After nearly six weeks of testimony, hundreds of exhibits and more than a week of emotionally charged jury deliberations, the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy has ended without a verdict.
On September 4, 2026, Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan formally declared a mistrial after the 12-person jury failed to reach a unanimous decision about whether Clancy was criminally responsible for the deaths of her three young children.
The development marked a dramatic conclusion to one of the most closely watched criminal cases in Massachusetts. Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, had been accused of killing her five-year-old daughter Cora, three-year-old son Dawson and eight-month-old son Callan at the family's home in Duxbury in January 2023.
The case had never been a straightforward question of whether the children died at Clancy's hands. That basic fact was not the central dispute at trial. Instead, the courtroom battle revolved around a much more complicated question: What was happening inside Clancy's mind when the killings occurred, and was she legally responsible for what she did?
The defense argued that Clancy was experiencing severe postpartum psychiatric illness, including postpartum psychosis, and therefore lacked the criminal responsibility required for a murder conviction. Prosecutors presented a fundamentally different picture, arguing that Clancy had planned the events and understood that what she was doing was wrong.
That conflict ultimately followed the jury into deliberations.
According to reporting from the trial, the jury became divided 11–1. Eleven jurors reportedly supported the defense's position that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible, while one juror remained unconvinced. That single disagreement was enough to prevent the unanimous verdict required in a criminal case.
It is important, however, to describe the result accurately.
The jury did not return a verdict finding Clancy innocent. Nor did it find her guilty. There was no final determination of criminal responsibility. Instead, the jury was hung, meaning it could not reach the required unanimous decision, and the judge therefore declared a mistrial. Reuters and the Associated Press both reported that the case remains unresolved.
The distinction matters because a mistrial is not the same thing as an acquittal.
Clancy remains charged, and prosecutors retain the option of bringing the case before another jury. A September 29 hearing has been scheduled to address the next stage of the proceedings. Prosecutors could pursue a retrial, explore another resolution such as a plea agreement, or make a different decision about the case.
For now, there is no final legal answer to the question that dominated the trial.
The final hours of deliberation
The jury's inability to reach a verdict had become apparent before September 4.
After several days of deliberation, jurors informed Judge Sullivan that they were unable to reach a unanimous decision. Rather than immediately ending the trial, the judge instructed them to continue deliberating.
The jury returned to its deliberations more than once, but the disagreement remained.
Reuters reported that the jury had already spent more than 38 hours deliberating by the time the mistrial was declared. The prolonged deliberations reflected the extraordinary complexity of the case, in which jurors had been asked to weigh competing psychiatric evidence alongside physical evidence and testimony concerning Clancy's behavior before, during and after the killings.
At one point, the defense made an extraordinary last-minute attempt to remove the holdout juror. That effort was unsuccessful. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declined to intervene, leaving the jury intact.
Eventually, Judge Sullivan concluded that further deliberation was unlikely to produce the unanimous verdict required by law.
The trial ended.
But the legal battle did not.
The January 2023 tragedy
The underlying events occurred on January 24, 2023, at the Clancy family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
According to evidence presented at trial, Clancy strangled her three children using exercise bands. Cora was five years old, Dawson was three, and Callan was only eight months old.
Afterward, Clancy attempted to take her own life. She cut herself and jumped from a second-story window, sustaining injuries that left her paralyzed.
Her husband, Patrick Clancy, had been away from the house shortly before the killings. Prosecutors emphasized evidence concerning the timing of his departure and return, arguing that Clancy had deliberately created an opportunity to be alone with the children.
Patrick later returned home and discovered the devastating scene.
The prosecution argued that Clancy's actions before the killings demonstrated planning rather than an uncontrollable psychotic episode. Among the evidence prosecutors highlighted was information concerning the amount of time Patrick would be away from the house.
The defense interpreted many of the same circumstances very differently.
According to defense attorney Kevin Reddington, Clancy had been deteriorating psychologically for months and was experiencing a severe psychiatric crisis. Her behavior, the defense argued, could not be understood without examining the mental illness that preceded the tragedy.