Holdout Juror in Lindsay Clancy Case Defends Decision

Michael P. Desronvil says he had no doubt the Massachusetts mother whose murder trial over the deaths of her three children was guilty

Michael P. Desronvil, the sole juror whose holdout in the case against Lindsay Clancy who was on trial for killing her three young children led to a mistrial on Sept. 4, stood by his vote to convict Clancy, saying he did not hold doubts on her being guilty.

In a statement on Friday, Dersonvil said that during deliberations other jurors cut off his attempts to discuss theories about the case, as The New York Times reports. One of the jurors, Paula Devlin, described Dersonvil as “very arrogant” in an interview earlier in the month with NBC10 and that while “he admitted he had reasonable doubt,” he would not agree to a verdict.

“I didn’t have any doubts,” he said in a statement to NewsNation. “As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence present.”

“Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses and what the prosecution presented, I thought it was enough proof that she knew exactly what she was doing and planned,” Desronvil said in a statement through his attorney Edward Paltzik, via the Times.

Clancy’s triple murder trial ended in a mistrial after jurors said they were deadlocked and a higher court rejected the defense’s bid to intervene in the deliberations. The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict with the vote remaining 11-1 for at least two days.

Clancy had admitted to strangling her three children to death in January 2023, with her defense lawyers arguing she was in the throes of psychosis and should not be held criminally responsible. Meanwhile, prosecutors argued that while Clancy was deeply troubled, she understood that what she was doing was wrong. They asked the jurors to convict her of three counts of first-degree murder.

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The high-profile case became a viral phenomenon, with debates around postpartum issues and scrutiny building around the jurors continuing in the wake of the mistrial.

Prosecutors have not said yet if they will retry Clancy. The wheelchair-bound Clancy, who jumped out of a window after strangling her children was paralyzed in the fall, remains in custody at a state-run psychiatric facility.