Lindsay Clancy jury tells judge it cannot reach a unanimous verdict; deliberations continue
PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial told Judge William F. Sullivan on Tuesday morning, Sept. 1, 2026, that they cannot reach a unanimous verdict, then were ordered back into the jury room to keep deliberating on day four of talks at Plymouth Superior Court.
The Boston Globe's live courtroom coverage said the panel sent a note alerting Sullivan it was unable to agree. After a sidebar with prosecutors and defense attorney Kevin Reddington, Sullivan brought the jurors in and told them: "I'm going to ask you to go back out ... and to continue your deliberations at this time." ABC News reported the same sequence and put total deliberation time at about 18 hours across four days.
Tuesday is the fourth day of deliberations after part of Thursday and full days Friday and Monday. The Globe said Sullivan pointed jurors back to the scale of the record (testimony from more than 80 witnesses and more than 300 exhibits) as he declined to end the trial on the first deadlock note.
Clancy, 36, a former labor-and-delivery nurse from Duxbury, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the Jan. 24, 2023, deaths of Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months. She has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. She has admitted killing the children, then cutting her wrists and neck and jumping from a second-story window; she appears in court in a wheelchair after a spinal injury, the Globe reported.
The defense argues postpartum psychosis left her unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform it to the law. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing and that the killings were a conscious choice. Under Massachusetts law, the prosecution must prove criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt. Verdict options include guilty of first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter, not guilty, or not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility.
A deadlock note is not a mistrial. The Globe explained that Sullivan can keep the panel working, including with a later "dynamite" or Tuey-Rodriguez charge if jurors again report they are stuck. Only if the judge later finds they have deliberated carefully and remain hopelessly divided would the court declare a mistrial, leaving prosecutors free to retry the case. No mistrial has been declared.
Clancy's parents and sister were in the gallery Tuesday as she sat with Reddington in a green shirt, ABC News reported. Deliberations resumed after Sullivan's instruction. There is still no verdict.
This story discusses suicide and the deaths of children. The national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is 988. For postpartum mental-health help, the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline is 1-833-852-6262 (1-833-TLC-MAMA).
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