The jury in the criminal trial for Lindsay Clancy was sent back into deliberations on Tuesday after telling the judge they couldn't reach a unanimous decision on the fate of the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children in 2023.
Jurors have spent three days — a half day on Thursday and two full days — deliberating in the case without reaching a verdict.
If Clancy is found guilty of first-degree murder, she will face life in prison without parole. The jury could also decide to find her guilty of lesser charges of second-degree murder or manslaughter.
But if the jury finds her not criminally responsible for killing her children, better known as an insanity plea, Clancy would likely spend her life in a mental health facility.
During the course of the 22-day trial, the group of jurors heard from more than 70 witnesses for the prosecution and 10 witnesses for the defense.
Clancy and her defense claimed she had been suffering from a condition known as postpartum psychosis, as well as bipolar disorder, and repeatedly sought help for her mental health struggles. They did not dispute that she killed her children, but argued that the former labor and delivery nurse was not criminally responsible for the children’s deaths because she was not in her right mind and the health system had failed her.
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However, prosecutors said on the night of Jan. 24, 2023, she made up a ruse to get her then-husband Patrick Clancy out of the house so she could strangle their three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — with exercise bands.
When Patrick arrived home that night after picking up a prescription from CVS and takeout food, he found Lindsay lying in the snow outside their second-story bedroom window, covered in blood and called 911 before finding the kids unresponsive in the basement.
Jurors did a walk-through at the scene of the crime early in the trial, something that is rare in criminal cases but not unheard of.
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Other juror excursions have happened in several high-profile cases, including the 2023 murder trial of South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, the 2022 sentencing trial of Parkland, Florida, school shooter Nikolas Cruz, the 2015 Massachusetts murder trial of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez and the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson.
In Clancy’s trial, jurors were driven past the two businesses in Duxbury where Patrick Clancy was at the time of the killings. Then, they were escorted in groups of six inside and around the family’s former home for approximately 40 minutes.
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