PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — The judge in the Lindsay Clancy trial told jurors to keep deliberating Tuesday after they said they could not reach a unanimous decision on whether to hold the Massachusetts mother criminally responsible for killing her three young children at her home in 2023.
Coming near the start of the fourth day of deliberations, this was the first time there was any indication from the jury that they were at an impasse. On Friday, the jurors asked to look at a knife that Clancy used to cut herself and bags with empty prescription pill bottles found in her house.
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny strangling her children but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing. Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.
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The jury could convict her of murder or manslaughter, or acquit her if jurors believe her deteriorating mental health was to blame. A conviction could lead to a life prison sentence. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines she is a danger to the public.
Clancy's lawyer argued at the trial that she loved her children, but killed them because she lost her grip on reality — and on herself — due to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth. In the months before the killings, Clancy sought treatment for her worsening mental health, including a stay in a psychiatric hospital.
Prosecutors said Clancy strangled the children because she was depressed and tired of living, and made a conscious choice to kill them before attempting suicide.
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