Several jurors appeared visibly emotional after the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy ended in a mistrial Friday, bringing weeks of testimony and seven days of deliberations to an abrupt conclusion without a verdict.
The 12-person jury had been asked to determine whether Clancy should be held criminally responsible for killing her three young children at the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home in January 2023.
Jurors ultimately could not reach the unanimous decision required under Massachusetts law.
Jean Casarez, a CNN correspondent reporting in Plymouth, Mass., on Friday afternoon, revealed that a colleague had firsthand insight into the sentiment among jurors during the trial.
“I can tell you from our producer in the courtroom that when the judge said ‘I want to tell you all how proud I am of you,’ there was one female juror that was nodding her head ‘No’ as he was saying all that,” Casarez said.
The panel deliberated for roughly 38 hours over seven days and repeatedly told Superior Court Judge William Sullivan that it was deadlocked. The jury consisted of nine women and three men.
According to Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, the jury was split 11-1, with 11 jurors prepared to find that Clancy was not criminally responsible for the killings and one male juror refusing to join them.
A note from the jury foreperson confirmed that there was a single holdout, although individual jurors were not formally polled in open court on their preferred verdict before the mistrial was declared.
The emotional toll of the deliberations was evident when Sullivan informed the panel that he was ending the trial.
WBZ-TV reporter Kristina Rex, who was inside the courtroom, reported that one female juror appeared particularly distraught when the judge announced the mistrial.
The woman bent forward, covered her face with her hands and shook her head after hearing Sullivan’s decision, according to Rex.
Another female juror wiped away tears, while a third appeared to be fighting back tears.
The reaction came after days of increasingly tense deliberations.
Jurors had repeatedly told Sullivan they were unable to reach a unanimous conclusion. At one point, the judge gave the panel a supplemental instruction commonly used when juries become deadlocked, urging members to reconsider their positions while making clear that no juror should abandon an honestly held belief solely to reach a verdict.
The situation became more complicated when the foreperson sent a note raising concerns about the lone holdout juror.
Reddington argued that the juror was refusing to properly apply the legal standard of reasonable doubt and asked Sullivan to investigate whether the juror was following the court’s instructions.
Sullivan declined to remove the juror, and Clancy’s attorneys made a last-minute appeal to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court seeking to prevent a mistrial while the dispute was examined.
The state’s highest court rejected the emergency request Friday afternoon. Sullivan then brought the jury back into the courtroom and formally declared the case a mistrial.
The trial had lasted more than five weeks and centered almost entirely on Clancy’s mental state at the time of the killings.
There was no dispute that Clancy killed her children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — on Jan. 24, 2023.
Clancy strangled the children with exercise bands inside the family home before attempting to take her own life by jumping from an upstairs window. She survived but suffered severe spinal injuries and is now paralyzed.
Prosecutors presented a sharply different interpretation.
They argued Clancy was depressed and experiencing anxiety but was not psychotic when she killed the children.
Prosecutors maintained that she planned the killings, understood what she was doing and took steps to create an opportunity to be alone with the children before attacking them.
Clancy remains in custody at Tewksbury Hospital, a state psychiatric facility where she has been held for more than three years.
Her next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 29, when prosecutors could provide more information about whether they intend to seek another trial.
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