If you or someone you know is experiencing thoughts of suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
WHITMAN, Mass. — Paula Devlin, a juror who spoke publicly during the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, is rejecting claims that she or other jurors were biased. She said the case also created an opportunity to begin a broader discussion about women’s mental health and postpartum illnesses.
“We didn’t know what was going on outside of that room, but we knew we had a chance to start a conversation that could change something — something that might prevent this from ever happening again,” Devlin, 65, told News Outlet. “I think that’s one of the reasons I feel so strongly about this. I hope no other woman or husband ever has to go through this.”
Devlin made similar remarks over the weekend, leading some to argue that the jury had entered the trial with a particular agenda. She rejected those accusations Monday.
Paula Devlin speaks with a reporter in Whitman, Massachusetts, Monday, Sept. 13, 2026. Devlin served as a juror in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for News Outlet)
“We examined the evidence, and there were holes in the prosecution’s case,” Devlin said. “The central issue in the entire case was mental health. How can acknowledging that be bias when only women experience postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis, and only women can give birth? That isn’t bias. It’s a fact.”
Devlin said Clancy, a 36-year-old former delivery room nurse, sought help several times but did not receive the assistance she needed.
In January 2023, Clancy strangled her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — with exercise bands before attempting to take her own life. She survived a fall from a second-story window but was left paralyzed.
Callan, left, Dawson and Cora Clancy. The three children were killed at their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home in January 2023. (Lindsay Marie Clancy/Facebook)
“In my heart, I truly believe that if Lindsay had received the help she needed, those three children would still be alive,” Devlin said. “Those five people would still be a family.”
Lindsay Clancy, charged with killing her three children in Duxbury in 2023, appears in Plymouth Superior Court on Feb. 20, 2026. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
Devlin said one of the prosecution’s major weaknesses was its failure to present witnesses who could describe anything negative about Clancy.
“Nobody could find one bad thing to say about her,” she said. “I would bet my house that the prosecutors searched everywhere for someone willing to speak negatively about Lindsay. They couldn’t find anyone.”
On Jan. 24, 2023, Clancy fatally strangled her three children in the basement of their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home with exercise resistance bands. She then cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window in an attempted suicide, leaving her partially paralyzed. (Greg Derr/Pool/The Patriot Ledger)
That assessment also applied to Patrick Clancy, Devlin said. He is Clancy’s former husband and the children’s father.
Still, she said, she’s haunted by the children’s faces.
“Those three little faces and just wondering if we missed something, if we didn’t ask the right questions of each other, if we could have done better — it’s hard not to feel like we failed,” she said. “I mean everybody says we didn’t fail, but it’s hard to not feel that when you’re given a task and you don’t accomplish it.”
