A mistrial has been declared in the case of Lindsay Clancy after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict over the deaths of her three children.
Clancy was accused of strangling her three children Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan at their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023, before jumping from a second-floor window.
The former labour and delivery nurse, now 36, was left paralysed from the fall and attended the trial in a wheelchair. She had sent her husband, Patrick, out to run errands before he returned home to find the children dead in the basement.
Jury deadlock after 38 hours of deliberation
Jurors spent more than 38 hours deliberating before telling the court for a third time that they were unable to reach a unanimous decision.
Judge William Sullivan told the jury: “At this point, I'm going to declare that the jury is deadlocked, and I'm going to declare a mistrial,” before discharging them.
Central issue: mental state at the time
Clancy’s mental state at the time of the killings became the central issue during the trial.
Her defence argued she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible for her children’s deaths, while prosecutors argued she had deliberately killed the three youngsters.
Clancy has not denied killing her children, but pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder.
Evidence and testimony in court
The trial heard evidence from more than 80 witnesses and saw around 300 exhibits presented to the jury.
Clancy's attorneys, while defending her, had never rejected her role in the killings.
Putting forth a defence of insanity, they argued that Clancy had hallucinations and delusions after giving birth to her youngest child.
They pointed to treatment for mental health problems, adding that she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital just days before the deaths.
Prosecution and family testimony
Prosecutors, meanwhile, argued Clancy made a calculated decision to intentionally kill her children. They allege that at the time, Clancy sent Patrick out on errands so that he would not be home.
Patrick, who has since remarried, told the court about Lindsay’s declining mental health following the birth of their youngest son, with the "big spiral" starting around a month before the killings.
"She started to lose a lot of weight, and she became very depressed, and she was having a really hard time," he said.
Patrick said she had intermittently sought help from doctors and had been taking various medications.
He also told jurors he recalled her saying she was beginning to have thoughts of suicide.
The jury had previously told Judge William Sullivan it was struggling to reach a unanimous decision before returning without a verdict for a third time.
Judge Sullivan said: "I’m going to declare a mistrial at this point," before Clancy’s defence asked for the declaration to be temporarily stayed while it sought emergency relief from a higher court.
