The judge presiding over the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who admitted to killing her 3 children, ordered the jury to continue deliberating after they reported being unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the case on Tuesday morning.

The jury sent a note to Judge William Sullivan, which he read aloud in Plymouth Superior Court: “After many hours of deliberation, we are unable to come to a unanimous decision.”

“I brought you back out because I know that this was a long trial,” Sullivan told the jurors, citing the more than 80 witnesses and 300 exhibits. “Because of that, I’m going to ask you to go back out — keeping in mind all of the instructions that I gave you — to go out and continue your deliberations at this time.”

Clancy, 36, sat attentively, looking at the jurors as the judge addressed them in the courtroom.

Clancy admitted to fatally strangling her three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — with exercise bands in the basement of her Duxbury, Massachusetts, home in January 2023. She subsequently attempted suicide and is partially paralyzed as a result.

The jury — nine women and three men, according to reporters who have been in the courtroom — began deliberating Thursday. On Friday, the jurors asked their first question in the case, requesting to see the pill bottles and knife Clancy used in her suicide attempt.

The jury’s inability to reach a verdict underscores just how complex and contentious the case is. Prosecutors and defense debated argued over Clancy’s culpability — and maternal and postpartum mental health — during the more than one monthlong trial, and the issues have sparked debate in the media and public sphere. Some have defended Clancy, blaming the psychiatric drugs she was on at the time for her killing of her children; others have argued she should be found guilty and sent to prison for life.

Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, argued Clancy was experiencing postpartum psychosis — a rare psychiatric emergency that can affect women after childbirth — at the time of the killings after months of seeking treatment for postpartum depression. He is asking the jury to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, which would have her committed to a state-run psychiatric facility with the potential to be periodically reviewed for release in the future. She has been at one such facility, Tewksbury Hospital, for the past few years.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, are seeking a triple first-degree murder conviction, which would send Clancy to prison for life without the possibility of parole. They argued the killings were premeditated, noting that she sent her then-husband Patrick out for errands the night of the killings as evidence of premeditation.

The jury could also find Clancy guilty of second-degree murder, which carries a life sentence in prison with the possibility of parole, or manslaughter, which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.

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