The Holdout Juror Speaks as Clancy’s Retrial Hearing Arrives

Michael P. Desronvil, the holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, released a 1-minute-20-second video on September 28 naming the three children she killed. He asked the public to look at them, not at him, on the night before a Plymouth hearing that still has to decide whether she is tried again.

The clip does not mention the 11-1 split later described by other jurors, the reasonable-doubt fight in the jury room, or the defense motion that now seeks his phone records. It names Cora, Dawson and Callan, and it leaves the legal case exactly where Judge William Sullivan left it on September 4: unresolved.

Desronvil’s Camera Tape Names Cora, Dawson and Callan

Desronvil, 48, spoke alone to a camera. There was no interviewer and no question about how he voted. He introduced himself as the lone juror, thanked people who had backed him, and then turned the lens toward the children.

I know the whole focus has been on me, but we want to reel everything back and put the focus on the three angels. The ones that can’t speak for themselves, the ones that can’t defend themselves, and the ones that can’t fight the battles, and those are Cora, Dawson and Callan.

Michael P. Desronvil, holdout juror, video statement

He said he wanted to thank God for his Catholic faith and for “blessing me with the ability to love my daughter.” He thanked supporters for prayers and for emotional and psychological support “that I feel, that I sense, that I know.” He did not discuss Lindsay Clancy’s mental state, the exercise bands, or the judge’s instructions on reasonable doubt.

EXCLUSIVE: The juror at the center of the Lindsay Clancy mistrial controversy is breaking his silence for the first time in video exclusively obtained by 'Hannity,' but says the attention should be on the three children whose deaths were at the heart of the case.

“I know the… pic.twitter.com/Agng8axStt

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 29, 2026

That omission is the whole problem the tape creates. A camera statement that never mentions reasonable doubt cannot close a fight that is about reasonable doubt. The clip is already being passed around as proof that he stood up for the children, which is the opposite of taking the spotlight off him.

Eleven Jurors Said He Would Not Follow Reasonable Doubt

Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, never denied strangling her children in the basement of the family’s Duxbury home on January 24, 2023. Cora was 5. Dawson was 3. Callan was 8 months old and died days later. She jumped from a second-story window that night and was left paralyzed. She pleaded not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility, arguing she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis.

The jury of nine women and three men heard five weeks of testimony in a six-week trial. Deliberations started on August 27. Jurors sent deadlock notes three times. After a second impasse on September 2, Sullivan read the Tuey-Rodriguez charge, which tells a stuck panel to keep trying without surrendering an honest view of the evidence. On September 4, after 38 hours over seven days, the foreperson wrote that the panel could not agree and would not be able to. Sullivan declared a mistrial.

Jurors later described an 11-1 split, with Desronvil alone against a finding that Clancy lacked criminal responsibility. A note from the foreperson said the holdout had acknowledged doubt but would not apply the law on reasonable doubt. Desronvil has denied that account since mid-September.

HOW THE JURY ROOM IS BEING TOLD

Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s lawyer, asked Sullivan to remove the holdout before the mistrial was declared and then sought an emergency stay from the Supreme Judicial Court. Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt denied the stay the same afternoon. Sullivan then ended the trial. In a written statement released through lawyer Edward Paltzik on September 18, Desronvil said other jurors “kept getting cut off” his theories “as if I had doubts based on the evidence present.”

What the Plymouth Hearing Has to Settle

Clancy is due in Plymouth Superior Court at 9 a.m. on September 29 for a status hearing, trial assignment, and a Rule 25 motion. She has been held without bail at Tewksbury Hospital for more than three years. Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz has not said whether he will try her again on three counts of first-degree murder, cut the charges, or seek a deal.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The charges: Three counts of first-degree murder remain open. No verdict was returned on any count.
• The defense filings: Reddington has asked for a required finding of not guilty, for dismissal on double-jeopardy grounds, and for a limited inquiry into the holdout, including juror-questionnaire answers and cellphone records.
• The prosecutor’s line: After the mistrial Cruz said the case was about “getting justice for those three little babies” and about “the cruel and calculated killing of three innocents,” not about the health care system.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A retrial: Cruz has not announced whether he will go again, and nothing in the rules forces him to decide on September 29.
• A plea: Reddington has said he is open to talks that keep Clancy out of prison. No deal has been described in court.
• The phone motion: Paltzik called a demand for Desronvil’s phone “the most outrageous thing” he had heard in nearly 20 years of practice and said he planned a bar complaint against Reddington. The judge has not ruled.

Those open items sit on the same calendar as the video. Cruz can still choose a second jury. He can also reduce the charges, which would let Clancy waive a jury and try the case to a judge, an option first-degree murder does not give her.

FOUR PATHS STILL OPEN IN PLYMOUTH

• Same charges: Retry first-degree murder before a new jury, with Sullivan having said he would like a fall date if prosecutors go forward.
• Lesser counts: Bring second-degree murder or manslaughter instead, which would change both the penalty and how the next trial can be tried.
• A deal: End the case without a second full trial, if both sides will sign it.
• A bar: If Sullivan finds the first trial’s evidence legally insufficient under Massachusetts law, a second trial can be blocked.

A new panel would start from zero. Neither side is bound by how the first jury split. Both sides would have the full transcript of every witness, which is a different kind of second trial than the first one was.

