The lone holdout juror in the trial of Lindsay Clancy has said he "didn't have any doubts" that she was criminally responsible for killing her three children. "Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses and what the prosecution presents, I thought it was enough proof that she knew exactly what she was doing and planned it," Michael Desronvil said in a statement to CBS News, the BBC's US partner. The judge declared a mistrial on 4 September after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict following nearly 40 hours of deliberating.
Clancy admitted to the killings but her lawyers argued she had been suffering from postpartum psychosis. Prosecutors said the killings were calculated. Warning: This article contains distressing details The 36-year-old was charged with three counts of first-degree murder after strangling Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months, at the family's Massachusetts home before jumping out of the second-floor window.
To find Clancy guilty, jurors had to be unanimously convinced beyond reasonable doubt that she intentionally killed her children and that she did not do so as a result of postpartum psychosis, a rare and serious condition. The jury - nine women and three men - considered a range of options including not guilty by reason of insanity, manslaughter and first-degree murder. Several jurors have said following the mistrial being declared that the panel was ultimately divided 11-1 in favour of finding Clancy not criminally responsible.
Desronvil said he believed the evidence presented in court showed she had planned the killings. "I didn't have any doubts," he said in a statement to CBS on Thursday. "As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence presented." 'Emotional rollercoaster' - Lindsay Clancy jurors speak out on what led to mistrial What happens next after Lindsay Clancy's murder case ends in a mistrial?
Paula Devlin, one of the other jurors, told CBS Mornings that the panel had spent several days trying to convince Desronvil to change his mind. "We all worked together to convince ourselves once we got to that point where it was 10 to 2," she said. The jury foreperson, a retired fifth-grade teacher, described not being able to reach a verdict as "awful" and an "emotional rollercoaster".
She told NBC that Desronvil had "admitted he had reasonable doubt", but as she started filling out the verdict sheets, he apparently said: "But I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity." Another juror told local CBS station WBZ-TV that most of the jurors had been "very firm in their stance" from the start and "the stand-alone juror was not the only one that was unwilling to see things from the other side". But they added that because Desronvil would not "follow" his reasonable doubt nor offer logical reasoning for his position, they felt Clancy had not receive a fair trial. The identities of all 11 jurors have not been officially disclosed but in the US, once a case is over, any juror can choose to speak publicly about a case and their deliberations.
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