A murder trial that ran five weeks ended in a mistrial Friday.
Eleven of twelve jurors voted to clear Lindsay Clancy by reason of insanity. The lone holdout was a man. He refused to join the other eleven, and Judge William Sullivan declared a deadlock.
Clancy, 36, was charged with killing her three young children at the family's home in Duxbury, Massachusetts in January 2023. She acknowledged strangling Cora, age 5, Dawson, age 3, and Callan, who was 8 months old. Her defense argued that postpartum psychosis left her unable to understand what she was doing.
The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for seven days. They logged more than 36 hours of talks before reporting they were stuck 11 to 1.
Emotions inside the courtroom were raw. A CNN producer present described several female jurors falling apart as the judge informed them of the mistrial. One juror shook her head. Another clenched her fists. A third would not open her eyes.
The foreperson told the court the holdout "has made statements acknowledging doubt, but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states."
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington blasted the holdout outside the courthouse. He said the man "stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors." He thanked the rest of the panel "minus one" and declared, "I won the case." Reddington also filed an emergency appeal with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, accusing the holdout of being biased against people with mental illness. Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt declined to step in.
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague called the deadlock normal deliberation. "What we have here is a note that indicates a disagreement about how to weigh the evidence," she said. "And that's deliberation."
President Donald Trump called the case "a horrible tragedy" and said he expected another trial.
Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz now must decide whether to retry Clancy. "I'll be making that decision shortly," Cruz said.
Postpartum psychosis is a recognized medical condition. It can cause hallucinations and a loss of touch with reality. Whether it clears the legal bar for an insanity defense is a harder question. If Cruz retries the case, that debate goes before a new jury. Watch for his announcement in the days ahead.