PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Jurors in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy remained deadlocked Wednesday after nearly 30 hours of deliberations, prompting a Massachusetts judge to issue a rarely used instruction urging them to continue trying to reach a unanimous verdict. The 12-member jury, which has twice reported that it could not agree, was sent home Wednesday without a verdict and is scheduled to resume deliberations Thursday.
Superior Court Judge William Sullivan first questioned the 12 deliberating jurors and six alternates individually after concerns arose about possible outside influence. Court records said Sullivan found that all jurors remained “fair and impartial.” A woman was arrested earlier in the week after authorities accused her of improperly filming jurors outside the Plymouth courthouse, adding another complication to a trial that has attracted intense public and media attention.
Sullivan later delivered what Massachusetts courts call a Tuey-Rodriguez charge, an instruction generally reserved for juries struggling to reach agreement. It asks jurors to reconsider their positions and listen carefully to opposing views without surrendering an honestly held conviction simply to produce a verdict. If the panel ultimately concludes that unanimity is impossible, Sullivan could declare a mistrial, leaving prosecutors to decide whether to try the case again.
Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse, is charged in the January 2023 deaths of her children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, at the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She does not dispute killing the children, but her attorneys contend she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis and should be found not guilty because she lacked criminal responsibility. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington argued during closing statements that Clancy’s “mind was gone” when the children were killed. Prosecutors counter that her actions showed planning and awareness, including arranging for her husband to leave the house shortly before the killings.
The case has become part of a wider debate in the United States and abroad over postpartum mental illness and how criminal courts should evaluate defendants experiencing severe psychiatric disorders after childbirth. It has also drawn comparisons with the case of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children in 2001 and was ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity at a 2006 retrial. In Clancy’s case, jurors heard weeks of conflicting medical testimony as they considered whether mental illness prevented her from understanding the criminal nature of her actions. More than 80 witnesses testified and about 300 exhibits were introduced during the trial.
Clancy was left paralyzed after jumping from an upstairs window in what authorities described as a suicide attempt following the children’s deaths. Jurors may consider first- or second-degree murder, manslaughter or verdicts finding her not criminally responsible. A first-degree murder conviction could result in life imprisonment without parole, while a finding that she lacked criminal responsibility could result in psychiatric confinement rather than a traditional prison sentence. For now, the closely watched case remains unresolved as jurors prepare for a sixth day of deliberations.
