Clancy Juror Says the Holdout Never Cited Evidence

Nick Dargie, a 25-year-old juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial, said the lone holdout never pointed to a witness or an exhibit to explain his vote. The panel had split 11-1 for not guilty by reason of insanity when Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on Sept. 4, 2026.

Dargie spoke on Sept. 9, after three other jurors had already described the same man as unwilling to apply reasonable doubt. Those interviews now sit in front of a Sept. 29 hearing that will test whether Plymouth County tries her again.

Dargie Says the Holdout Never Pointed to Evidence

Dargie was one of three men on the 12-person jury. He told correspondent Aaron Katersky he asked the holdout, more than once, to ground the holdout’s vote in the record.

There was several times I would ask him to show us evidence or, you know, describe a witness testimony that helped to prove what he was saying, and… he couldn’t.

Nick Dargie, juror, to Aaron Katersky

He said that gap is why the foreperson sent a note to Sullivan. “There wasn’t a single piece of evidence or witness testimony that he used to prove why he was thinking the way he was, which is why we ultimately sent in that note,” Dargie said. He also drew a line the rest of the panel has had trouble holding in public. A completely opposite opinion, he said, would be a hung jury, and “that, like that, is our justice system.”

Clancy, 36, pleaded not guilty to three first-degree murder charges in the Jan. 24, 2023, deaths of her daughter Cora, 5, and her sons Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, at the family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She did not deny killing them. Her lawyers said she was overmedicated and in postpartum psychosis, a psychiatric emergency under clinical guidance on acute postpartum psychosis, and that she should not be held criminally responsible. Prosecutors said she planned the killings and knew right from wrong.

The Foreperson Had Already Signed the Three Forms

Foreperson Roni Carlson, a retired teacher, said the holdout admitted he had reasonable doubt, and she started filling out the three verdict forms. She wrote her signature on each sheet. Then, she said, he told the room he still would not say Clancy was not guilty by reason of insanity.

Kellie Farina, a chef for a senior center, said the holdout “had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.” Paula Devlin, who works for a defense contractor, called him “very arrogant” and said he “really did not take anything that anybody said.” Carlson said the evidence showed Clancy loved the children, “so she had to have snapped.”

Farina described the physical grind of 38 hours across seven days. People stood up and walked the room because they could not sit anymore. Carlson said she was “so sad” the panel could not return a verdict for Clancy. The holdout has not identified himself or given his own account. Sullivan sealed juror names for at least 14 days after the mistrial.

What Massachusetts Law Required on Reasonable Doubt

The fight inside the room was not whether the children died. Carlson said the jurors were not trying to figure out if Clancy killed them. “She did,” Carlson said. The live question was criminal responsibility, and Massachusetts puts that burden on the state, not the accused.

Model homicide instructions from the state court system tell jurors the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt she was criminally responsible at the time of the crime. A person is not criminally responsible if a mental disease or defect left them without the substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct or to conform that conduct to the law. The defendant has no burden to prove a lack of criminal responsibility.

The district court charge is blunter about what follows from doubt. If jurors have a reasonable doubt on whether the defendant was criminally responsible, they must find the defendant not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. That is the instruction the majority says the holdout would not apply after, in their telling, he admitted the doubt.

WHO DESCRIBED THE HOLDOUT

The slip itself listed five choices: not guilty by reason of insanity, not guilty, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or manslaughter. The 11 say they were ready to tick the insanity line. Dargie said the last juror stayed on conviction. The degree that juror wanted has not been made public.

Nurses on the Jury Walked Him Through the Files

Devlin said the holdout had questions about what medication Clancy was on. The panel had toxicology reports. Nurses on the jury walked through the amounts. “He just completely disregarded the information that they gave,” she said. Carlson pointed to Clancy’s journals and to testimony from her former mother-in-law, who called her a nurturing mother.

That is the conversion pitch the majority now recites on television: she loved them, she sought help, she snapped, so the state did not prove she was criminally responsible. The holdout, in their telling, would not leave the act of killing. That split is the preview of any second trial. A new jury would be asked, again, to treat the deaths as conceded and to decide only whether a mental disease or defect took away substantial capacity.

WHAT THE 11 SAY THEY PUT IN FRONT OF HIM

• The instruction: Sullivan’s charge on reasonable doubt, which the majority says required an acquittal once doubt on responsibility was admitted.
• The medical file: Toxicology reports, read with help from nurses on the panel, on the drugs in Clancy’s system.
• The mothering evidence: Journals and a former mother-in-law’s account that she loved the children, which Carlson treated as proof she had snapped.

Defense lawyer Kevin Reddington asked Sullivan to remove the juror, arguing the foreperson’s note showed a person who would not follow the law on reasonable doubt. Sullivan refused. “I don’t feel that is proper for me to side with one side or the other of the deliberations,” he said. Reddington then sought emergency review. The state’s highest court denied it, and Sullivan declared the mistrial.

