The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy has ended in a mistrial after jurors failed to agree whether the Massachusetts mother was criminally responsible for the deaths of her three children.
The 12-member jury reached an impasse after seven days of deliberations following a five-week trial at Plymouth Superior Court. Judge William Sullivan formally discharged the jury on Friday, 4 September, after it reported that it could not reach a unanimous decision.
Clancy, 36, has never disputed that she strangled her children at the family home in Duxbury in January 2023. Her defence argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not legally responsible for her actions.
Prosecutors maintained that the killings were deliberate and that Clancy understood what she was doing. The case centred not on whether she had killed the children, but on whether her mental state meant she should be held criminally accountable.
The jury had twice previously told the judge that it was unable to agree. Its final note said: “It is with a heavy heart that we report we are unable to come to a unanimous decision, and we will not be able to.”
A last-minute attempt by Clancy’s legal team to delay the mistrial was rejected by Massachusetts’ highest court. Her lawyers had argued that a juror was refusing to apply the law on reasonable doubt and should be questioned or removed.
Clancy’s defence lawyer, Kevin Reddington, claimed that one juror had prevented the panel from reaching what he said would have been an acquittal. Prosecutors opposed the request, saying there was no evidence of bias or outside influence.
Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said the office would decide whether to seek a retrial, stressing that the first-degree murder charges were appropriate. “Children were murdered, and it is our job to seek justice,” he said.
Clancy is expected to remain in a state psychiatric hospital, where she has been held for more than three years. A hearing scheduled for 29 September could determine whether prosecutors pursue a second trial, seek a plea agreement or continue with the case in another form.
The children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, were killed after Clancy’s husband, Patrick, left the house to collect takeaway food and visit a pharmacy. Clancy then jumped from a second-storey window and was left paralysed from the waist down.
A retrial would force the family to revisit the evidence and competing accounts of Clancy’s mental health. Patrick Clancy’s lawyer said the prospect of reliving the deaths through another trial would be “extraordinarily painful” for him and his family.
