I had been following the case of Lindsay Clancy before her trial began. As a resident of Massachusetts, it was difficult to dismiss it as if it were a tragedy taking place somewhere far away. The names of Duxbury and Plymouth were familiar places, and the deaths of three young children in January 2023 had remained in the background of my thoughts as the case slowly moved toward trial. During the trial I began thinking about Alexandros Papadiamantis’ The Murderess (Η Φόνισσα), a novella written more than a century earlier that also confronts the almost unbearable subject of a woman who takes the lives of children, beginning with her own grandchild. Last week, while I was passing the Duxbury and Plymouth area on my way to Cape Cod, I took a detour and visited some of the places associated with the case. There was something sobering about seeing the ordinary landscape in which this terrible event had taken place. The story I had been following for weeks suddenly had a physical setting: ordinary roads, houses, and neighborhoods where ordinary life continues. It made me think less about a case being argued in court and more about the reality of three children whose lives had ended there, and the tragedy their parents now faced.
The trial has now ended without a verdict. After seven days and more than thirty-eight hours of deliberation, the jury remained deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial on September 4. Clancy does not dispute that she killed her three children. The question before the jury was whether she was criminally responsible for what she did. The defense argued that she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis and that her mental state had made her legally incapable of understanding or controlling her actions. The prosecution argued that, whatever her mental-health difficulties, she deliberately planned the killings and understood what she was doing. After hearing weeks of testimony and competing expert opinions, the jurors could not reach a unanimous conclusion. The mistrial is neither a finding of innocence nor a finding of guilt; it leaves the question unresolved. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek another trial.
