Following a mistrial in Plymouth Superior Court on September 4, jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder case have revealed deep divisions during deliberations, centered on a lone holdout juror. The deliberations stalled over claims of postpartum psychosis, while subsequent reports raised questions about the juror’s background.
Deliberations Break Down in Plymouth Superior Court
The murder trial of 36-year-old Lindsay Clancy ended in a mistrial declared by Judge William F. Sullivan after a Plymouth Superior Court jury spent more than 38 hours across roughly a week attempting to reach a verdict. The jury of nine women and three men overwhelmingly favored finding Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, according to at least five members who spoke publicly after the mistrial.
Clancy has not denied strangling her three children—Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months—in the basement of their Duxbury home on January 24, 2023, before attempting suicide by jumping from a second-story window. Her defense, led by attorney Kevin Reddington, argued she suffered from a severe psychotic break driven by postpartum depression and anxiety. Prosecutors countered that she deliberately planned the killings and understood her actions were wrong.
While 11 jurors concluded the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy was mentally competent at the time, one male juror refused to join them in an acquittal. Jurors interviewed after the mistrial described a fractured deliberation room where the holdout frequently refused to engage.
Another juror, Nick Dargie, told Good Morning America
that the holdout used an empty water bottle and an exercise band—the latter entered as evidence during the trial—to reenact the strangulations during discussions. Dargie called the gesture shocking and noted the juror failed to point to specific evidence or testimony to support his conviction stance.
Disclosures Concerning Domestic Violence Allegations and Housing Court Records
In the wake of the mistrial, investigative reporting from NBC10 Boston revealed that the lone holdout juror had a prior history of domestic violence allegations and an active restraining order against him while serving on the high-profile trial. Court records and police reports show the juror was charged with assault in September 2021 out of Brockton District Court after his 13-year-old nephew called 911. According to the police report, the juror grabbed his then-wife by the throat and threw her into a dresser. That criminal charge was later dismissed after the couple divorced, and the ex-wife stated she declined to testify out of fear of losing custody of her daughter.
Last year, the same nephew obtained a restraining order against his uncle after alleging the juror knocked him to the ground and repeatedly punched him in the face. The teenager stated in court documents that his uncle told him he had ruined his life by calling the police. That restraining order remained active while the juror sat through weeks of evidence in the Clancy trial.
Legal analysts questioned how the juror was seated given Massachusetts standard juror questionnaires, which ask prospective jurors to disclose arrests, criminal charges, and active court orders. Michael Coyne, chief legal analyst for NBC10 Boston, stated that prosecutors would likely need to review whether the questionnaire was answered truthfully.
Simultaneously, housing court records showed the juror faced an eviction proceeding. His landlord stated that rent payments stopped last March for a two-bedroom unit, and a default judgment for more than $12,000 in unpaid rent was awarded to the landlord while the jury was deliberating.
Impact on Jurors and Uncertainty Over a Retrial
Jurors who spoke publicly described the outcome as devastating. Paula Devlin, 65, told The Boston Globe that watching a video interview of Clancy discussing her mental state convinced her that the defendant experienced a destructive delusion that her children would be better off if she were gone. Devlin expressed regret that the panel could not finalize a verdict that would have committed Clancy to a state psychiatric hospital for evaluation.
Devlin and other panel members also reported facing a barrage of online threats and social media backlash since speaking about their service. Meanwhile, prosecutors face the decision of whether to retry Clancy on the same first-degree murder charges before a new jury, a step that would restart courtroom proceedings as the legal system weighs the unresolved questions surrounding the mistrial.
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