Jury enters fifth day of deliberations after Tuesday deadlock
Jury deliberations in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial resumed for a fifth day on Wednesday in Plymouth, Massachusetts, after a woman was arraigned on a charge of intimidating jurors by filming them as they left the courthouse the previous day.
Dawn Light, 56, of Sutton, Massachusetts, was arraigned Wednesday at the same Plymouth courthouse, south of Boston. She was charged with intimidation of a witness, jurors or person furnishing information in connection with criminal proceedings, and a not guilty plea was entered on her behalf. Light was released without having to post bail but was ordered to stay away from the court, the jurors and any witnesses.
Assistant District Attorney Nicole Piacentini told a judge during the arraignment that Light was parked in a restricted area behind the courthouse and is accused of filming jurors as they left court on Tuesday. Light told state police she was waiting to film Clancy and denied recording jurors, Piacentini said. State troopers subsequently found video of jurors in Light’s phone’s deleted files folder, according to the prosecutor.
“The sanctity of the judicial system is at risk because of her actions,” Piacentini told a judge during the arraignment.
Surrounded by reporters as she went to her car after the arraignment, Light was asked why she had filmed outside the courthouse on Tuesday. “To see Lindsay. And I did see her. She was getting picked up by the van,” Light said. In an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media Group before her arraignment, Light described herself as a “crime junkie” and Clancy supporter.
Her attorney, Jennifer White, called the episode a “misunderstanding” and said Light, a retired nurse, was only trying to take a photo of Clancy and “not interact with the jurors.”
Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. She does not deny strangling her three young children at the family’s Massachusetts home in 2023 but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing.
The jury had told Judge William Sullivan on Tuesday that it was unable to reach a unanimous decision, but he instructed the jurors to keep trying — a common instruction in criminal trials when juries report difficulty reaching a verdict. On Wednesday, the judge questioned jurors one by one following Light’s arrest.
Clancy’s livestreamed trial has generated intense public interest, with reporters and spectators packing the courtroom. The case has also sparked deep divisions over her culpability and the issues around maternal mental health after childbirth.
As MSI previously reported, the jury told Judge William Sullivan on Tuesday that it was unable to reach a unanimous decision, and he instructed the jurors to keep trying.