The name in the news is Lindsay Clancy (often misspelled Clancey). She is a former labour-and-delivery nurse from Duxbury, Massachusetts. As of 4 September 2026 her murder trial is still without a verdict: the jury has been deadlocked for days and a single holdout juror is now the focus of the court.
What the case is about
On 24 January 2023, Clancy’s three children — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, then about 8 months — died at the family home. Her husband, Patrick, had been sent out for takeaway food and a pharmacy errand. When he returned he found Lindsay badly injured outside after she had jumped from a second-storey window. She survived and is paralysed from the waist down. She has not denied that she caused the children’s deaths. She pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder on the basis that she lacked criminal responsibility because of severe postpartum mental illness.
Prosecutors say she planned the killings, understood they were wrong, and should be convicted. The defence says she was in postpartum psychosis, heavily medicated, and not legally responsible. Separate strangulation charges were dropped before trial as redundant with the murder counts.
The trial
Jury selection began 20 July 2026 in Plymouth Superior Court before Judge William Sullivan. The trial ran about six weeks, with more than 80 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits. The jury is nine women and three men.
Possible outcomes the jury was told it could consider, for each child: first-degree murder (premeditation or extreme atrocity), second-degree murder, manslaughter, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. First-degree murder in Massachusetts carries life without parole. An insanity-style acquittal would not mean release; she would likely be committed to a psychiatric hospital with periodic reviews.
Latest updates (late August–4 September 2026)
Deliberations began on 27 August. By 1–2 September the jury had twice told the judge it could not agree. Sullivan instructed them to keep trying.
By 3 September the defence said the split appeared to be 11–1 and that the holdout was refusing to follow the judge’s instructions on reasonable doubt. Attorney Kevin Reddington asked that that juror be removed. Sullivan refused, saying he would not side with 11 jurors over one. Reddington said he did not want a mistrial.
On 4 September the New York Times and other outlets reported that the judge planned a morning inquiry into the holdout juror. Deliberations were expected to continue the same day. Court-watch coverage listed 4 September as Day 28 of the proceeding. There is still no verdict.
Legal commentators have said a mistrial is now a real possibility if the deadlock holds. A mistrial would leave prosecutors to decide whether to retry the case.
Other live pieces of the case
In January 2026 Lindsay and Patrick filed separate civil suits against clinicians and health systems that treated her before the deaths, alleging negligence in recognising how ill she was and in how medication was prescribed and monitored. Those suits are still open. A hearing in Patrick’s case (brought for himself and the children’s estates) is scheduled for 28 October 2026.
The criminal case has become a national argument about postpartum psychosis, the insanity defence, and how far planning and “sending the husband out” counts as proof she knew right from wrong. That argument is now sitting with one unresolved jury.
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