Republican Calls for Lindsay Clancy to Be Publicly Executed as a 'Warning to Women': 'She Should Be Dead Too'

A sitting Republican member of Congress has called for Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother whose murder trial ended in a mistrial this month, to be put to death in front of a crowd.

Nancy Mace, who represents South Carolina's first district, made the demand in an interview with TMZ. Speaking days after the trial collapsed, the congresswoman said the 36-year-old deserved the death penalty and 'nothing less'.

'Her children are dead. She should be dead too,' Mace said.

Pressed on whether she genuinely wanted a public execution, Mace, 48, did not qualify her answer. 'A hundred percent,' she replied, before calling Clancy 'a serial killer' who 'should get the electric chair'. Any execution, she added, 'should be public. It should be a public execution.' The method was of little concern to her: she said it could be carried out by 'a firearm' or 'the electric chair', though she ruled out lethal injection.

Mace framed the punishment as a deterrent aimed at other mothers, saying it would stand as 'a warning to women everywhere' not to harm their children. When the reporter suggested the remarks were out of bounds, she declined to soften them and said child rapists should face the same fate.

Mace later repeated that statement in her posts on X.

A Mistrial That Left the Jury Split 11-1

The comments followed a courtroom drama that has drawn national attention. On 4 September, Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial at Plymouth Superior Court after a jury of nine women and three men reported, for a third time, that it could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Deliberations had run to about 38 hours, closing a trial that lasted five weeks.

A note from the foreperson showed the panel had voted 11-1 to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, with a lone male juror refusing to join the majority. The foreperson, Ronni Carlson, later said the holdout had conceded he held reasonable doubt yet still would not sign an acquittal. Jurors had also been played the 911 call Clancy's then-husband made after finding the children, a recording several of them described as harrowing.

The Pardon Plea Behind the Remarks

Mace was responding to an unusual move by Clancy's lawyer, Kevin Reddington, who had gone on national television to urge President Donald Trump to pardon his client. She dismissed the request as a 'publicity stunt' and branded it nasty and ugly.

The appeal has no legal basis. Clancy faces state charges in Massachusetts, and a presidential pardon reaches only federal offences, a point Trump himself made. The president, who said he had followed the case, called it a sad situation with no winners while stopping well short of Mace's language. In earlier remarks he said Clancy had done 'a horrible, horrible thing' and that 'there'll be a price.'

How the Duxbury Case Unfolded

Clancy, a former labour and delivery nurse, does not dispute that she strangled her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, at the family home in Duxbury, a town south of Boston, on 24 January 2023. She then threw herself from an upstairs window in a suicide attempt that left her paralysed.

She has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder. Her defence argued that severe postpartum psychosis, and the auditory hallucinations that accompanied it, rendered her incapable of criminal responsibility.

Prosecutors countered that she understood what she was doing and had planned the killings in advance.

What Happens Next

Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz has not said whether he will pursue a second trial.

A status hearing is scheduled for 29 September, and until then, Clancy remains at Tewksbury Hospital, the state psychiatric facility where she has been held since her arrest.

The episode is the latest controversy to attach to Mace. The outgoing congresswoman, who said last month that she will not seek elected office again, saw the TMZ clip spread rapidly across social media, reviving a national debate over postpartum psychosis and criminal responsibility.