A woman has been arrested outside the Massachusetts courthouse where the high-profile murder trial of Lindsay Clancy is unfolding.
Massachusetts State Police said Dawn Light, 56, of Sutton, was taken into custody outside Plymouth District Court at about 3:40 p.m. Tuesday. She is facing a charge of intimidating a witness, juror, or person providing information in a criminal proceeding.
Authorities did not say whether the allegation is connected to the Clancy case. However, Light’s arrest happened roughly 10 minutes after jurors were dismissed for the day as deliberations in the trial remained deadlocked.
Clancy is accused in the deaths of her three young children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan.
Prosecutors say that on January 24, 2023, the former labor and delivery nurse strangled the children with exercise bands inside the basement of the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
Afterward, officials say, Clancy attempted to die by suicide, cutting her wrists and neck before jumping from a second-floor bedroom window.
She has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors allege the killings were planned and deliberate, arguing that Clancy understood her actions and remained in control as each child was strangled.
Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Her attorneys contend she was experiencing severe postpartum psychosis and depression at the time, leaving her not criminally responsible for the children’s deaths.
A woman was arrested for intimidation outside the courthouse where Lindsay Clancy is facing trial for killing her three children
Clancy, 36, is on trial for the murders of her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, at her Massachusetts home
The woman, Dawn Light, 56, was taken into custody outside Plymouth Superior Court (pictured)
Over a grueling five weeks of testimony at trial, jurors heard dueling accounts of Clancy’s mental state in the lead-up to and on the day of the killings.
The arrest outside the courthouse came just hours after the jury told the judge that they were deadlocked and could not reach a unanimous verdict on Tuesday morning.
Judge William Sullivan sent the jury back, telling them to keep deliberating.
‘I know that this was a long trial. I know that there were over 80 witnesses, there were over 300 exhibits, but because of that I’m going to ask you to go back out, keeping in mind all of the instructions that I gave you, to go out and to continue your deliberations,’ he said.
Hours later, the jury then sent a request to the judge asking to go home for the day.
The panel, made up of nine women and three men, was excused until 9am on Wednesday.
‘I just want to thank you for all of your hard work and commitment,’ the judge said.
The jury told Judge William Sullivan on Tuesday that they could not reach a unanimous verdict, but he ordered them to keep deliberating
In total, jurors have now deliberated for around 23 hours across four days – after sitting through five weeks of grueling, complex testimony.
While Clancy is charged with first-degree murder, jurors can also consider charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter, or return a verdict of not guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity.
Besides Tuesday’s note indicating that they are struggling to reach a verdict, the jury has sent only one question to the court during deliberations – asking to see pill bottles and the knife Clancy used in her suicide attempt.
Leaving the courthouse at the end of Tuesday, Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington told a large crowd of reporters that the length of time the jury is deliberating is ‘very heartening.’
‘Obviously they are working very hard,’ he said.
But, when asked if he thought Clancy could endure going through a second trial should the case end in a hung jury and a mistrial, he said she could not.
Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, told reporters that he is encouraged by the jurors’ request to be dismissed for the day
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Even if the jury continues to say they are deadlocked, the judge can continue to keep them deliberating.
The judge can ultimately give the panel the Tuey-Rodriguez instructions – also known as the ‘dynamite charge’ – which guides them that they are in the best position to reach a verdict and that a future jury would not be better equipped than them.
However, if the 12 jurors still cannot reach a unanimous verdict, there will be a hung jury and the judge will be forced to declare a mistrial.
Should that happen, the prosecution would have to decide whether or not to retry the case.
Deliberations will continue on Wednesday morning.
