Deadlocked jury in Lindsay Clancy trial goes home after a fifth day
without a verdict
[September 03, 2026]
By MICHAEL CASEY and LEAH WILLINGHAM
PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial went home
without a verdict Wednesday following a fifth day of deliberations and
twice saying they can’t agree whether the Massachusetts mother is
criminally responsible for killing her three young children.
The jury will return again Thursday morning. The judge told jurors to
keep deliberating Wednesday when they said for a second straight day
that they were at an impasse — a sign there’s a growing chance of a hung
jury and the trial ending without a resolution.
Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny
strangling her children in the basement of their home in 2023. Her
attorney argues that postpartum psychosis led to her actions, while
prosecutors say she knew what she was doing when she killed Cora, Dawson
and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months.
“I know it’s been a long day,” Judge William Sullivan said, “so at this
point, what I’m going to do is, first off thank you for your time and
commitment to this case. I’m going to ask you to come back tomorrow
morning."
Clancy stared at the jury with no expression when Sullivan earlier in
the day explained to the courtroom that the jurors were at a standstill.
Judge tells the jury to keep trying for a verdict
Earlier in the day, the jury sent the court a note saying it couldn't
unanimously agree on a verdict, despite days of trying. The jury had
sent a similar note Tuesday morning. Neither note revealed anything
about how the jury might be split or said anything about the tone of
deliberations.
Sullivan then gave the jury a legal instruction sometimes known as a
“dynamite charge” because it is intended to help a jury break through an
impasse.
He told the jurors not to abandon their own convictions just to reach a
verdict, but urged them to seriously consider opposing views and
reassess their positions if appropriate. No one knows, he added, whether
another jury would be “more intelligent, more impartial or more
competent to decide it than you are.”
Such instructions are common in many states and the U.S. Supreme Court
has upheld their constitutionality, but they are barred in some states
because of concerns they might be coercive.
Elyse Hershon, a Boston criminal defense attorney and legal analyst,
said, “The next time they say they are deadlocked or unagreed — that is
usually the mistrial call.”
The trial featured split views on Clancy's mental health
Clancy’s livestreamed trial has generated intense interest, with
reporters and spectators packing the courtroom. The case has also
sparked deep public divisions over her culpability and the issues around
maternal mental health after childbirth.
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Lindsay Clancy reacts to news that a woman was arrested for
recording images of the jury at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth,
Mass., Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via
AP, Pool)
Clancy strangled her children in her home, then jumped from a
second-floor window. She remains paralyzed from the waist down. Her
lawyers say she heard a voice telling her to kill the children so
she could end her own life, and had bipolar disorder and postpartum
psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth.
The prosecution argued that Clancy planned to kill herself because
of depression, deliberately sent her then-husband on errands to get
him out of the house that day, and killed the children because she
didn't want them to suffer after she was gone.
Jurors heard testimony from relatives and doctors about how Clancy’s
mental health declined in the months before the killings and how her
treatment included therapy, several medications and a short stay in
a psychiatric hospital.
If jurors ultimately can’t agree on a verdict, the judge could
declare a mistrial. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to
put Clancy on trial again, drop the charges or try to negotiate a
plea deal with her lawyer.
If the jury decides Clancy was criminally responsible for her
actions, it could convict her of either murder or manslaughter. If
she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental
health facility if an evaluation determines that she poses a danger
to the public.
Massachusetts woman is charged with filming the jury
Dawn Light, 56, was arraigned on an intimidation charge Wednesday at
the same courthouse as Clancy's trial in Plymouth, south of Boston.
Authorities say she filmed jurors leaving the courthouse a day
earlier.
Light, a retired nurse and Clancy supporter, told reporters she was
there: “To see Lindsay. And I did see her. She was getting picked up
by the van.”
Her lawyer Jennifer White called it a “misunderstanding.”
A not-guilty plea was entered on Light's behalf and she was ordered
to stay away from the court, jurors and witnesses.
The arrest prompted the judge to ask each juror Wednesday if they
saw anything that would affect their impartiality, Clancy’s attorney
Kevin Reddington told The Associated Press. The judge also opened
the day's proceedings with a warning that he had issued an order
governing how people should conduct themselves at the courthouse.
That order barred people from filming, following, contacting or
tampering with jurors.
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