Livestream: Lindsay Clancy trial verdict watch continues Tuesday as jury deliberations resume
Crime
The deliberating jury of nine women and three men has been weighing the evidence for about 17 hours over three days.
Livestream via Law & Crime.
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This story may contain content readers find disturbing. For help with postpartum mood disorders, text or call 1-833-TLC-MAMA for the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call 988 or go to https://988lifeline.org/ to chat online.
Jurors will continue deliberations Tuesday to decide Lindsay Clancy’s fate, having already spent about 17 hours in talks.
Clancy, 36, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder after strangling her children at home in Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023. While she doesn’t deny killing 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan, Clancy has raised what is commonly known as an insanity defense as she argues she cannot be held criminally responsible due to her mental health.
Her attorney, Kevin Reddington, told reporters Monday that jurors are
“working hard” as they pore over several weeks of testimony and hundreds of trial exhibits.
“They’ve been incredibly hard-working, paying attention through the whole trial,” Reddington said, adding that he’s been talking to Clancy throughout jury deliberations and trying “to keep her spirits up.”
Reddington has argued Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings and heard a voice in her head telling her to kill the children and herself. She remains paralyzed after attempting suicide following the stranglings. In his closing argument last Thursday, he blamed Clancy’s downward spiral on “the damn medicine and the lousy medical care that she got” after giving birth to her third child in 2022.
Though prosecutors agree Clancy was depressed and suicidal by January 2023, they’ve refuted her claims of auditory hallucinations and asserted she was capable of telling right from wrong.
Her children “were keeping her from ending her misery,” Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague argued. “And so she had to remove the protective factor. And I’m not saying she was happy about it; I’m saying that it was what she had to do to end her misery. But it was a choice.”
Earlier Monday, Reddington had sharp words for legal commentator Nancy Grace and Fox News host Sean Hannity over their comments on Clancy’s case. He was particularly critical of Grace’s on-air comment that Clancy “Google[d] ‘ways to kill’” prior to the murders.
Investigators filed search warrant affidavits in 2023 alleging Clancy “used her cellular telephone and her journal to document her mental state and her feelings about her children, in addition to keeping track of her medications, and researching ways to kill.” But when Clancy’s internet history came to light earlier this month during her trial, Reddington noted that her searches appeared to be focused more on potential methods of suicide.
Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse Monday morning, Reddington also blasted “Mr. Hannity with his men” for “discussing every little inch of Lindsay’s symptoms and criticizing.”
He added: “If you’re going to be a journalist, do it right.”
Hannity pushed back on his radio show Monday, noting that his team has reached out to Reddington several times inviting him to appear on air, with no response.
“So, I guess he’s only willing to talk to media where he can take cheap shots and not have a substantive discussion, which is what we’re offering him,” Hannity said.
He also disputed Reddington’s “Mr. Hannity with his men” remark, pointing to several women who have appeared on his show to offer commentary on Clancy’s case.
As jury deliberations continue Tuesday, there are several potential outcomes on the table. Though Clancy is charged with first-degree murder, jurors may also consider the lesser-included offenses of second-degree murder or manslaughter instead.
If her insanity defense prevails and Clancy is found not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility, she wouldn’t necessarily go free as she would in the event of an acquittal. As Judge William Sullivan told jurors last Thursday, prosecutors in those scenarios can — and often do — petition the court to have the individual committed to a mental health facility. A judge may do so if they feel the person is still mentally ill and poses a risk to themselves or others, but they can also revisit that decision during periodic reviews.
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