The jury deciding whether Lindsay Clancy is criminally responsible for killing her three children returned to Plymouth County Superior Court at nine o’clock Friday morning. They deliberated about three and a half hours Thursday afternoon without reaching a verdict and without sending a single note.
There are three verdict slips in that room, one for Cora, one for Dawson, and one for Callan. Each carries five options, and the twelve jurors must be unanimous on each slip separately.
The five verdict options, and what each one means
Most coverage has been describing four possible outcomes. There are five, and the fifth matters even though almost nobody expects it.
Not guilty. A flat acquittal. This is the verdict for a jury that concludes the Commonwealth failed to prove Clancy caused the deaths at all. Nobody in this trial argued that. The defense conceded the killings from the opening statement forward, which makes this option a formality rather than a live possibility.
Not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. The verdict the defense asked for. It means the jury found the Commonwealth did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy was criminally responsible, under the standard from Commonwealth v. McHoul: that mental disease or defect left her without substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the law. It is not a finding that she is innocent of the acts, and it does not send her home. It begins civil commitment under G.L. c. 123, § 16, which can run for decades. We explained that machinery in this piece.
Guilty of first-degree murder. Mandatory life without the possibility of parole, and automatic review by the Supreme Judicial Court under G.L. c. 278, § 33E. Note that first degree appears once on the slip even though the Commonwealth offered two routes to it. Jurors may reach it through deliberate premeditation or through extreme atrocity or cruelty. The second route requires no finding of planning at all; it turns on the manner of the killings. A juror unconvinced Clancy plotted anything can still arrive at first-degree murder that way. What a guilty verdict would mean.
Guilty of second-degree murder. Life with parole eligibility, with the judge setting the minimum between fifteen and twenty-five years. This is the classic compromise verdict, available to jurors who accept an intentional killing but cannot get to premeditation or extreme atrocity, or who simply cannot agree on the top count.
Guilty of manslaughter. The option the defense fought for and won at the charge conference, built on a theory of involuntary intoxication from the psychiatric medications Clancy had been prescribed. Prosecutors opposed including it. Its presence gives a juror who rejects the insanity defense but still believes the medications mattered somewhere to land short of murder.
What the silence means, and what it doesn’t
Two days in, this jury has asked for nothing. No readbacks, no requests to have an instruction repeated, no questions of any kind.
That is genuinely ambiguous, and anyone telling you otherwise is guessing. A quiet jury may be working comfortably from the written instructions it received, which this jury has. Or it may not yet have reached the point where disagreement surfaces and someone needs a definition settled.
What would be informative are the specific questions this case invites. A request to rehear the criminal responsibility instruction would signal jurors are fighting over the legal test rather than the facts. A request to rehear who carries the burden would signal something more consequential, because the burden here runs opposite to most people’s intuition: Clancy never had to prove she was insane, and the Commonwealth had to prove she was responsible beyond a reasonable doubt. A readback of a particular expert would tell you which of the six is dividing the room.
None of that has happened.
The one inference that holds is modest. Nobody walked into that room and voted immediately. In a case where the defendant admits causing the deaths, a fast verdict would have meant the panel found the mental-state question easy. Twelve people ending a session without resolving it means they don’t.
Why this case takes time
Deliberations that stretch across days are unremarkable given what this jury has to work through: twenty-one days of testimony, roughly seventy witnesses, six psychiatric experts who contradicted one another, three separate counts requiring unanimity on each, an unfamiliar legal standard with two independent prongs, and an allocation of proof that runs backward from what most jurors expect walking in.
Legal analysts watching the case have consistently described the outcome as genuinely uncertain and a hung jury as a realistic possibility. That is not hedging. Andrea Yates, the case this one is compared to constantly, was convicted at her first trial in Texas and found not guilty by reason of insanity at her second on substantially the same evidence. Two juries, two answers.
We laid out the full set of factors in how long the jury is likely to deliberate.
What happens if they cannot agree
If the twelve reach an impasse, Judge William Sullivan will typically instruct them to keep working before doing anything else. If they still cannot agree, he declares a mistrial.
A mistrial dismisses nothing. The indictment survives, and the Plymouth County District Attorney decides whether to try the entire case again to a new jury. Given the resources already spent and the profile of the case, a retrial would be the expected course rather than the exception.
The house, and a story worth handling carefully
A separate thread surfaced this week that is circulating faster than it is being explained.
The family’s home on Summer Street in Duxbury was sold in an off-market transaction in January 2024 for $675,000, roughly $125,000 below what the property was estimated to be worth at the time. The Clancys had bought it in 2018 for $500,000. Patrick Clancy sold it and relocated to New York, which he discussed publicly in a 2024 interview.
The detail generating attention is the buyer: Michael Phippen, who worked as an assistant district attorney in Plymouth County from roughly 2016 to 2018.
The reporting does not support the inference people are drawing from that. Phippen left the district attorney’s office years before Clancy was charged and had no role in the prosecution. He has since objected, through counsel, to a jury view of the property during the trial, citing disruption to his household. A discounted off-market sale of a house where three children were killed is not difficult to explain on ordinary terms.
How a verdict arrives
There is no warning. The jury sends word to the court officer, the parties are notified, and the courtroom reassembles within roughly an hour. Reporters camped outside get perhaps that much notice.
Judge Sullivan has not said publicly whether he will keep the jury into the evening or bring them back on Saturday.
Our running timeline tracks the case, the complete five-week account covers how it got here, and the closing arguments are covered in full.
Common questions
How many verdict options does the Clancy jury have?
Five on each of the three slips: not guilty; not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility; guilty of first-degree murder; guilty of second-degree murder; and guilty of manslaughter.
Does the verdict have to be unanimous?
Yes, and separately on each of the three counts.
Has the jury asked any questions?
No. Through Thursday afternoon and into Friday morning, no notes, questions, or readback requests have been reported.
What happens if the jury is hung?
The judge declares a mistrial. The charges remain, and the district attorney decides whether to retry the case.
Would a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict free her?
No. It begins civil commitment proceedings under Massachusetts law that can continue for decades, with annual review for as long as she remains mentally ill and dangerous.
When will the verdict come?
There is no way to predict it and no time limit on deliberations.
Updated Friday, August 28, 2026. Deliberations are ongoing and this page will be updated when the jury returns a verdict.