Jurors Clash Over a Single Holdout in a High‑Profile Murder Trial

When Judge William Sullivan announced a mistrial on Friday in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the courtroom was already buzzing with frustration. The reason? A single juror who simply wouldn’t budge.

Three of the twelve jurors—two women and the foreperson—decided to speak publicly for the first time in an interview that aired on Boston’s NBC10. They said the deadlock wasn’t a mystery; it boiled down to one man who, despite admitting he had "reasonable doubt," refused to sign off on a not‑guilty‑by‑reason‑of‑insanity finding for Lindsay Clancy.

Foreperson Roni Carlson described the moment she thought a verdict was finally within reach. "He admitted he had reasonable doubt and I was already filling out the forms, I was so excited," she recalled, only to be told, "I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity." The disappointment was palpable.

Another juror, Paula Devlin, didn’t mince words about the holdout. She called him "very arrogant" and said, "He really did not take anything that anybody said." The unnamed juror, whose identity remains sealed, could not be reached for comment.

Clancy, 36, had confessed to strangling her three children—Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and baby Callan, 8 months—in the basement of their Duxbury home in January 2023. After the killings she tried to take her own life, cutting herself and jumping from a second‑story window, which left her paralyzed. Her defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, argued that she was in the throes of a psychotic episode, essentially a "lack of criminal responsibility" under Massachusetts law.

According to the foreperson, the jurors weren’t debating whether Clancy had killed her kids—they all agreed she had. The real question, she said, was whether she understood right from wrong at the time. "Everything proved she loved her children," Carlson noted, pointing to journals and testimony from her mother‑in‑law, "so she had to have snapped."

Prosecutors have yet to announce whether they will retry the case. If convicted of first‑degree murder, Clancy faces life without parole. If a future jury does find her not guilty by reason of insanity, she would be committed to a state psychiatric hospital, with periodic court reviews.

One of the jurors, Kellie Farina, described the prosecution’s approach as "very, very harsh." For now, Clancy remains in custody at a state hospital, awaiting whatever legal step comes next.