Juror No. 5 Says the Room Was Stuck From the Start

A woman who sat as Juror No. 5, speaking on condition she not be named, gave the only public defense of the man the others have blamed. She voted with the 11 in the end. She also said the stalemate was not a one-man story.

The stand-alone juror was not the only one that was unwilling to see things from the other side. So, I’m going to kind of defend that individual in a sense. There were some big personalities in that room. But at the end of the day, it just came down to an inability to move past your convictions.

Juror No. 5, anonymous, to Kristina Rex

She said the majority, from the start of talks, was trying to move the holdout, and that people on both sides were “very firm in their stance and their belief from the beginning.” She had first thought Clancy should be found guilty and criminally responsible. She later found “so much doubt.” “The prosecution didn’t have a figurative smoking gun,” she said. “There was too much gray area.”

She still drew a hard line at the holdout’s alleged silence on the instruction. Acknowledging reasonable doubt and then refusing to apply it, she said, “morally and legally cannot” support a conviction, and she did not think Clancy was getting a fair trial of her peers from that juror. The problem, in her words, was “the inability to back that up with any logic.”

She also described Patrick Clancy’s 911 call, played in court and not broadcast, as something she will not forget. “I will never be the same after that 911 call,” she said. Online claims that Patrick, now her ex-husband, was the killer collapse, in her account, against that scream.

Reddington Will Ask a Judge to Bar a Retrial

Reddington told CBS Mornings on Sept. 9 he will move to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds at the Sept. 29 status hearing, arguing there was no “manifest necessity” for the mistrial. Hung juries usually do not block a second trial. His claim is that Sullivan should have inquired further once the foreperson wrote that a juror had acknowledged doubt and would not apply it.

Reddington said he would defend a holdout’s right to sit for a month. “That’s what the system is about.” What upset him, he said, was a note he described in court as stating the juror “has made statements acknowledging doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states.” He also said he will never agree that Clancy “do a day in jail.” He is open to talks with District Attorney Timothy Cruz if prison is off the table, including a possible drop to second-degree murder.

Cruz has not said whether he will retry. Outside court on Sept. 4, he said strong feelings had to be set aside. “The facts are Lindsay Clancy killed her three children and the evidence suggested to us that she was in control of her actions when she committed those homicides,” Cruz said. Clancy remains at Tewksbury Hospital without bail. Reddington said she is “not well,” still with “the same affect that she’s had for three and a half years,” and that she is getting psychiatric care there.

On Sept. 8, Reddington asked President Donald Trump to consider a pardon, a request that does not reach a Massachusetts murder charge. He later said the aim was pressure that might “trickle down” to Cruz. Trump, asked about the case on Sept. 4, called it a “horrible, horrible thing” and said the price would be “mental institution or jail or something.”

FROM THE MISTRIAL TO SEPT. 29

1. Sept. 3, 2026: The foreperson sends Sullivan a note that a single juror will not follow the reasonable-doubt charge.
2. Sept. 4, 2026: After jurors write they cannot agree, Sullivan declares a mistrial; Cruz declines to say whether he will retry.
3. Sept. 8, 2026: Carlson, Farina, and Devlin describe the holdout on Boston television; Reddington asks Trump for a pardon.
4. Sept. 9, 2026: Dargie says the holdout cited no evidence; Reddington says he will seek dismissal on Sept. 29.

The usual paths remain a retrial, a lesser charge, or a decision to stop. Reddington said he does not want another trial. Cruz’s office has the next move on the charges themselves.

The Judge Sealed Juror Names for 14 Days

The man at the center of every interview has not been named. NBC10 Boston said it tried to reach him. The panel was nine women and three men; Dargie, another of the men, is now the first male juror to back the majority’s story on camera. The public argument that followed treats the holdout as either the only person who stayed on the killings, or the only person who would not turn admitted doubt into the insanity verdict the slip required. That is the fight a second jury would inherit, with these interviews already in the record of how the first one broke.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The split: Jurors sent Sullivan an 11-1 note, and four of the 11 have now described the holdout as a man who would not sign not guilty by reason of insanity.
• The legal posture: Clancy still faces three first-degree murder counts and remains at Tewksbury; Cruz has not announced a retrial.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The holdout’s vote: He has not said whether he was voting first-degree murder, a lesser homicide, or something else, or whether he agrees he admitted reasonable doubt.
• The next trial: No date exists, and Reddington’s dismissal motion has not been heard.

Sullivan set Sept. 29 to take up next steps. Reddington said he will ask the judge to end the case there. Cruz has not said whether the three murder charges go back in front of a new panel. The holdout has not told his side.