A juror from the Lindsay Clancy murder trial in Massachusetts says she believes the jury "let down Lindsay" after a single holdout prevented a unanimous verdict, and now Clancy's defense team is asking a judge to block any retrial.

The juror, identified only as Paula, 65, told WCVB that the panel's failure to reach a verdict left her feeling the system had failed a woman whose own defense did not dispute that she killed her three young children in January 2023. Eleven of the twelve jurors concluded Clancy was not criminally responsible for the deaths due to severe mental illness. One juror refused to join them.

The result was a mistrial declared last week by Judge William Sullivan after the jury deadlocked following what the New York Post reported was 38 hours of deliberations. Clancy, 36, faced three counts of first-degree murder in the strangulation deaths of her children, ages 5, 3, and 8 months. Her defense argued she suffered from postpartum psychosis so severe it stripped her of criminal responsibility, Massachusetts' version of an insanity defense.

Eleven jurors agreed, one would not budge

Paula's account of the deliberations paints a picture of a jury that moved steadily toward consensus only to stall against a single holdout who, she said, could not support his position with evidence from the trial record. The jury began with eight members favoring a finding of not criminally responsible, two favoring guilty, and two undecided. By the end, eleven had reached the same conclusion.

Paula told Fox News' reporting outlet:

"We did not feel that he was following the law because he admitted that he had doubt at different times, that he had doubt about the case that was presented, and the way that the rule read to all the rest of us is if we had doubt, then we could not convict her of first-degree murder or second-degree murder or manslaughter."

That claim, that the holdout acknowledged reasonable doubt yet still refused to acquit, is echoed by fellow juror Nick Dargie, who spoke separately to the New York Post.

"There wasn't a single piece of evidence or witness testimony that he used to prove why he was thinking the way he was."

Dargie said he repeatedly asked the holdout to point to specific evidence or testimony supporting his position. The holdout could not.

Another juror, Kellie Farina, told NBC10 Boston that the holdout "had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children." In other words, the emotional weight of what Clancy did may have overridden the legal standard the jury was asked to apply.

Paula put it plainly: "We all tried to help each other. It was hard to separate the children from what our task was, and it was very emotional."

Jury sent three notes before Sullivan declared the deadlock

The deliberation process grew contentious enough that the foreperson sent a note to Judge Sullivan saying the jury could not reach a verdict, and accusing the holdout of refusing to apply the law on reasonable doubt. Three separate notes went to the judge detailing the 11-1 split before Sullivan finally declared the mistrial.

Sullivan responded by calling each juror up individually and asking whether they could apply the law as he had explained it. Every juror, including the holdout, answered yes. Paula was not persuaded.

"The judge has to believe that people are telling him the truth. And so, you know, 11 people told the truth and one maybe didn't. And I will never know why."

The jury had 297 pieces of evidence to work through. Paula said the holdout's refusal to engage with that record left the majority frustrated and, ultimately, unable to fulfill their task.

Cases involving parents accused of killing their own children carry an emotional burden few other trials can match. A recent case at Fort Bragg, where a soldier was sentenced to life for beating his 2-year-old daughter to death, ended with a conviction, but the Clancy trial asked jurors to answer a different and more wrenching question: whether a mother's mental illness made her incapable of bearing criminal responsibility for the deaths of her own children.

Holdout juror's identity sparked a separate media controversy

The holdout's identity became public in an unexpected way. During a CBS Mornings interview, juror Paula, whose last name was reported by Breitbart as Devlin, confirmed that the lone dissenter was a Black man on an otherwise all-white jury of nine women and three men.

CBS host Gayle King's on-air reaction drew immediate attention. "A black man is the holdout juror?" King asked, visibly surprised. She added: "I have to sit with that for just a second." The exchange went viral, with conservative commentators arguing King's stunned pause revealed an assumption about which demographic would most likely hold out for conviction in a case like this.

The racial dimension added a layer of public controversy to a case already freighted with difficult questions about mental illness, criminal law, and the limits of jury deliberation.

Defense moves to block a retrial entirely

Clancy's defense team filed a motion on Thursday arguing that prosecutors failed to meet their burden at trial and asking Judge Sullivan to enter a required finding of not guilty, a legal mechanism that, if granted, would prevent the state from retrying the case. The defense contends the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to establish criminal responsibility.

Clancy admitted in court filings to killing her three children but maintained that severe mental illness left her not criminally responsible. Prosecutors argued at trial that Clancy bore criminal responsibility despite evidence she suffered from mental illness. The defense did not dispute the killings themselves, only whether Clancy had the mental capacity to be held accountable for them.

The facts of the case are grim. In January 2023, Clancy sent her husband Patrick out to pick up medication and takeout. When he returned, he found Clancy injured outside the home in what appeared to be a suicide attempt. The couple's three children were unconscious in the basement. Two died that night. The third was airlifted to a Boston hospital and died several days later.

Patrick Clancy's 911 call was played during the trial. The jury heard it alongside nearly 300 other pieces of evidence. Eleven of them concluded the evidence pointed to a woman so consumed by postpartum psychosis that the law could not hold her criminally responsible. One disagreed.

Meanwhile, Clancy's defense attorney has separately asked President Trump for a pardon, a request Trump cannot legally grant, since the case is a state prosecution, not a federal one.

Trump calls case a 'horrible tragedy,' signals Clancy will face consequences

President Trump weighed in publicly after the mistrial. Just The News reported that Trump called the case "a horrible tragedy" and said Clancy "did a horrible, horrible thing."

Trump indicated Clancy would likely face another trial and suggested she would end up in either a psychiatric institution or prison. "There'll be a price," he said.

Whether that price comes through a retrial or through the defense's motion to end the case remains an open question. Judge Sullivan has not yet ruled on the defense motion, and no hearing date has been publicly announced.

Paula says the medical system failed Clancy's family

Paula reserved some of her sharpest criticism not for the holdout juror but for the medical professionals she believes failed to intervene before the tragedy occurred.

"There was a clear indication that the medical community failed her and not just her, but her whole family, because something like that affects the whole entire family. And if everybody can be educated in a better way, then it will help the whole family unit."

That framing, the medical system as a failed safeguard, is central to the defense's argument that Clancy's postpartum psychosis went unaddressed until it was too late. Whether a jury will hear that argument again depends on what Judge Sullivan does next.

Criminal trials involving serious charges and contested legal standards often hinge on whether jurors can set aside raw emotion and apply the law as written. In the Clancy case, eleven jurors say they did exactly that. They say the twelfth could not.

Paula's final word on the holdout carried the weight of someone who spent weeks inside a deliberation room and walked out without a verdict:

"If our holdout juror had given us evidence to support his reasoning, we would have felt differently about what we told the judge."

Three children are dead. A jury heard the evidence, applied the law, and came within a single vote of a verdict. The system asks jurors to follow the facts, and when one refuses, everyone pays the price.