Juror says holdout in Lindsay Clancy trial acknowledged doubt but refused acquittal

A lone juror prevented an acquittal for Lindsay Clancy despite acknowledging reasonable doubt about her guilt, the jury’s foreperson said in an interview aired Tuesday by Boston’s NBC10. The interview came four days after a judge declared a mistrial because jurors could not unanimously decide whether Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three young children in 2023.

Clancy, 36, a former labour and delivery nurse, did not dispute killing the children. Her lawyer said she had lost control of her mind because of postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness associated with the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes after childbirth. Prosecutors said she acted deliberately when she strangled five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan Clancy with exercise bands, after arranging for her husband to leave the house to collect medicine for a child and dinner for the family.

Foreperson Ronni Carlson said she believed the group had persuaded the juror seeking conviction to support an acquittal and had begun completing and signing the three required forms. She said he then maintained that, despite reasonable doubt, he would not find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity. Carlson said Clancy’s journals and testimony from her former mother-in-law showed she loved her children, which she viewed as evidence that Clancy had snapped and did not know what she was doing.

The judge has temporarily sealed the jurors’ names, and the holdout juror has not publicly described the deliberations. During 21 days of testimony, jurors heard from family members and medical providers about Clancy’s deteriorating mental health after the birth of her youngest child. They told the judge three times that they could not reach a unanimous decision, while Carlson also complained that one juror was not following instructions about reasonable doubt. Judge William Sullivan questioned the jurors, repeated those instructions and directed them to continue deliberating.

Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, has said he believes she would have been acquitted but for one juror. A murder conviction could have brought a life sentence. An acquittal could have allowed the judge to order her confined in a mental-health facility until an assessment found she would no longer pose a danger to the public if released.