Lindsay Clancy Mistrial Juror Revealed What the Foreperson Was Doing When He Stopped Her

Lindsay Clancy admitted to strangling her three young children in their Massachusetts basement.

Eleven of twelve jurors were reportedly ready to declare her not criminally responsible.

One holdout juror stopped the jury foreperson moments before she finished signing the paperwork.

The Holdout Juror Who Stopped Lindsay Clancy from Walking Free

Foreperson Roni Carlson told NBC10 Boston that the lone holdout – a male juror – admitted he had reasonable doubt about Clancy's criminal responsibility, then refused to vote not guilty anyway.

Carlson said she was already so excited to sign all three acquittal forms that she'd begun completing them, certain the panel had reached a unanimous decision – before the holdout reversed himself.

The other jurors called him arrogant and closed off, saying he brushed aside two nurses on the panel who walked him through Clancy's medication records – even with the hospital's own drug-test results already in front of the jury.

Jurors told Fox News they repeatedly read Judge William Sullivan's instructions on reasonable doubt directly to the holdout – and he ignored them.

One juror said the holdout simply could not get past what Lindsay had done to her own children.

That is not a man refusing to follow the law.

That is a man refusing to forget three murdered babies.

Why the Jury Foreperson Was Excited to Let Lindsay Clancy Go Free

Roni Carlson – a retired fifth-grade teacher – said she was devastated the jury couldn't deliver a verdict for Lindsay Clancy.

Not for Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy.

For Lindsay.

The jury's own note to Judge Sullivan said only that they had failed to reach a decision – nothing about grieving for three dead children.

Meanwhile, Patrick Clancy – the father of those three dead children – issued a statement saying another trial would be "extraordinarily painful" for his family.

He has been through the unthinkable.

His ex-wife killed his babies.

He sat through weeks of gut-wrenching testimony about their murders.

And now the system is debating whether to put him through it again – while the defense attorney is calling on President Trump to issue a pardon he has no legal authority to give, since this is a state case.

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington told Good Morning America on Tuesday he was open to a plea deal – and separately asked President Trump directly to pardon Clancy, pointing to her personal history as justification.

Days earlier, when reporters asked him about the prospect of a retrial, Reddington's answer was two words: "bring it."

He won nothing.

Three children are dead.

How the Insanity Defense Almost Freed Lindsay Clancy

Here is what the media coverage will not tell you.

The insanity defense succeeds in roughly 26 percent of cases where it is raised – and it is raised in less than one percent of all felony cases to begin with.

Juries almost never let killers walk on insanity claims.

This jury almost did.

Eleven of twelve were ready to accept that a mother who strangled a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and an 8-month-old was not responsible for any of it.

Massachusetts law required prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy understood her actions were wrong or had the capacity to follow the law – a standard that weeks of sympathetic expert testimony almost cleared.

Prosecutors argued Clancy planned the killings in advance and knew exactly what she was doing.

A prosecution forensic psychiatrist testified Clancy told him a voice commanded her to kill all three children – and she followed through until every child was dead.

One man looked at the dead children and said no.

The media is calling him the problem.

Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz still hasn't said whether he'll retry Clancy.

A status hearing is set for September 29 – and her own attorney is already publicly lobbying for a plea deal instead.

The panel called him arrogant and impossible to work with.

He was also the only person in that room who never stopped seeing three dead children instead of one grieving mother.

The foreperson, by her own account, was excited to look past that.

Sources:

• Brittany Miller, "Lindsay Clancy juror admitted 'reasonable doubt' but still refused insanity verdict, foreperson says," Fox News, September 8, 2026.
• Adam Sabes, "Lindsay Clancy attorney Kevin Reddington signals he's open to a deal, hopes DA will 'revisit' case," Fox News, September 8, 2026.
• "Patrick Clancy speaks out after Lindsay Clancy's mistrial: Another trial would be 'extraordinarily painful,'" One America News, September 5, 2026.
• "The Volume and Characteristics of Insanity Defense Pleas: An Eight-State Study," Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.