A Massachusetts judge has declared a mistrial in the closely watched case of Lindsay Clancy, the American woman accused of killing her three young children, after jurors failed to reach the unanimity required for a criminal verdict.
Judge William Sullivan ended the proceedings when the 12-member jury reported it could not agree, and an appeals court turned aside a late defence effort to replace one juror.
Following seven days of deliberations, the panel remained split: 11 jurors supported finding the 36-year-old Ms Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, while one juror held out against that conclusion.
“At this point, I’m going to declare that the jury is deadlocked, and I’m going to declare a mistrial,” Judge William Sullivan said.
The decision now shifts to prosecutors, who must determine whether to bring the case back before a new jury.
“I’ll be making that decision shortly,” Plymouth County district attorney Tim Cruz told reporters.
Ms Clancy will stay incarcerated as officials weigh the possibility of another trial.
The televised five-week case — featuring more than 80 witnesses and days of harrowing testimony — has reignited national debate over maternal mental health in the United States and prompted comments from US President Donald Trump.
“It’s a horrible tragedy,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House. “I assume there’s going to be another trial.”
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Stretching to nearly six weeks on television, the trial also brought back long-running questions about how the US health system addresses postnatal mental illness and how courts handle cases in which mothers kill their children.
One core point was never contested: prosecutors and defence agreed that Ms Clancy strangled her children to death in January 2023 using exercise bands in the basement of her home in Duxbury, a Boston suburb.
Authorities said she then cut herself with a knife and leapt from a second-story window in an unsuccessful suicide attempt that left her paralysed.
Throughout the trial, defence lawyer Kevin Reddington urged jurors to find Ms Clancy not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility — the legal standard often described as reason of insanity — portraying her as a devoted mother who was experiencing a psychotic episode when she killed Cora, five; Dawson, three; and Callan, eight months, on 24 January 2023.
Family testimony, including from Ms Clancy’s now ex-husband Patrick, described her worsening mental health in the months after the birth of her third child, and repeated efforts to obtain help from healthcare providers who prescribed what witnesses described as a myriad of drugs.
Observers drew comparisons during the proceedings to the case of Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001.
Judge William Sullivan
After an appeals court overturned her initial murder conviction, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006. Her lawyers had said she suffered from severe postnatal psychosis.
Prosecutors, while acknowledging Ms Clancy’s mental health struggles, maintained that she could still recognise that killing her children was wrong and proceeded intentionally.
They called a psychologist who testified that, after examining Ms Clancy, they concluded she had planned to take her own life and killed her children because “she was convinced that they would suffer without her”.
The prosecution also highlighted evidence that, shortly before the deaths, Ms Clancy sent her husband out to pick up a food order and visit a pharmacy — and that she had used her phone to map how long it would take him to return.
Patrick Clancy testified that his wife had been released from a psychiatric hospital less than two weeks before the killings, yet appeared stable in the days that followed and gave no indication she intended to harm herself or the children.
When he left to collect dinner, he said, her demeanour seemed “normal”.
He also told jurors he spoke briefly with her by phone while he was at the pharmacy.
When he got home, he found her in the backyard, he said, with cuts to her wrists and neck.
She told him she had tried to kill herself.
He testified that when he asked where the children were, she replied that they were in the basement.
After calling 911 and as first responders arrived, Mr Clancy said he rushed downstairs and found the children with exercise bands tied around their necks.
Multiple witnesses, including Mr Clancy, also told the court that later, while Ms Clancy was in hospital, she described hearing a man’s voice telling her that if she did not act, she would lose her chance.
