Lindsay Clancy Jury Deadlocked After 18 Hours Over Whether She Was Criminally Responsible for Killing Her Children, Deliberations to Continue

The jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial has yet to reach a unanimous verdict on whether the mom-of-three was criminally responsible for killing her children after four days of deliberations.

Jurors told the judge on the morning of Tuesday, September 1, that they were deadlocked about Clancy's fate after more than 18 hours of deliberations.

People reported that after being notified by the jury, Judge William Sullivan asked that they continue deliberating.

As OK! previously reported, Clancy was charged with first-degree murder after being accused of strangling her three young children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan – in the basement of their Duxbury, Mass., home in January 2023.

After the murders, she allegedly attempted suicide by slitting her own throat and jumping out from a second-story window, an act that left her paralyzed and wheelchair-bound.

Though Clancy does not dispute that she killed her children, she pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminally responsibility, which is essentially an insanity defense. She claimed to be experiencing a severe postpartum psychiatric episode at the time of the killings.

During the proceedings, her defense team called for several witnesses, including Clancy's mom and sister who testified about her declining mental health.

The defense also highlighted extensive medical logs showing she was prescribed a heavy "cocktail" of up to 13 different psychiatric medications in the four months leading up to the murders, which they believe exacerbated her altered mental state.

The jury – which consists of nine women and three men – must determine if she's guilty of first-degree murder, manslaughter or not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility. If convicted of the first-degree charges, she faces life in prison. If the jury finds her not criminally responsible, she will be committed to a state psychiatric hospital.

In most states, the defense is responsible for proving that a defendant lacked criminally responsibility. However, in Clancy's home state of Massachusetts, the burden is placed on the prosecution, who must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she was capable of understanding her actions and making the decision to kill her children.

Legal analyst and author Margaret McLean agreed that Clancy's future boiled down to whether she was criminally responsible for the murders of her three young children, which she believed was a "big burden" to prove.

When asked which side of the prosecution had the bigger challenge, McLean told USA TODAY on August 20, "Even though there's all this horrible evidence, they still have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lindsay Clancy was legally responsible and legally sane at the exact moment of the offense."