Holdout in Lindsay Clancy trial said he had reasonable doubt but still wouldn’t acquit, juror says

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BOSTON — A lone juror blocked the acquittal of Lindsay Clancy, despite acknowledging during deliberations that he had doubts about her guilt, the jury’s foreperson said in a TV interview Tuesday.

The interview with Boston’s NBC10 aired four days after a judge declared a mistrial when jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict on the question of whether Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three young children in 2023.

Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, never disputed that she killed the children. But her attorney said she had lost control of her mind due to a rare condition called postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.

Prosecutors said Clancy knew what she was doing and acted deliberately when she strangled 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan Clancy with exercise bands. They said she contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him to pick up medicine for one of their children and dinner for the family.

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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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In the interview with NBC10, three jurors described the deliberations.

Foreperson Ronni Carlson said she thought at one point that the group had finally persuaded the juror arguing for a conviction to vote for an acquittal.

“He admitted he had reasonable doubt. I started filling out the forms, I was so excited. There were three forms I had to fill out, and I started filling them out. I wrote my signature on each one.

And then he said, ‘But I’m still not going to say that she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.’”