Three jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial have spoken out about the "arrogant" holdout juror who blocked the mother's acquittal, describing tense deliberations that at times broke into "name-calling and yelling."
Clancy, 36, was charged with murder after the 2023 deaths of her children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. The former labour and delivery nurse did not deny strangling her children but said postpartum psychosis led to her actions. After seven days of deliberation, the trial was declared a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict.
Jurors describe heated deliberations
In an exclusive interview with NBC10 Boston, the three jurors said the atmosphere in the deliberation room was tense. Juror Paula Devlin said: "He was very arrogant, he really did not take anything that anybody said." The jury was made up of nine women and three men.
Juror Kellie Farina said most of them became frustrated at times and explained: "Everyone of us in the hours of our frustration would get up and walk the room because you just couldn't sit anymore. And we would all go to the cart with the exhibits." She added: "He, I think, got up to the cart once very briefly and went back to his seat. He would not interact with us and try to understand."
Holdout admitted reasonable doubt
The panel was split 11-to-1 in favour of finding Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, according to the jurors. Foreperson Roni Carlson said the holdout admitted he had reasonable doubt but still refused to vote to acquit.
Carlson said: "He had reasonable doubt, he admitted he had reasonable doubt after we watched that video of the interview, I think that's what it was. He admitted he had reasonable doubt, I started filling out the forms I was so excited and then he said, 'but I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity'." She added: "I was so sad, so sad that we couldn't come up with a verdict for Lindsay. It was so heartbreaking."
At times, the deliberations became so heated that six alternate jurors, held in a separate room, could hear the shouting and thought the panel was fighting. The holdout juror has not spoken out publicly.
Case remains unresolved
The seven-week trial came to a close on Friday, and the mistrial left the case unresolved, allowing prosecutors to potentially try Clancy again. In January 2023, Clancy strangled her three children to death at the family's home in coastal Duxbury, Massachusetts. The father, Patrick Clancy, discovered the dead children in the basement when he returned from running errands.
Clancy jumped from a window immediately after and remains paralysed from the waist down. Prosecutors conceded that Clancy had severe mental illness but insisted she was able to understand and control her actions.
The mum's lawyer, Kevin Reddington, never disputed that she killed the children but said she should not be held criminally responsible because she had postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth. After the mistrial was declared, Clancy returned to her pre-trial conditions at Tewksbury Hospital, a state-run psychiatric and medical facility in Massachusetts.
