The long wait: Inside the courthouse where Lindsay Clancy’s fate hangs in the balance

By Nicki Brown, Jean Casarez, Sarah Boxer, CNN

Plymouth, Massachusetts (CNN) — Over the last six weeks, Lindsay Clancy’s triple-murder trial has transformed the Plymouth courthouse – a lofty building flanked by fields and farmland – into a chaotic scene bustling with swarms of journalists, true crime fanatics and outspoken spectators.

Now there’s nothing left for them to do but wait.

Clancy’s jury concluded its fourth day of deliberations Tuesday afternoon, hours after they told the judge they had reached a standstill. The news, revealed in court earlier in the day, elicited an audible gasp inside the courtroom and prompted Judge William Sullivan to implore jurors to work through their disagreements to break the impasse.

With jurors expected to return early Wednesday, suspense is building as the crowd around the courthouse and millions online await the conclusion of a heartbreaking case that has captivated the nation.

The crowd outside the courthouse was liveliest in late August, when dozens of women wearing pink rallied to show support for Clancy and raise awareness about postpartum mental health, the central pillar of Clancy’s defense.

Her attorney argues she should not be held criminally responsible for fatally strangling her three children – Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months – because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed them in January 2023. Prosecutors have argued Clancy acted “intentionally, rationally, and swiftly” to kill her children.

Such large crowds have not reappeared in the days since. But Clancy’s supporters have continued to show up in an attempt to get a peek inside the courtroom during the highly emotional proceedings.

Some, holding baby pink handbags or flaunting hot pink manicures, joined journalists and other curious members of the public who began lining up outside the courthouse in the pre-dawn hours to get a coveted seat in the gallery.

On the most significant days of the trial, the line snaked through the building’s dimly lit courtyard and into the parking lot, with some people waiting as long as six hours before the doors opened. Several attendees passed the time chatting about the evidence as they sat in folding chairs, sipping coffee from pink to-go cups from a local cafe across the street.

Adrienne Senneville, who lives in neighboring New Hampshire, sat pensive outside of court on Monday, staring at the building in silence.

“Nothing is going to bring those children back,” said Senneville, who works in healthcare and wishes Clancy – herself a former labor and delivery nurse – had received more robust medical care. “There’s a lot of suffering involved in this case… her family, Patrick’s family, friends, any other relatives – they’re all suffering,” she said, referencing the defendant’s ex-husband and the father of the victims.

“Putting this woman behind bars is just going to cause more suffering,” she said.

Since the jury began deliberating last Thursday, the number of spectators has dwindled, leaving the courtroom gallery filled primarily with journalists and a handful of Clancy supporters, some donning their signature pink hue.

Among them, were twin sisters Mary and Peggy Stacey, who drove over an hour from Worcester, Massachusetts, to show their support for Clancy.

“This trial never should have happened. I think it’s a travesty of the Massachusetts trial system, just like the Karen Read trial was,” said Mary Stacey, referring to another high-profile case that gripped Boston’s suburbs last year and similarly spurred pink-wearing crowds to congregate outside a courthouse in support of the defendant.

“Massachusetts needs to clean up their act with the state police, the trial and the medical system,” said Stacey, who believes Clancy should be found not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility.

Jurors are subdued after about 23 hours of deliberating

The jury, comprised of nine women and three men, is now weighing a variety of possible verdicts in the case, which has drawn comparisons to that of Andrea Yates. Yates, who drowned her five children, was found not guilty by reason of insanity during a highly publicized retrial 20 years ago. Her Texas jury returned their verdict after about 13 hours of deliberations.

Clancy’s jurors have already deliberated for far longer, surpassing roughly 23 hours by the end of the day Tuesday as they debate whether to convict the 36-year-old of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter – or to find her not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility or acquit her altogether.

In the deliberation room, they are likely considering graphic evidence, emotional testimony from the family’s loved ones and jargon-laden psychological evaluations from a number of mental health professionals who either treated Clancy before the killings or assessed her mental state in the months and years that followed.

While they were not sequestered for the trial, the jurors have been repeatedly instructed not to research or discuss the case with others since they were empaneled.

Toward the end of testimony, jurors were interactive with the judge, responding verbally and shaking their heads emphatically when he asked each day if they had been exposed to anything that might compromise their ability to be impartial. As they entered and exited the courtroom, they were often seen chatting with one another.

Now, they are more subdued: When they appeared in court Monday and Tuesday, they were stoic. When they asked to be sent home Tuesday afternoon, one juror rubbed his eyes. Another clasped and unclasped his hands in his lap. One woman gave the judge a weak smile when he told the panel to return Wednesday morning.

The monotony of waiting

While the jury is deliberating, dozens of journalists and attendees are pushed out of the courtroom gallery and into the third-floor hallway. Reporters from competing outlets sit shoulder-to-shoulder on a handful of benches while others sit cross-legged on the floor, each of them bracing for the next time they will be allowed back inside. When the courtroom doors open, reporters’ heads snap up, eager to see if court officials have any updates to share.

Clancy’s supporters, primarily women, typically cluster together in the hall to discuss the case and will often react to the parties as they pass by. On the first day of deliberations, four women – including one who is pregnant and another wearing a neon pink blazer – made a snide comment about a black bow Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham wore in her hair as she walked by the group.

Many of Clancy’s backers believe the accessory, which Buckingham has worn often throughout the trial, is a reference to Clancy’s 5-year-old daughter, who prosecutors noted liked to wear bows in her hair.

Meanwhile, Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington – a longtime, Boston-area legal figure who has now amassed a devoted online following – is approached by supporters who shake his hand and compliment his work as soon as he leaves the courtroom.

“Thanks for what you do,” one woman told him in the hallway on the third day of deliberations. “God bless you.”

But the attention Reddington receives inside the courthouse is nothing compared to the scene outside, where he is swarmed by dozens of journalists carrying cameras, microphones and cellphones as he walks to and from his car each day.

A handful of fans often elbow their way through the crowd to ask the 75-year-old for selfies or, in one case, make a pitch to be his intern. One woman asked him to take a picture with her young daughter; another tried to give him a pink envelope, addressed to his client.

As the deliberations stretch on with scarce updates in court, Reddington’s regular comments provide both the press and public a much-needed break from the monotony of waiting.

“Maybe today’s the day, we’ll see,” he said as he walked into court Tuesday morning. “I don’t know.”

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