PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Three jurors who sat through the high-profile murder trial of Lindsay Clancy have broken their silence, revealing that a single male holdout prevented an 11-1 majority from finding the Duxbury mother not guilty by reason of insanity — even after he conceded he had reasonable doubt.
The dramatic details emerged in an exclusive NBC Boston interview days after Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on September 4 following nearly 40 hours of deliberations over seven days.
Clancy, 36, is charged with first-degree murder in the January 2023 deaths of her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan, whom she strangled with exercise bands in the family home before jumping from a second-story window. She survived with serious injuries. Her defense team, led by Kevin Reddington, did not dispute that she killed the children but argued she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis and therefore not criminally responsible.
Jury foreperson Roni Carlson described the moment she thought the panel had finally reached a verdict. “He admitted he had reasonable doubt and I started filling out the forms, I was so excited,” Carlson said of the lone holdout. She began signing the paperwork. Then, she said, the juror told the room: “But I’m still not going to say that she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.”
Fellow juror Kellie Farina put the disagreement in stark terms: the holdout “had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.” Paula Devlin called him “arrogant” and said he refused to engage with the rest of the panel or follow the judge’s instructions on reasonable doubt.
The jury of nine women and three men sent multiple notes to the court reporting they were deadlocked. One note indicated a single juror would not follow the law on the burden of proof. Reddington asked the judge to remove the holdout; Sullivan declined. An emergency appeal to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court was also denied.
Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz has not yet announced whether prosecutors will retry the case. A status hearing is set for September 29. Cruz has previously rejected suggestions that pursuing murder charges was “insensitive,” saying the obligation is to seek justice for the three children.
Clancy remains confined at Tewksbury State Hospital. Even if prosecutors ultimately drop the case or accept a plea, legal observers note she is likely to remain institutionalized for an extended period.
The revelations have intensified an already bitter public debate over accountability, postpartum mental illness, and whether a mother who killed her own children should be found not criminally responsible. The lone holdout’s refusal to sign off on the insanity verdict, despite acknowledging doubt, has been praised by some as a stand for the victims and criticized by others as defiance of the court’s instructions.
Prosecutors must now decide whether to start over with a new jury or seek another resolution. For the families of Cora, Dawson and Callan, and for a watching public, the case remains unresolved.
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