Clancy’s first trial deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal

Judge William Sullivan on Thursday denied the defense motion to declare Lindsay Clancy not guilty of murder, turning down a request made nearly a month after her first trial in Plymouth, Massachusetts, ended with a deadlocked jury.

On Tuesday, September 29, Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington tried to persuade Sullivan that prosecutors had not offered any proof that Clancy killed her three children. Prosecutors argued there was plenty of evidence, calling Reddington’s claim “laughable.”

In his ruling, Sullivan said prosecutors had provided adequate evidence for a jury to decide the case.

“There was evidence introduced, both physical and circumstantial, that would permit a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of the charge of murder,” Sullivan wrote.

During the trial, Reddington did not dispute that Clancy killed the children at the family’s home in 2023. Instead, the defense sought to persuade the jury that the 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse was not criminally responsible because of mental disease — a rare condition called postpartum psychosis.

Prosecutors acknowledged that Clancy had mental health problems that included months of treatment and a stay in a psychiatric hospital, but argued that she knew what she was doing when she strangled the children then tried to kill herself.

Clancy has admitted to strangling her three children — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months — with exercise bands in the basement of the family’s home in Duxbury, a Boston suburb, on January 24, 2023. She then cut herself with a knife and jumped from a second-story window in an attempt to end her own life, leaving her paralyzed.

The first trial ended when Sullivan declared a mistrial after the jury reported that it was deadlocked. The panel split 11-1 in favor of acquitting Clancy of the murder charges.

Reddington filed the motion on September 10, six days after the mistrial, arguing that prosecutors had not presented evidence that would allow a jury to find Clancy guilty. “No rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that she had no mental disease or defense when the Commonwealth’s own proof established that she did,” he wrote.

A spokesperson for Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz did not respond to a request for comment on whether prosecutors plan to retry Clancy.

MSI previously reported that Reddington asked Sullivan last month to clear Clancy on insanity grounds, arguing that even the prosecution’s own expert witnesses agreed she suffered from serious mental illness at the time of the killings (Clancy defense asks judge to clear her on insanity grounds).