After jury deliberations in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial ended Monday, her attorney said his client was nervous but buoyed by the support the high-profile proceedings have generated.
That support, Kevin Reddington told reporters, had arrived in the form of enough letters to fill three banker’s boxes.
Reddington said he believed the case — which has highlighted a severe but rare mental illness for new mothers, postpartum psychosis — had struck a chord with so many women because of the “atrocious” medical and psychiatric care the trial has exposed.
“She knows that there are people out there that have not judged her and know that she is a wonderful, wonderful person,” he said.
Monday marked the third day of deliberations for the jury, which must determine whether Clancy is criminally responsible for killing her three children on Jan. 24, 2023. The panel finished deliberating shortly before 4 p.m. without reaching a verdict.
Reddington and prosecutors representing the commonwealth of Massachusetts offered their closing arguments Thursday morning, paving the way for the start of deliberations that afternoon.
Friday brought a full day of deliberations that yielded no verdict but did bring one question. Jurors asked the judge to review pill bottles and a knife that were entered into evidence, Reddington said last week.
Earlier Monday, Reddington told reporters that the jury never got to see those pieces of evidence, so he didn’t read much into its request to view it, and he called the jury “very thorough.”
Clancy, 36, is accused of strangling her three young children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — more than three years ago in the basement of her Duxbury, Massachusetts, home while her then-husband was out running errands.
When he returned, he found Clancy on the frozen ground outside their home underneath a second-story window after a suicide attempt that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
Her attorneys have argued she was in a state of psychosis and was compelled to act on auditory hallucinations at the time of the killings. The hallucinations, they have said, were a symptom of postpartum psychosis.
But the prosecution has said that Clancy was not in psychosis, and that she was aware of her actions at the time of the killings. They have argued that she planned the murders ahead of time and acted with intention, which indicates she was not psychotic at the time.
The prosecution has pushed for a first-degree murder conviction. If she is convicted of first-degree murder, she faces life in prison.
The jury — nine women and three men — also has the option to convict Clancy of lesser charges, including second-degree murder and manslaughter.
The jurors can also absolve Clancy of the crime or deem her not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility — meaning they believe she did kill the children but couldn’t control her actions because she was in psychosis.
Judge William Sullivan has said that if Clancy is found not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, the district attorney or another authority will likely petition the court to commit her to a mental health facility. It is unclear what her sentencing will look like if she is convicted of a lesser charge.
Asked Monday what he thinks a just verdict is for his client, he told reporters, “Well, put it this way: If I was representing you, I don’t think I’d be real happy if the jury said you were guilty, right?”
The weekslong murder trial is now in its final stages, after jurors and onlookers heard from more than 80 witnesses.
After court Monday, Reddington commended the jury, saying the panel appeared attentive during testimony and was most likely “going through everything” in deliberations.
“Nobody’s called in sick,” he said. “Nobody’s bailed out. I mean, they’re really focused people, and they’re doing their due diligence.”
