Lindsay Clancy trial jurors sent home again after judge sends stern message on deadlock

The Massachusetts judge overseeing the Lindsay Clancy trial sent jurors home again Wednesday, shortly after giving them a stern message on their inability to unanimously agree on whether she is criminally responsible for the killing of her three young children in January 2023.

Before being excused Wednesday, the jury was in a deadlock after more than 28 hours of deliberations. Clancy, 36, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan in the basement of the family’s home in Duxbury, Mass.

Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan invoked what is commonly referred to as a “dynamite charge,” also known as the Tuey-Rodriguez charge , to jurors. They are slated to continue deliberations Thursday.

“However, in conferring together, you ought to pay proper respect to each other’s opinions and listen with an open mind to each other’s arguments,” he said earlier in the day Wednesday, reading the charge to jurors.

“Thus, where there is disagreement, jurors for acquittal should consider whether a doubt in their own minds is a reasonable one if it makes no impression on the minds of others who are equally honest, equally intelligent and who have heard the same evidence with the same intention with an equal desire to arrive at the truth and who have taken the same oath as jurors.”

“On the other hand, jurors for conviction ought seriously to ask themselves whether they may not reasonably doubt the correctness of a judgment that is not concurred in by other members of the jury and whether they should distrust the weight or adequacy of the evidence that fails to convince the minds of fellow jurors,” Sullivan said before urging the jury to return to deliberations.

The charge is the result of a 1973 trial, Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, where the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court introduced the instruction, which gives judges legal authority to keep jurors deliberating.

Massachusetts judges deliver Tuey-Rodriguez instructions when a jury cannot reach a verdict. The charge is a final attempt to break the stalemate.

After the deaths of her children, Clancy attempted suicide, which left her paralyzed.; she was arraigned via Zoom while in a hospital bed.

Her lawyers have said she suffered from postpartum psychosis before strangling her children, which Clancy — a former labor and delivery nurse — hasn’t denied. The defense is arguing Clancy’s mental health condition rendered her not criminally responsible for these actions.

The jury is composed of nine women and three men. They would be dismissed if Sullivan declares a mistrial , opening the door for a new jury to determine Clancy’s fate.

A hung jury would come on the heels of another high-profile Massachusetts murder trial. Karen Read was charged in connection with the death of her boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe, in 2022. Her first trial concluded as a mistrial in July 2024, but she was found not guilty after a second trial in June 2025.

Clancy has pleaded not guilty, using the insanity defense. Massachusetts law permits a defendant to be found not guilty if they suffered from a “mental disease or defect” preventing them from realizing their actions were wrong or did not conform to the law.

If acquitted, Clancy would be sent to a state psychiatric hospital where she would be reviewed periodically to determine if she can safely live in a community, The Boston Globe reported .