PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial said Tuesday they’ve been unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether the Massachusetts mother was criminally responsible for killing her three young children, but the judge told them to keep trying.
The jury has been deliberating for more than three full days in what has been a closely watched trial focused on maternal mental health after childbirth and has stirred deep divisions among the public.
This was the first time the jury gave any indication they were at an impasse. Clancy stared straight ahead as the jury entered and then looked toward them as the judge spoke to the panel.
“I know that this was a long trial, all right,” Judge William Sullivan said. “I know there were over 80 witnesses. There were over 300 exhibits. But because of that, I’m going to ask you to go back out.”
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny strangling her children but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing. Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.
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The jury could convict her of murder or manslaughter, or acquit her if jurors believe her deteriorating mental health was to blame. A conviction could lead to a life prison sentence. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines she is a danger to the public.
The jury began deliberating on Thursday afternoon. There has been little indication of whether they are making progress, outside of asking on Friday to look at a knife that Clancy used to cut herself and bags with empty prescription pill bottles found in her house.
Clancy’s lawyer argued at the trial that she loved her children, but killed them because she lost her grip on reality — and on herself — due to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth. In the months before the killings, Clancy sought treatment for her worsening mental health, including a stay in a psychiatric hospital.
Prosecutors said Clancy strangled the children because she was depressed and tired of living, and made a conscious choice to kill them before attempting suicide.
During more than four weeks of testimony, jurors heard differing views from medical experts about Clancy’s mental state after the birth of her third child and her culpability.
Both Clancy’s mother and sister testified that she became anxious, paranoid and suicidal.
Clancy had sought treatment from multiple providers and checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in the months before killing Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months.
Less than three weeks after being discharged, she sent her husband out on an errand and killed the children with exercise bands in the basement of their home south of Boston. She then jumped from a second-floor window and remains paralyzed from the waist down.
A forensic psychologist who testified for the prosecution said he concluded that Clancy killed the children because she wanted to kill herself but didn’t want to leave them behind.
A psychologist who took the stand for the defense said Clancy didn’t recognize the “wrongfulness” of killing her children because of her mental health issues.
Clancy chose not to testify. She watched the proceedings from the defense table, occasionally weeping, as when prosecutors showed autopsy photos of the children to the jury.
Jurors spent two days listening to testimony from her former husband, Patrick Clancy, and his anguished 911 call. He was still on the phone when he discovered the children’s bodies, minutes after finding his wife badly injured in the yard.
Patrick Clancy has said in interviews that he forgives his ex-wife, whom he viewed as ill rather than evil. The trial marks the first time he has seen Lindsay Clancy since the killings.
Postpartum psychosis, the condition that Clancy’s attorney says she had when she killed the children, is more serious and less common than postpartum depression.
Researchers estimate that the condition afflicts 1 to 2 out of 1,000 women after delivery. Although most who develop it don’t harm their children, mothers with severe cases might try to harm themselves or their kids.
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