dpThis story may contain content readers find disturbing or triggering. For help with postpartum mood disorders, the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline is free, confidential, and 24/7. Text or call 1-833-TLC-MAMA. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call 988 or go to https://988lifeline.org/ to chat online.
Jurors on Monday continued to deliberate the fate of Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury woman charged with murder in the deaths of her three children in January 2023. They have so far deliberated for part of the day on Thursday and all of Friday.
As he arrived to the courthouse on Monday, Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington paused outside to rip coverage of the high-profile case by Fox media personalities Nancy Grace and Sean Hannity.
Reddington said Hannity’s weekend coverage was “horrific,” and accused Grace of misrepresenting the facts of the case.
Clancy, 36, has admitted killing 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan, then slashing her wrists and neck and jumping out a second-story window in a suicide attempt. She remains paralyzed from the waist down and appears in court each day in a wheelchair.
On Friday, the panel asked to see Clancy’s prescription pill bottles and the knife she used in her suicide attempt. They were exhibits in the case but had not been sent to the jury room.
She has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, asserting an insanity defense in a case that has drawn international attention for its focus on women’s postpartum mental health.
The central question before the jury is whether Clancy should be held criminally responsible for her actions. In Massachusetts, a defendant may be found to lack criminal responsibility if she was suffering from a “mental disease or defect” that made her unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions to a moral certainty, or unable to conform them to the law.
The judge instructed jurors last week on the applicable law and range of verdicts: first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or manslaughter (as well as verdicts of not guilty and not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility).
Reddington has argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the slayings. He alleged a series of failures on the part of Clancy’s psychiatric treatment providers that exacerbated her symptoms in the months before the killings.
As in other criminal trials, the burden of proof falls on the prosecution. In order to get a conviction, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy was not seriously mentally ill when she killed her children, or even if she was, that she understood her actions were wrong or could conform to the law.
Should jurors acquit her in Plymouth Superior Court, she would not go free but would be sent to a state psychiatric hospital where she’d come up for periodic reviews to determine whether she can live safely in the community.
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Woman who dealt with postpartum issues praises Clancy’s lawyer outside court — 1:43 p.m.
By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
A woman who said she struggled with postpartum issues approached Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, outside court Monday with her mother to praise his work defending Clancy against murder charges.
“I wish someone would have helped my daughter,” the woman’s mother said as she moved in to give Reddington a hug while the lawyer was surrounded by reporters. “God bless you.”
Her daughter, who identified herself as Hannah, added, “we want to take you out for a steak dinner, Mr. Reddington. We love you so much.”
She said she had “an issue” in family court when her mental health was “weaponized” against her after she experienced postpartum challenges when her son was 8 months old.
“You’re the voice of so many moms,” her mother told Reddington.
Hannah added that she knows what Clancy went through, telling Reddington, “I feel it.”
Hannah and her mother said they traveled to Plymouth from Houston to show their support for Clancy.
Jury takes a lunch break — 1:07 p.m.
By Jenna Perlman and Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff
The jury broke for lunch at 1 p.m. and will resume deliberations around 2 p.m., a court officer said.
Quiet scene outside Plymouth Superior Court, but a few Clancy supporters gathers — 12:47 p.m.
By Jenna Perlman, Globe Staff
As the jury deliberated inside the courthouse, a group of women sat outside on benches facing each other. One handed out water. Another joked with the woman beside her.
“I expected more of a ‘Karen Read’ kind of chaos,” said Mary Drysdale.
“It’s kinda chill.”
Drysdale retired on Friday from Best of Care, where she was an intake director for more than a decade. On her first day of retirement, she found herself outside the courthouse.
“I woke up and was like, ‘maybe I’ll go to the beach,’’’ she said. But then I was like, ‘no I’ll go to Plymouth.’”
On Thursday, the day of closing arguments and the start of jury deliberations, dozens of pink-clad Clancy supporters gathered outside Plymouth Superior Court. On Friday and again today, there were more media members than supporters, but those that are here are passionate.
“I just have a lot of questions,” said Niurka De Jesus, a mental health provider in Boston. “It compels me to want to support [Clancy] in any way, shape, or form that I can.”
