Mistrial declared in Lindsay Clancy case after jury remains divided over deaths of her three children | Today’s news
A judge declared Friday bad after a jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the high-profile case of an American woman who killed her three young children.
Lindsay Clancy’s case ends in an unfortunate incident after the jury is deadlocked
Lindsay Clancy, 36, admitted strangling five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan, but argued she should be acquitted because she suffered from postpartum psychosis.
After seven days of deliberations, the nine-woman, three-man jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision, as required by a criminal trial in the United States.
Eleven jurors were in favor of finding Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, but dissented on a single charge.
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“At this point, I will declare the jury deadlocked and declare a mistrial,” Judge William Sullivan said.
Prosecutors must now decide whether to retry the case to a new jury.
“I will make that decision soon,” Tim Cruz, the state’s attorney for Plymouth County, Massachusetts, told reporters.
Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s attorney, said his client and other jurors were disappointed the man refused to vote for acquittal.
“They were robbed by one man for whatever his agenda was,” Reddington told reporters. “I hope the guy can sleep well at night.
Clancy will remain in a mental institution pending a possible new trial.
Her televised trial, which featured more than 80 witnesses and days of harrowing testimony, sparked a debate in the United States about maternal mental health and drew a response from President Donald Trump on Friday.
“It’s a terrible tragedy,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I suppose there will be another trial.
Clancy pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and said she heard a voice commanding her to kill her children.
Her lawyers said it was caused by postpartum psychosis, a condition that medical experts say affects about one to two women in every 1,000 births.
Prosecutors rejected that argument, saying Clancy carefully planned the murders of her children and was capable of understanding the consequences of her actions.
Among the witnesses who testified about her fragile mental health were psychiatrists and people close to Clancy, as well as her ex-husband.
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How Lindsay Clancy received ‘lousy medical care’ before the murders
Dozens of women in pink turned up at Plymouth Court to support Clancy – and to speak out more generally about women’s health.
During closing arguments, Reddington, Clancy’s attorney, said she made numerous pleas for help before the murders, but received “lousy medical care” from the doctors she consulted.
After the murders at the family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts in January 2023, Clancy cut her neck and wrists and jumped from a second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt that left her paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair.
The former nurse faced life in prison without the possibility of parole if found guilty of first-degree murder.
Jurors also had the option of finding Clancy guilty of second-degree murder, manslaughter, or not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility — a verdict that would have put her in a mental institution.
The trial revived memories of a similar case that also gripped the country 25 years ago, that of Andrea Yates, a Texas mother who drowned her five children in 2001.
Yates was originally convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a retrial in 2006 and committed to a psychiatric hospital.
