worth Watching?
Absolutely.
This is not an easy documentary.
It deals with the deaths of children, severe mental-health struggles, family regret, postpartum illness, and extremely complicated questions about criminal responsibility.
But I also think it’s one of those documentaries that can genuinely leave you knowing more than you did before you watched it.
If you’re following the Lindsay Clancy trial, I especially recommend it.
But even if you aren’t, anyone interested in true crime documentaries, court cases, the insanity defense, or real stories involving postpartum mental health will probably find something meaningful here.
Not Carol is upsetting, haunting, informative, and difficult to stop thinking about.
For me, that makes it worth watching.
What Do You Think?
Have you watched Not Carol?
Did the documentary change how you think about Carol Coronado’s case?
What did you think about the insanity-defense decision?
And if you’re also following the Lindsay Clancy case, did you notice some of the same parallels I did?
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