As the jury deliberates, a look back at a key ruling late in the trial — 12:00 p.m.
By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
As jurors continue to deliberate on Monday, here are some excerpts from Judge William Sullivan’s ruling last week denying the defense’s motion for a mistrial based on a prosecution witness who started to discuss Catholic doctrine on the stand.
Sullivan wrote that the defense had sought the mistrial on the grounds that testimony from Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, a government expert who interviewed Clancy, was prejudicial.
Heibrun had testified that Clancy indicated her “expectation that she and the children would be together in heaven with God” following the killings and her own suicide, Sullivan said.
“She was raised as a Catholic and this is as I understand Catholic considerations that’s not necessarily what happens, but when I asked her about that, when I said isn’t suicide a mortal sin?” Heilbrun said as Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, objected.
Sullivan said it’s “well established” that religious beliefs are not admissible to attack the credibility of a witness. But after telling the jury to disregard the testimony, the judge said the error didn’t rise to the level of warranting a mistrial.
“In the present case, the offered evidence was excluded, in part, as it relied upon an unsupported inference that all Catholics agree with all teachings of the Catholic Church,” Sullivan wrote. “In addition, the witness was not qualified to render an opinion as to the Catholic Church’s teaching.”
Sullivan said he “weighed the alternatives to a mistrial and chose to strike the objected-to testimony and issued an instruction to disregard the area of inquiry as it was inappropriate.”
‘Do it right,’ Kevin Reddington says to media outside court — 9:50 a.m.
By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington paused outside court Monday morning to criticize coverage of the high-profile case by Fox media personalities Nancy Grace and Sean Hannity.
He said Hannity’s weekend coverage was “horrific,” citing the host “and his men discussing every little inch of Lindsay’s symptoms and criticizing. Nancy Grace, to coin the phrase the ‘Queen of Mean,’ who misrepresents facts. I challenge Nancy Grace to show us where Lindsay Clancy ever said, ever googled, ‘how to kill.’ Words that came out of [Grace’s] mouth. And these things hurt. These things hurt people.”
Then he name-checked Globe reporter Shelley Murphy, who’s covering the trial for the paper, along with Bob Ward, a Boston 25 News reporter with a focus on crime.
“If you’re going to be a journalist, do it right,” Reddington said. “Be a Bob Ward. Be a Shelley Murphy. Do it right.”
Jurors resume deliberations — 9:15 a.m.
By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
Judge Williams Sullivan sent jurors back out to resume their deliberations.
This is the third day of deliberations, which have lasted about 10.5 hours so far.
Court begins for the day — 9:14 a.m.
By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
Judge William Sullivan got on the bench around 9:15 a.m. and greeted the parties before the jury entered.
Jurors entered the courtroom soon after, and Sullivan ran through his standard questions to ensure they avoided outside coverage of the case.
By Ariela Lopez and Shelley Murphy Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff
Coffee shop employees handed out free drinks to passersby. Meanwhile, spectators who have watched the Lindsay Clancy trial unfold milled about outside the courthouse, waiting. A couple carried signs.
Even as jurors deliberated, with no public proceedings taking place, the Clancy trial in Plymouth Superior Court drew widespread attention and activity outside, as the public awaits to hear her fate.
Here’s what happened during Friday’s jury deliberations — 8:33 a.m.
By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff
Judge William F. Sullivan summoned Clancy’s lawyer and prosecutors to a sidebar to discuss the jury’s question, but ended the session without publicly disclosing what it was.
Jury questions, and answers, are considered part of the public record and it’s highly unusual for them not to be publicly disclosed.
Reddington later said the question from jurors was a request to see Clancy’s prescription pill bottles and the knife she used to slit her wrists and neck. They were exhibits in the case but had not been sent to the jury room.
Jurors may review all of the evidence in the case, and the medications and knife were sent back to the jury room upon request. They weren’t initially provided, along with other exhibits, because they are narcotics and a weapon.
Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected]. Shelley Murphy can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @shelleymurph. Jenna Reyes can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @jennaelaney and Instagram @jennaelaney.
