A woman who served on the jury in Lindsay Clancy’s triple murder trial said that her children would still be alive if the mother of three received the “help she really needed.” Paula Devlin, one of the 12 jurors, has been outspoken since a mistrial was declared, sympathizing with the defendant. 

Content Warning: This article discusses an exceptionally disturbing case involving multiple children’s murders and suicidal ideation. The details may be upsetting or triggering for some readers. Reader discretion is advised; those sensitive to these topics are encouraged to proceed with caution or stop reading.

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Juror Speaks on Her Decision

Devlin sat down with Fox News in various interviews and explained the ins and outs of the jury’s decision and her personal feelings on the case. She voted to find Lindsay Clancy not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility and said she, along with the others who voted the same way, did not use personal bias in reaching her decision.

“We looked at the evidence, and the evidence had holes in the prosecution’s case,” Devlin told the outlet. She also acknowledged that she felt like Clancy’s children, who were killed on January 24, 2023, would still be here with their loved ones had the mother received appropriate treatment. 

“I truly, truly in my heart believe that if Lindsay had got the help she really needed, those three children would still be here,” she said. “Those five people would still be a family.”

Life-Changing Decision

In a separate interview with CBS Saturday morning, Devlin said the deliberations did not start with an 11-1 split. Initially, 8 jurors wanted to find Clancy not guilty, 2 were undecided, and 2 wanted to find her guilty. In the end, after nearly 40 hours of deliberations and three reports to the judge about deadlocking, they could not reach a decision.

Devlin said that if the holdout juror had presented evidence to support his decision, they would have been fine with him holding out, but he did not; instead, he admitted he had reasonable doubt but that his personal beliefs would not allow him to find her not guilty.

Devlin said the jurors could feel the weight of their decision and knew it would not end in that courtroom, but would carry into future cases involving women.

“Even though we didn’t know what was going on outside of our little bubble that we were in, we knew that this was a turning point, and this would be something that could change something to make it better for other women in the future, for other families,” Devlin said.

Lindsay Clancy Murder Trial

Lindsay Clancy was charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8-months. She was accused of fatally strangling her children with exercise bands before attempting suicide by slicing her wrists and neck and throwing herself out of a second-story window in their family’s home. 

Clancy’s defense team continuously argued that the mother was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder; therefore, she could not be held criminally liable for her actions at the time of the killings. 

However, prosecutors say that she premeditated the killings and sent her husband out of the house so she could carry them out. Then, she faked her suicide and lowered herself out of the second-story window without accounting for the sheet of ice on the ground, so she was still left paralyzed from the waist down. 

In the end, the jury deadlocked for a third time, and Judge William Sullivan was forced to declare a mistrial. Beforehand, Sullivan did his best to get the jurors to reach a unanimous verdict. He sent them back several times, explicitly stating the rules of the court, and at one point called them one by one to confirm they could deliberate impartially. 

Prosecutors must decide whether to retry Clancy, but the defense and the state’s office say a retrial is likely. A follow-up hearing is scheduled for September 29, 2026, to determine the next steps.