Lindsay Clancy murder trial: jury deadlocked after four days of deliberations

Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial told the judge they could not reach a unanimous verdict. The judge has ordered them to continue deliberating.

Clancy jury deadlocked on fourth day, sent back to deliberate

The jury in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy — the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children in 2023 — told the court Tuesday it had failed to reach a unanimous decision after four days of deliberations, Toronto Sun Crime reports.

Judge William Sullivan ordered the nine women and three men on the jury to return to the deliberation room and continue their work.

"I know that this was a long trial," Sullivan said. "I know there were over 80 witnesses, over 300 exhibits. But because of that, I'm going to ask you to go back out, keeping in mind all the instructions that I gave you."

Neither the prosecution nor Clancy's defence attorney, Kevin Reddington, objected to the judge's instruction. Under Massachusetts law, a judge may send the jury back to deliberate no more than two times without the jury's consent. Should the panel ultimately fail to agree, Sullivan could declare a mistrial — allowing the state to retry Clancy before a new jury.

Clancy killed her three children — five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan — in January 2023. She does not dispute that she caused their deaths. Her defence has argued that she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis at the time and could not distinguish right from wrong.

Sullivan instructed the jury to consider murder in the first degree as the primary charge, while also leaving open the option of a second-degree murder conviction. He noted that the presence of mental illness does not necessarily preclude a finding of the intent required for first-degree murder.

The jury has four possible outcomes before it: a conviction for first-degree murder, a conviction for second-degree murder, a conviction for the lesser charge of manslaughter, or an acquittal on grounds of insanity and lack of criminal responsibility. In the latter scenario, the court would determine whether Clancy should be released or committed to a psychiatric facility. A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

The case has drawn comparisons to that of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in a bathtub in Texas in 2001. Yates's defence similarly argued postpartum psychosis, claiming she believed killing her children would save them from hell. She was initially convicted of murder, but that conviction was overturned on appeal. In a retrial, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state psychiatric hospital.

Source: Toronto Sun Crime