A woman was arrested outside the Massachusetts courthouse where Lindsay Clancy is standing trial for killing her three children.
Dawn Light, 56, of Sutton, was taken into custody outside Plymouth District Court at 3.40pm on Tuesday and charged with intimidation of a witness, jurors or person furnishing information in connection with criminal proceedings, Massachusetts State Police announced.
Police wouldn’t confirm if the charge is related to the Clancy trial, but Light’s arrest came just 10 minutes after the jury was excused for the day as a stalemate continues.
Clancy is on trial over the killings of her three children – five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan.
On January 24, 2023, the labor and delivery nurse strangled the children using exercise bands in the basement of their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
She then tried to take her own life, cutting her wrists and neck and jumping from a second-floor bedroom window.
She was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, with prosecutors arguing that she premeditated and planned the killings and was in control of her actions when she strangled each of them in turn.
The 36-year-old has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, with her defense arguing that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and depression at the time and so is not criminally responsible.
A woman was arrested for intimidation outside the courthouse where Lindsay Clancy is facing trial for killing her three children
Clancy, 36, is on trial for the murders of her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, at her Massachusetts home
The woman, Dawn Light, 56, was taken into custody outside Plymouth Superior Court (pictured)
Over a grueling five weeks of testimony at trial, jurors heard dueling accounts of Clancy’s mental state in the lead-up to and on the day of the killings.
The arrest outside the courthouse came just hours after the jury told the judge that they were deadlocked and could not reach a unanimous verdict on Tuesday morning.
Judge William Sullivan sent the jury back, telling them to keep deliberating.
‘I know that this was a long trial. I know that there were over 80 witnesses, there were over 300 exhibits, but 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 to continue your deliberations,’ he said.
Hours later, the jury then sent a request to the judge asking to go home for the day.
The panel, made up of nine women and three men, was excused until 9am on Wednesday.
‘I just want to thank you for all of your hard work and commitment,’ the judge said.
The jury told Judge William Sullivan on Tuesday that they could not reach a unanimous verdict, but he ordered them to keep deliberating
In total, jurors have now deliberated for around 23 hours across four days – after sitting through five weeks of grueling, complex testimony.
While Clancy is charged with first-degree murder, jurors can also consider charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter, or return a verdict of not guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity.
Besides Tuesday’s note indicating that they are struggling to reach a verdict, the jury has sent only one question to the court during deliberations – asking to see pill bottles and the knife Clancy used in her suicide attempt.
Leaving the courthouse at the end of Tuesday, Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington told a large crowd of reporters that the length of time the jury is deliberating is ‘very heartening.’
‘Obviously they are working very hard,’ he said.
But, when asked if he thought Clancy could endure going through a second trial should the case end in a hung jury and a mistrial, he said she could not.
Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, told reporters that he is encouraged by the jurors’ request to be dismissed for the day
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Even if the jury continues to say they are deadlocked, the judge can continue to keep them deliberating.
The judge can ultimately give the panel the Tuey-Rodriguez instructions – also known as the ‘dynamite charge’ – which guides them that they are in the best position to reach a verdict and that a future jury would not be better equipped than them.
However, if the 12 jurors still cannot reach a unanimous verdict, there will be a hung jury and the judge will be forced to declare a mistrial.
Should that happen, the prosecution would have to decide whether or not to retry the case.
Deliberations will continue on Wednesday morning.
