Prosecutors said on Monday that they intend to retry a US mother accused of killing her three children, after a jury failed to reach a verdict, resulting in a mistrial in a case that has gripped the nation.
Lindsay Clancy, 36, did not dispute strangling her children — Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months old — but argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time, which meant she could not be held criminally responsible for her actions.
The jury, made up of nine women and three men, was unable to reach the unanimous verdict required in US criminal trials, raising questions about whether prosecutors would pursue a second trial.
“This would be a retrial. What that would look like remains to be seen,” prosecutor Jennifer Sprague told a Massachusetts court, without specifying which charges Clancy would face.
A retrial is likely to go ahead if Judge William Sullivan rejects a separate motion filed by the defence seeking to have the charges against Clancy dismissed.
Judge Sullivan is expected to rule on the motion by the next hearing, scheduled for November 16. He has provisionally set aside March 2027 as a possible date for a retrial, should the case proceed.
Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s defence lawyer, indicated that he would not oppose a retrial if Judge Sullivan rejects his motion to dismiss the charges.
Clancy’s original trial, which featured more than 80 witnesses and several days of deeply distressing testimony, sparked a wider debate in the United States about maternal mental health.
Clancy pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, saying that she had heard a voice instructing her to kill her children. Her lawyers argued that the voice was a symptom of postpartum psychosis, a rare condition that medical experts estimate affects between one and two women per 1,000 births.
Prosecutors rejected the defence’s argument, maintaining that Clancy had carefully planned the killings and understood the consequences of her actions.
Following the killings at the family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023, Clancy cut her neck and wrists before jumping from a second-storey window in an apparent suicide attempt. She was left paralysed from the waist down and now relies on a wheelchair.
AFP