A Hung Jury Does Not End the Murder Charges

Federal double jeopardy does not stop a retrial after a deadlock. In Richardson v. United States, 468 U.S. 317 (1984), the Supreme Court said a hung jury is not an event that ends jeopardy. Massachusetts adds one off-ramp. In jeopardy terminates after a hung jury only if the defense moved for a required finding of not guilty and the evidence, taken in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, could not support a conviction. That is Berry v. Commonwealth, 393 Mass. 793 (1985). Eleven votes one way do not decide that motion. The judge asks whether any rational juror could have found every element.

The mental-state law is just as specific. Under Commonwealth v. McHoul, 352 Mass. 544 (1967), a person is not responsible if, because of mental disease or defect, the person lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct or to conform it to the law. Once that issue is raised, the Commonwealth has to prove criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt. That is why the first trial was a war of psychiatrists, not a who-did-it.

Clancy’s lawyers said she heard a voice ordering her to kill the children and then herself. Prosecution experts said she was ill, including with bipolar symptoms, but still knew what she was doing and could control it. They pointed to the errand that sent her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, out for dinner and medicine, and to the use of exercise bands in the basement. The National Institute of Mental Health describes postpartum psychosis as a psychiatric emergency that requires hospitalization. The NHS says the illness affects around 1 in 1,000 mothers after giving birth. Those figures explain why the diagnosis is rare. They do not tell a Massachusetts jury whether this defendant, on this night, met McHoul.

THE DATES THAT GOT THEM HERE

1. January 24, 2023: Cora, Dawson and Callan are strangled in the Duxbury basement. Clancy is found injured after a jump from a second-story window.
2. August 27, 2026: The jury begins deliberations after weeks of testimony in Plymouth Superior Court.
3. September 2, 2026: After a second deadlock note, Sullivan reads the Tuey-Rodriguez charge and sends the panel back.
4. September 4, 2026: The jury says it cannot agree. The Supreme Judicial Court denies a last stay. Sullivan declares a mistrial and holds Clancy under existing bail orders.
5. September 18, 2026: Desronvil, through Paltzik, issues his first written statement and says he had no doubts about guilt.
6. September 28, 2026: He releases the camera statement naming the three children.
7. September 29, 2026: Status hearing, trial assignment, and the Rule 25 motion in Plymouth.

Possible verdicts on the first slip included not guilty, not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and manslaughter. The panel never filled any of them in.

Patrick Clancy Called a Retrial Extraordinarily Painful

Patrick Clancy was the first witness at trial. He has said he forgives Lindsay and believes mental illness caused the killings. After the mistrial, his lawyer, David Meier, put the cost of a second trial in a single line.

The prospect of reliving this tragedy through another trial is extraordinarily painful.

David Meier, attorney for Patrick Clancy, statement after the mistrial

Meier also said Patrick is grateful to the court and the jurors, and that the loss of his children is something from which he will never recover. That is the party the camera statement claims to serve. A retrial would put him back on the stand to describe the basement again. Cruz’s office still has to weigh that against three open murder counts and a first jury that, by later accounts, stood 11 votes from a no-responsibility finding.

Reddington has said he expected Cruz to try first-degree murder again, based on the district attorney’s record. He has also said he would not agree to a deal that puts his client in prison. Those two positions can sit in the same courthouse for a long time.

Phone Records and a Bar Complaint Sit Beside the Video

The defense has asked Sullivan for a limited inquiry into whether Desronvil answered the confidential juror questionnaire truthfully, whether he followed instructions in the jury room, and whether he used a phone during deliberations. Paltzik has called that request unprecedented and said it would set a nightmarish precedent for anyone asked to sit on a Massachusetts jury. He has also said his client faced death threats and was moved to a secure location, and he has asked the public to stay away from the man’s home.

Other jurors went on television after the mistrial and described the holdout in detail. His name then circulated. Once that happened, his personal court history was pulled into public view. The tape on September 28 answers none of those filings. It thanks God, names the children, and asks for the focus to move. The motions about his phone and his questionnaire are still on the September 29 docket beside the retrial question.

If jurors watch a holdout get named, taped, and then hunted for records, the next pool in Plymouth will arrive preloaded. People who would have voted either way will have seen a face and a slogan. That is a practical cost, and it is one Cruz cannot cross-examine out of a second venire.

The Next Jury Would Already Know His Name

Desronvil asked the country to look at three children who cannot speak. The request is clean on its face. The timing is not. The clip went out the night before the first hearing at which prosecutors might say whether they will try Lindsay Clancy again, and it went out while his own conduct is a live defense exhibit.

Cora, Dawson and Callan are still the names on the indictments. Clancy is still at Tewksbury. Cruz still has to pick a path. The holdout still has a public face. A second jury, if there is one, would walk into all of that before anyone is sworn.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a pending criminal case. It is for information only and is not legal advice, a prediction of any verdict, or a comment on anyone’s guilt or mental state as a matter of law. Readers who need advice about a criminal matter, jury service, or a related civil claim should consult a licensed attorney in the relevant jurisdiction before acting. Charges, custody, hearing dates, and filings are described as they stood in the public record around the September 29, 2026 status hearing and may change when the court acts.