Lindsay Clancy Jurors Reveal Male Holdout Admitted Doubt but Still Refused To Clear Her of Murder

A lone juror conceded he had reasonable doubt in Lindsay Clancy's murder case, then refused to find her not criminally responsible for killing her three children, the jury's foreperson says, revealing how one holdout forced a Massachusetts mistrial.

Roni Carlson, a retired special education teacher who led the panel, told NBC10 Boston she was so sure the deadlock had broken that she signed all three verdict forms. 'I was so excited,' she said. Then the holdout spoke again.

How One Juror Blocked an Acquittal

'He admitted he had reasonable doubt, and I started filling out the forms,' Carlson recalled in an interview alongside two fellow jurors that aired on Tuesday. Then, she said, the holdout added that he still would not call Clancy 'not guilty by reason of insanity.'

The nine-woman, three-man jury split 11 to one. Eleven were ready to find Clancy not criminally responsible. One man would not move. Deliberations stretched across seven days after a five-week trial with more than 80 witnesses, and Carlson described tears, shouting, and hugs so loud that alternates thought the panel was fighting.

Jurors Paula Devlin and Kellie Farina said they read the holdout the legal definition of reasonable doubt again and again, yet he would not let go of the view that Clancy had viciously killed her children. Devlin would not call him rogue, only someone who refused to engage.

What the Jury Decided

Clancy, a 36-year-old former labour and delivery nurse, never denied strangling five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan at their Duxbury home in January 2023. She admitted the killings, so the jury's task was narrower: deciding whether she knew right from wrong.

Reddington argued she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis, made worse by the drugs she had been prescribed. Prosecutors sought first-degree murder convictions, saying she planned the killings and acted rationally. After the deaths, she jumped from a window in a suicide attempt that left her paralysed.

Why a Trump Pardon Cannot Work

Hours before the jurors spoke, Reddington used a Good Morning America interview with George Stephanopoulos to appeal directly to President Donald Trump, urging him to 'consider a pardon' for Clancy. Trump had called the children's deaths a 'horrible tragedy' days earlier when the mistrial came down.

The plea cannot work. A presidential pardon reaches only federal crimes, and Clancy faces state charges in Massachusetts. Any clemency there would rest with Governor Maura Healey. The White House noted the same limit, and with no conviction, there is nothing to pardon.

What Happens Next

Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz has not said whether he will retry the case. Reddington says he is ready within a few weeks but hopes for a plea deal that would end the case, and Carlson says she would rather Clancy never face a jury again.

Carlson says that if the case is tried again, she will sit in the gallery to back Clancy's defence. The verdict eleven jurors nearly reached now rests once more with twelve strangers, and on whether the next holdout can act on the doubt this one admitted but would not.