Berliner Tageblatt - Mistrial declared in case of US woman who killed her three children

Lindsay Clancy, 36, acknowledged strangling Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months, but claimed she should be excused from criminal responsibility because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.

After seven days of deliberations the jury of nine women and three men was unable to reach a unanimous decision, as required in criminal proceedings in the United States.

Eleven jurors were in favor of finding Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, but they were opposed by a single holdout.

"At this point, I'm going to declare that the jury is deadlocked, and I'm going to declare a mistrial," Judge William Sullivan said.

Prosecutors must now decide whether to try the case again before a new jury.

"I'll be making that decision shortly," Tim Cruz, the Plymouth County, Massachusetts district attorney, told reporters.

Kevin Reddington, Clancy's lawyer, said his client and the other members of the jury were let down by the man who declined to vote for an acquittal.

"They were robbed by one man for whatever his agenda was," Reddington told reporters. "I hope that guy can sleep well at night."

Clancy will remain at a psychiatric institution pending a possible new trial.

Her televised trial, which featured more than 80 witnesses and days of distressing testimony, has sparked debate in the United States over maternal mental health and drew a reaction on Friday from President Donald Trump.

"It's a horrible tragedy," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I assume there's going to be another trial."

Clancy pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, saying she heard a voice ordering her to kill her children.

Her lawyers said this was caused by postpartum psychosis, a condition that medical experts say affects about one to two women in every 1,000 births.

Prosecutors rejected that argument, saying Clancy had carefully planned the murders of her children and was able to understand the consequences of her actions.

Psychiatrists and people close to Clancy, as well as her ex-husband, were among the witnesses who testified about her fragile mental health.

- 'Lousy medical care' -

Dozens of women dressed in pink showed up at the court in Plymouth to extend their support for Clancy -- and to make a statement about women's health more generally.

During closing arguments, Reddington, Clancy's lawyer, said she had made numerous pleas for help before the killings but had received "lousy medical care" from the doctors she consulted.

After the murders at the family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023, Clancy cut her neck and wrists and jumped from a second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt that has left her paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair.

The former nurse faced life in prison without the possibility of parole if found guilty of first-degree murder.

Jurors were also given the option of finding Clancy guilty of second-degree murder, manslaughter, or not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility -- a verdict that would see her confined to a psychiatric facility.

The trial has revived memories of a similar case that also captivated the country 25 years ago, that of Andrea Yates, a Texas mother who drowned her five children in 2001.

Yates was initially convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but she was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a 2006 retrial and committed to a psychiatric hospital.

F.Müller--BTB