A lone juror prevented Lindsay Clancy from being acquitted after acknowledging he had reasonable doubt but refusing to find her not guilty by reason of insanity, according to the jury foreperson.
Ronni Carlson described the breakdown in deliberations in an interview with NBC10 Boston, days after a judge declared a mistrial when the 12-member panel failed to reach a unanimous decision over whether Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023. ([theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/08/lindsay-clancy-juror-trial))
“He admitted he had reasonable doubt,” Carlson said. “I started filling out the forms. I was so excited.”
She said the juror then told the panel: “But I’m still not going to say that she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.”
Another juror, Paula Devlin, described the man as “very arrogant”, saying: “He really did not take anything that anybody said.” The juror has not been publicly identified and has not given his own account of the deliberations.
The jury sent three notes to Judge William Sullivan saying it could not agree. Carlson also complained that one member was not following the court’s instructions on reasonable doubt. The judge questioned the jurors, repeated his legal directions and ordered them to continue deliberating, but the deadlock remained.
Clancy, 36, a former labour and delivery nurse from Duxbury, Massachusetts, has never disputed killing her children. Her defence argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, a severe mental illness associated with childbirth, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes.
Prosecutors maintained that Clancy understood what she was doing and deliberately killed five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan. They alleged that she arranged for her husband to leave the family home before the killings by asking him to collect medication and dinner.
During 21 days of evidence, jurors heard testimony about Clancy’s deteriorating mental health after the birth of her youngest child. Carlson said the evidence, including Clancy’s journals and testimony from her former mother-in-law, showed that she had been a loving and devoted parent.
“Everything proved she loved her children,” Carlson said. “So she had to have snapped and not known what she was doing.”
Juror Kellie Farina said the panel had also listened to the emergency call made by Clancy’s then-husband after he found the children. She described it as “the most horrific thing” and said the recording was played again during deliberations, leaving jurors in tears.
Clancy remains charged with murder and is being held at a psychiatric hospital while the case is unresolved. A status hearing has been scheduled for September 29, although prosecutors have not announced whether they will seek a second trial. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/bf675a5705897815848871d8885441b2))
