Defense attorney Kevin Reddington says Lindsay Clancy repeats the same phrase over and over inside the psychiatric facility where she is held, a portrait of anguish that raises hard questions about accountability, mental illness, and what comes next in a case that left three children dead.
Reddington told NBC News on Wednesday that the 36-year-old Clancy, confined at Tewksbury Hospital, a state-run psychiatric facility in Massachusetts, "constantly" repeats a single plea: "I want my babies. I want my babies." She asks about her three children "all the time," Reddington said, describing a woman who "has bad days and she has worse days."
Those children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, just 8 months old, are dead. Clancy strangled all three with exercise bands inside the family's Duxbury, Massachusetts, home in January 2023, then attempted to take her own life. She survived. They did not. And after a murder trial that ended in a hung jury and mistrial, the question of whether Clancy will ever face a reckoning in a courtroom remains unanswered.
The trial split on a single fault line. After seven days and 38 hours of deliberation, 11 jurors favored a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. One male holdout would not join them. Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial.
The defense had argued that Clancy was in the grip of postpartum psychosis when she killed her children, that the woman who committed the act was not the woman who exists today. Prosecutors countered that Clancy carefully planned the killings. The jury room standoff left both sides without a resolution.
Reddington did not hide his frustration. He told AP News that the jurors who voted to acquit "know they were robbed by one man, for whatever his agenda was." The foreman reportedly told the court that the holdout juror was refusing to properly apply the reasonable doubt standard, a claim that, if accurate, suggests the lone dissenter may have ignored the judge's instructions on how to weigh the insanity defense.
Judge Sullivan, for his part, thanked the jurors for their service: "On behalf of myself, I just want to thank you so much. You should be proud for what you did. You braced for that duty; you performed that duty."
Before the mistrial became official, Sullivan briefly paused the formal declaration to give the defense one hour to appeal and seek a stay. Reddington tried to get the holdout juror removed, arguing the man harbored bias against people with mental illness. He also sought an emergency stay from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Both efforts failed.
Since the mistrial, the 75-year-old defense attorney has launched what amounts to a national media campaign on Clancy's behalf. His Wednesday interview with NBC News was part of a broader blitz that has included public statements, legal posturing, and at least one move that drew sharp criticism from fellow lawyers, a public plea to President Trump for help with the case, even though a presidential pardon cannot legally reach a state murder charge.
Reddington has also walked back some of his more combative post-trial remarks. After initially boasting that he had "crushed" Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz at trial, he acknowledged to Fox News that he "probably should have used a different set of words." He also expressed regret for accusing Cruz of not knowing the names of Clancy's three children: "I had no right to accuse the man of not knowing the names of those kids and I regret that."
The apology was notable. Reddington's initial comments were the kind of post-verdict grandstanding that does nothing for a client and poisons the well with the very prosecutor who holds the next move. Cruz's office has not announced whether it will retry Clancy on the same murder charges, seek a plea deal, downgrade the charges, or drop the case altogether.
That silence from the DA's office is the most consequential fact in the case right now. Three children are dead. Eleven of twelve jurors sided with the defense. And the prosecution has yet to say a word about what happens next.
Whatever legal maneuvering plays out in the months ahead, Clancy's current reality is grim by any measure. Forensic psychologist Dr. Paul Zeizel testified during the trial that she is "on a constant one-to-one", meaning a staff member monitors her around the clock to prevent another suicide attempt. She remains at Tewksbury Hospital, a state psychiatric facility, and will stay there until the case is resolved.
Reddington's portrait of his client leans heavily on sympathy. He described Clancy as "an incredible person, an amazing mother" and emphasized her eight years as a labor and delivery nurse, a career, he said, that made her beloved by "neighbors, friends, cops, firefighters, teachers."
He drew a hard line between that version of Clancy and the one who killed her children.
"Because that was not the Lindsay that is now living amongst us. The woman who's living amongst us is the person who was the labor and delivery nurse for eight years that everybody loved."
That argument, that postpartum psychosis turned a loving mother into someone unrecognizable, is the core of the defense case. It persuaded 11 jurors. Whether it will persuade a second jury, or whether there will even be a second trial, depends entirely on decisions the Plymouth County DA has not yet made.
Reddington said Tuesday he would be willing to enter plea talks with the DA's office but "would not plead Lindsay Clancy to a day in jail." His post-mistrial legal strategy, Fox News reported, includes challenging a retrial on double jeopardy grounds, seeking a charge reduction to second-degree murder, and pursuing a bench trial, where a judge, not a jury, would decide the verdict.
The deadlock that ended the first trial came after the jury was sent home following a second impasse and received a rare last-resort instruction from the judge, a measure that still failed to break the logjam.
Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz framed his office's mission plainly after the mistrial. "This was and has always been about getting justice for those three little babies," he told reporters.
But justice for Cora, Dawson, and Callan now runs through a thicket of bad options. Retry the case, and Cruz risks the same outcome, or worse, an outright acquittal by reason of insanity, which could eventually lead to Clancy's release from psychiatric custody. Accept a plea, and he faces public outrage over leniency for a woman who strangled three children. Drop the case, and the message is that a hung jury ends accountability.
The public reaction to the mistrial has been fierce. Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer told Fox News viewers he hopes Clancy is suffering, a raw sentiment that reflects the anger many Americans feel when they see a case involving dead children end without a verdict.
Meanwhile, Reddington's decision to ask President Trump for a pardon, a request the president has no constitutional authority to grant in a state case, drew criticism from legal observers who called the move a publicity stunt that could undermine the defense's credibility.
None of it changes the central, unbearable fact at the bottom of this case. Three small children, the oldest barely in kindergarten, the youngest not yet a year old, were killed by the person responsible for keeping them alive. The legal system owes them an answer, even if the answer is difficult. Silence from the DA's office is not justice. It is delay.
Accountability does not require cruelty. But it does require a conclusion. Cora, Dawson, and Callan deserve at least that much.