The judge in the Lindsay Clancy case declared a mistrial after jurors weighing the Massachusetts mother’s fate failed to reach a unanimous verdict on whether she was criminally responsible for murdering her three children by strangling them to death in 2023.
The mistrial on the seventh day of deliberation means prosecutors can retry the case. The jury, made up of nine women and three men, deliberated for seven days following five weeks of testimony.
Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, fought against a mistrial, asking for a final emergency appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Reddington argued that the holdout juror was “biased and refusing to follow the court’s instructions on reasonable doubt.”
Judge William Sullivan gave the defense attorney time to file the appeal, but the emergency appeal was denied by Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt, according to CBS News Boston.
With the mistrial declared, Clancy will return to Tewksbury Hospital, the psychiatric facility where she has been held for the past three years, to await next steps in the case.
A hearing has been set for Sept. 29 to determine how the case will proceed, according to ABC News.
Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz spoke to reporters outside the courthouse, saying that there wouldn’t be an immediate decision about whether to seek the second trial.
“I understand that this has been an emotional trial for everyone,” said Cruz, who added that as a father and grandfather, he couldn’t imagine the heartache and grief the families have been wading through. “This was and has always been about getting justice for those beautiful babies. Children were murdered, and it’s our job to seek justice.”
Clancy supports standing behind Cruz shook their heads in disagreement, and one shouted at him, saying, “You only care when the kids are dead. What about the mother?”
Cruz added, “I appreciate the fact that there are strong feelings and opinions tied to this case. However, our job is to set aside our feelings and focus solely on the facts. The facts are Lindsay Clancy killed her three children and the evidence suggested to us that she was in control of her actions when she committed those homicides.
“Our court system is built to weigh our views and those of defense counsel and figure out whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. We did our part, and I’m proud of the part of the work we did in this prosecution because this case is not about a healthcare system or about how women are treated in it or which diagnoses are on the DSM or what is not,” he said. “
“It is our job to make sure that the victims are not invisible, to make sure that they have not been forgotten, and to make sure that we stand for them in the way that we seek justice. And that’s what I think we’ve done in this case.”
Reddington, who said he became as close to Clancy as a father is to a daughter over these last three years, also spoke with reporters and said he had “strong faith” in the jurors in Clancy’s trial.
“They were just incredible. No, I don’t even think it makes a difference that they were home with their families,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “I don’t believe these people violated any of the judge’s orders. They were honest. They were hardworking, and no, I don’t think it makes a difference.”
He added, “They spent seven weeks of their life on this case, and they were robbed too,” he claimed, noting that each juror was paid $50 a day and “had to sit there and go through this horrific stuff. And no, they don’t give them any counseling. They (the court) don’t give them any care. They don’t give them anything. They just say, ‘Thank you for your service and see you later.'”
When asked by a reporter what the public can take away from the trial, Reddington replied, “Be careful of who you choose for a psychiatrist. If you see that they advertise that they’re an expert in a particular field, check their background. Just don’t blindly believe what you see online, and maybe don’t do the teledummies that much.”
Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, is facing murder charges for the Jan. 24, 2023, deaths of her three children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan.
Her trial has received significant attention from the media and from women who have experienced postpartum struggles and feel empathy for the Massachusetts mother.
Following the conclusion of jury deliberations on Monday, Reddington said that his client has received enough letters of support to fill three mailboxes.
Clancy pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, with her defense attorney arguing that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time. Prosecutors argue that Clancy planned the murders and sent her husband to pick up takeout and stop by the pharmacy before murdering their children and attempting suicide.
Earlier during the trial, about 300 women and some men rallied outside the Plymouth courthouse to express their support for Clancy. Many of the demonstrators wore pink shirts emblazoned with phrases such as “Believe,” “She Needed Help” and “Peace For Lindsay.”
Most of the women assembled said that they empathized with Clancy, and they believe her case has put a spotlight on postpartum mental health and the difficulties women can face when seeking treatment.
Renee Kimball from Maine, who served as the event’s lead organizer, believes that every woman can identify with Clancy’s situation.
“ I think that every one of us women believe that it could be any one of us,” Kimball said in a statement to WBUR at the time. “Any one of us who have dealt with mental health, anxiety, depression, postpartum, I think we just know that any one of us could be sitting in her chair.”
Others, such as pro-life advocate Abby Johnson, argue that many people have allowed a sense of “misguided compassion” to fuel their feelings.
“I think that people are using their own experiences with postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, and they’re linking it to what Clancy did, and they’re saying, ‘Oh, that could have been me,’” the former Planned Parenthood clinic director-turned-pro-life advocate told The Christian Post.
“But that’s actually not true; most women who have postpartum psychosis do not kill their children,” she added. “Most women who are sympathizing with Clancy are not women who would have gone through the act of strangling three of their children.”
While the advocate and founder of the 24-hour national support hotline called LoveLine agrees that mothers need support after having a baby, she still believes that Clancy must be held accountable for murdering her three children.
“I believe that we have cracks in our mental health system. I believe absolutely all of those things can be true, but I also believe at the same time that Lindsay Clancy is guilty of murder,” said Johnson, who is a mother of eight children.
Johnson also condemned what she described as “conspiracy rot,” noting that many have taken to sharing theories online about the Clancy case. One such theory is that Clancy did not murder her children, but her husband did it and framed his wife.
The pro-life advocate suggested that one reason people feel the need to come up with theories about the case is that they cannot accept that a mother murdered her three children with exercise bands in the basement.
“There is evil in this world that people deny because they cannot believe that something that evil could exist, but it does,” Johnson declared.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
