The jury foreperson in Lindsay Clancy’s high-stakes triple murder trial detailed just how close the panel was to finding the killer mom not guilty by reason of insanity until one male holdout juror blocked the verdict.
“He admitted he had reasonable doubt after we watched the video of the interview,” the female juror told NBC 10 Boston in an interview with two other women jury members.
“I started filling out forms, I was so excited,” the woman said.
“There were three forms I had to fill out and I started filling them out, I wrote my signature on each one but then he said, ‘But I’m still not going to say she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.’”
One of the three jurors, was named Paula and is a former government contractor. Another, Kelly, is a chef in Plymouth, and the foreperson, Ronnie, is a retired fifth-grade special needs teacher.
The jurors called the holdout “arrogant” for refusing to interact with the other members and for refusing to consider their takes on the evidence in the case.
“He was very arrogant. He really did not take anything that anybody said,” one of the women claimed.
Another said, “every one of us in the hours of our frustration would get up and walk the room because you just couldn’t sit anymore. And we would all go to the cart with the exhibits. He, I think, got up to the cart once very briefly and went back to his seat.”
“He would not interact with us and try to understand,” she continued. “We read to him, on numerous occasions, the definition of reasonable doubt from Judge [William] Sullivan’s instruction.”
“But he had the hardest time getting over the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children,” she explained.
The jurors told the outlet the prosecution didn’t show enough compassion toward Clancy — who the jurors learned at trial struggled with crippling insomnia, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts and thoughts of harming her kids in the four months leading up to the murders.
“I just found it to be harsh — very, very harsh,” one juror said.
“The fact that they had no character witnesses in regards to Lindsay being a bad mother … I found it to be biased.”
The foreperson said all the witnesses and evidence “proved that she loved her children … so she had to have snapped.”
The trio said they found Reddington to be “entertaining,” “arrogant,” “compassionate” and “funny.”
“His compassion for Lindsay was amazing,” one of the women said.
Sullivan declared a mistrial Friday after the jurors sent out its third note that they were at an impasse.
The foreperson the day before notified the judge in a note, claiming that a certain juror refused to follow the law on reasonable doubt, forcing Sullivan to question each juror individually under oath. The judge also re-read the panelists his instructions on the law on reasonable doubt.
The jury — composed of nine women and three men — deliberated for roughly 38 hours over the course of seven days and notified the judge they were deadlocked for the first time on Tuesday, then again on Wednesday and for the last time on Friday.
Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, asked the jury to find the 36-year-old former nurse not criminally responsible on the grounds she was in the throes of severe postpartum psychosis and heard a voice commanding her to strangle her three kids, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, on Jan. 24, 2023.
But prosecutors claimed she carefully planned the killings and made up hearing the voice and experiencing a psychotic break to avoid criminal culpability.
The case has gripped the country, shining a light on postpartum and mental health issues and how the health care system cares for new mothers.
Reddington argued at trial that Clancy received negligent care from a psychiatrist and other providers who allegedly failed to properly diagnose her and who overmedicated her with 13 powerful psychiatric medications in the four months leading up to the slayings.
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