Three women who served as jurors on Lindsay Clancy’s murder case have spoken out about the “awful” experience in their first interview about the high-profile case.
While speaking to NBC 10 Boston on Tuesday, September 8, the jury foreperson — a retired fifth-grade teacher — said that not being able to reach a verdict was “awful” and an “emotional roller-coaster.”
She added that the deliberations were difficult, and there was “lots of crying” and “lots of tears and then hugging.”
“I was so sad, so sad that we couldn’t come up with a verdict for Lindsay. It was so heartbreaking,” the foreperson said.
Throughout the trial, Clancy’s prosecution argued that she should not be held criminally responsible for killing kids Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in January 2023 due to her mental state at the time.
The three women said that almost everyone in the jury agreed that Clancy, 36, should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, but one holdout juror refused, and the case ultimately ended in a mistrial.
The foreperson said that the holdout juror “admitted he had reasonable doubt” that Clancy intentionally killed her kids, so she “started filling out the forms” because she believed they had reached a unanimous verdict.
However, the holdout juror still refused to find Clancy not guilty. “But I’m still not going to say that she’s not guilty by reason of insanity,” she recalled the lone juror, who was a man, saying.
The three jurors told the outlet that the jury got into fights and yelled throughout the deliberation process, which got so intense that they could sometimes be heard through the walls.
“We weren’t trying to figure out if she murdered the children. She did and she’s admitted that,” the foreperson said of Clancy. “We’re trying to figure out, ‘Did she know right from wrong at that time?’”
Also during the interview, the three jurors said they did not feel the prosecution proved Clancy intentionally killed her kids.
“Everything proved that she loved her children, so she had to have snapped and not known what she was doing,” the foreperson revealed.
A second juror said that the holdout juror had questions about what medication Clancy was on, though she pointed out that they were presented toxicology reports throughout the trial.
“We could see exactly the amounts,” she said, pointing out that there were nurses on the jury that discussed her medications. “He just completely disregarded the information that they gave.”
The third juror admitted she found the prosecutor’s arguments to be “very harsh” and said they presented “no character witness” to prove Clancy was a “bad mother.”
Following one week of deliberations, a mistrial was declared on Friday, September 4. It has not yet been announced if Clancy’s case will go back to trial.
If you or someone you know is pregnant or just had a baby and is in crisis, help is available. Call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline for free, confidential support 24/7 in English and Spanish at 1-833-TLC-MAMA (1-833-852-6262).
