A lone holdout juror repeatedly lectured his fellow jurors about “respect” while refusing to explain why he would not clear Lindsay Clancy over the deaths of her three children, one of the jurors has said.
Paula Devlin, 65, said the unnamed man focused on interruptions during the week-long deliberations in Massachusetts, but offered little explanation for his belief that Clancy should not be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
His refusal to join the other 11 jurors resulted in a mistrial in the closely watched case after more than 37 hours of deliberations at Plymouth Superior Court.
Devlin said the juror would become angry when members of the panel spoke over one another or completed someone else’s sentence.
“He would get upset and say, ‘Listen to what she’s saying, listen to what he’s saying, be respectful’,” she told the Daily Mail.
She said the panel tried to explain that interrupting or helping someone find a word was normal conversation, but the juror would use the incidents to lecture the group.
When the jurors asked him to set out the reasons for his position, Devlin said he initially refused to write anything on the board. Another juror eventually recorded his points as he spoke.
One issue, she said, was the amount of blood found in the bedroom of the Clancy family’s home in Duxbury, near Boston, after the killings.
“He thought there was too much blood in the bedroom,” Devlin said. “He said that he thought there was too much blood for the wounds that she had.”
The other jurors questioned him about evidence from a blood expert, who had explained the blood spatter found at the property. Devlin said the holdout did not provide a detailed response linking his concern to his refusal to acquit Clancy.
“I feel that he didn’t make any sense,” she said. “If he could have pointed to one specific thing to show us, to back up what he was thinking or why he was thinking it, then all of us would have a different feeling.”
Devlin said the jury’s view was that the evidence did not establish Clancy’s criminal responsibility beyond reasonable doubt. She accused the holdout of failing to apply that legal standard, while acknowledging that she could not know whether he fully understood it.
Clancy, a former labour and delivery nurse, has admitted strangling five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan with exercise bands on 24 January 2023. She has argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis after being prescribed multiple medications and should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Her husband, Patrick Clancy, had left the family home to collect medicine and takeaway food. When he returned less than an hour later, he found the bedroom door locked and forced his way inside.
He discovered blood on the floor, a knife on the bedside table and an open window. Clancy was later found outside with cuts to her wrists and neck. She told him she had tried to kill herself and that the children were in the basement.
Clancy survived but was left paralysed and now uses a wheelchair.
Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on Friday 4 September after the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision. The case remains unresolved, and Clancy has not been convicted of the killings.
Her lawyer, Kevin Reddington, has said he intends to ask for the case to be dismissed on double-jeopardy grounds at a hearing scheduled for 29 September. Prosecutors could otherwise seek a retrial.
Devlin said the jurors felt “defeat” and “anger” when it became clear that unanimity would not be possible.
“We felt defeated, and I can’t lie, there was definitely anger,” she said.
The most difficult evidence for the panel included Patrick Clancy’s emergency call, the circumstances surrounding Clancy’s fall from the bedroom window and the medication she had been taking.
Devlin said she would never forget the sounds Patrick made when he found the children. She also recalled Clancy’s reaction to evidence about the post-mortem examinations.
“Will I ever forget the sobs that came out of Lindsay just hearing someone talk about the autopsy and the things that they had to do and the things that they found?” she said.
Despite the distressing evidence, Devlin said the jurors attempted to separate emotion from their legal duties. She described Clancy as someone who appeared to be loved by many people, including her husband, who did not give evidence intended to portray her negatively.
“There’s something about Lindsay that makes you really want to like her,” Devlin said, adding that the jury had seen her crying and reacting to testimony from inside the courtroom.
She said the jurors had been unaware of the scale of public interest in the case while the trial was under way, but understood the wider significance of the issues surrounding postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis and the treatment of women who ask for help.
“Everybody wants justice for the Clancy children,” Devlin said. “They deserve justice.”
