Jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial ends deliberations for the day and will return Monday

By Eric Levenson, Nicki Brown, CNN

(CNN) — The jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial ended deliberations Friday without reaching a verdict and will take the weekend off before returning to court Monday for further deliberations.

The 12-person jury, made up of nine women and three men, deliberated for about 3.5 hours on Thursday and over 6.5 hours on Friday. They are scheduled to resume deliberations Monday at 9 a.m. ET.

Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder in the killings of her children Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months. The jury is able to consider first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter charges.

Both prosecutors and her defense agree Clancy was mentally ill when she fatally strangled her children with exercise bands and attempted suicide at their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, on January 24, 2023. The key question for the jury is whether she is “criminally responsible,” a legal term meaning she appreciated the wrongfulness of her actions and was able to follow the law.

Prosecutors called over 70 witnesses as they argued Clancy “acted intentionally, rationally and swiftly” when she killed her children. They argued she still knew right from wrong at the time, noting she sent her husband out to run errands before killing the kids, and upon waking in a hospital she was “horrified” and asked for an attorney.

“I’m not saying she was happy about it. I’m saying, it was what she had to do to end her misery,” prosecutor Jennifer Sprague said in closing arguments. “But it was a choice. It was a choice.”

Her defense attorney called 10 witnesses as he argued she was a good mother who suffered from postpartum psychosis. In the months leading up to January 2023, she had been prescribed over a dozen psychiatric medications and several times checked herself into a hospital to treat her depression, anxiety, insomnia and suicidal thoughts.

Her downfall came “because of the damn medicine and the lousy medical care that she got,” defense attorney Kevin Reddington said in closing arguments.

The trial has put a renewed spotlight on maternal mental health and prompted a group of pink-wearing women to rally outside court in a show of support for and sympathy with Clancy last week.

Clancy did not testify in the trial. She is now partially paralyzed due to her suicide attempt and has been held at Tewksbury hospital since 2023.

She faces life in prison if found guilty of murder. If the jury finds her not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility, prosecutors could petition the court to have her committed to a psychiatric facility.

Legal expert predicts ‘lengthy’ jury deliberations

The jury sent just one note to the court Friday, asking to see the prescription pill bottles and the knife, according to defense attorney Kevin Reddington.

Both represent key physical evidence in the trial. Clancy’s many pill bottles were found in her bedroom and in her husband’s vehicle, and she used the kitchen knife to cut her wrists and neck before jumping out of a second-floor window during her suicide attempt, according to trial testimony.

Deliberations will continue until the group reaches a unanimous verdict. If the jury reports they are “hopelessly” deadlocked, the judge can choose to declare a mistrial, ending the trial without a clear resolution.

Gary Galperin, a former prosecutor and Cardozo Law School adjunct professor, predicted a “lengthy” deliberation in Clancy’s trial because of the complexity of the case.

The jury sat through about a month of evidence, including physical exhibits, medical testimony and expert psychiatric analysis.

“There’s a lot for a conscientious juror to consider and to analyze,” Galperin said.

In other news, Dr. Avram Mack, a psychiatrist who testified as a prosecution witness in the trial, resigned on Monday and is no longer employed by Nemours Children’s Health in Delaware, a hospital spokesperson told CNN in an email.

Mack testified last Friday and this past Monday that Clancy was not psychotic at the time of the killings and retained her capacity to understand right from wrong and control her behavior.

“I did not find any evidence of psychosis in her record,” he testified.

He faced a combative cross-examination from Reddington and at one point was admonished by the judge for his responses.

“Here’s the way this works. You don’t really ask a lot of questions. You answer the questions,” Judge William F. Sullivan told Mack.

CNN has reached out to Mack about his resignation.

What happened at the trial

Clancy’s former husband, Patrick Clancy, testified about her downward spiral, full of hospital visits and about a dozen medications to treat her insomnia, anxiety, and depression.

Her struggles began in September 2022 as she prepared to leave her children and return to work as a labor and delivery nurse.

“She just had a really hard time being separated from them,” Patrick Clancy testified.

She postponed her return to work as her mental health issues intensified in late 2022, particularly after she took Zoloft in October. She experienced intrusive thoughts, he said, and checked herself into a hospital that December and another hospital over New Year’s.

“Medication stole my motherhood and my life,” Clancy wrote in a note on her phone.

Still, she did not have a suicide plan, did not have thoughts of harming others and did not show any signs of psychosis, her doctors testified. The day before the killings, she met her psychiatrist and “said she was doing all right,” the psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Tufts testified.

On January 24, 2023, Clancy asked her husband to pick up takeout food and medicine, leaving her and the kids at the house. He came home to discover his bloody wife lying in the backyard and his kids in the basement with exercise resistance bands around their necks.

“She killed the f**king kids!” he said, according to a first responder.

About a week afterward, Lindsay Clancy called her husband from a hospital and said she had heard a voice, Patrick Clancy said.

“She didn’t talk about our kids, she talked about what she went through,” he testified. “She said she heard a man’s voice telling her that if she didn’t do it now, she would lose her chance – or something like that.”

Dueling psychiatric experts

Several psychiatric experts who examined Clancy after the killings testified about their views on her criminal responsibility.

Dr. Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist, testified for the defense that she was “frankly psychotic” during the killings, describing the voice she heard as an auditory hallucination.

“Not only did she hear a command, but she felt that her body was taken over by an external force where she was in a dream state and did not have control of her own body,” he said. “It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings.”

In contrast, Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, a psychologist testifying for the prosecution, said she knew right from wrong and was in control of her actions during the killings. He also expressed skepticism of the auditory hallucination, saying Clancy did not ever report hearing a voice before or after the killings.

“To put it mildly, that would be a very, very unusual pattern or manifestation of how this kind of thing comes about,” Heilbrun said.

Still, both said the killings were motivated by love.

“When she decided at some point that she was going to put a stop to (her life), then she had to answer the question of what to do about the kids, and she didn’t want to leave them, and she was convinced they would suffer without her,” Heilbrun testified.

Even now, Clancy takes multiple medications for her mental health and remains a suicide risk, Heilbrun said.

“She is still grieving. She is still in mourning,” he said. “She used language like, ‘I have lost everything and I don’t want to be here.’”

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