The jurors empaneled in the Lindsay Clancy trial reported on Tuesday that they had failed to arrive at a unanimous verdict regarding the Massachusetts mother’s criminal culpability for the deaths of her three young children; nevertheless, the presiding judge instructed them to resume their deliberations.

The jury has entered its fourth day of deliberations in a trial that has commanded intense public scrutiny, centering on maternal mental health in the postpartum period, and one that has provoked profound societal fissures.

For the first time, the jury intimated any semblance of deadlock.

Clancy fixed his gaze straight ahead as the panel filed in, only shifting his attention toward them upon the judge's address.

“I am fully cognizant that this has been an arduous and protracted trial,” Judge William Sullivan remarked.

“I am aware that upwards of 80 witnesses were called to testify, and that over 300 exhibits were entered into evidence.

Yet it is precisely because of this magnitude that I must now direct you to retire once more and resume your deliberations.”

Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, does not deny strangling her children but contends that postpartum psychosis precipitated her actions.

Prosecutors maintain that she was cognizant of her conduct.

Clancy, 36, has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide.

If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

The jury could convict her of murder or manslaughter, or acquit her should they deem her deteriorating mental health culpable.

A conviction could culminate in a life sentence of imprisonment.

In the event of acquittal, a judge might nonetheless order her confinement to a psychiatric facility should an evaluation ascertain that she poses a threat to public safety.

Should the jurors prove unable to reach a unanimous verdict, thereby precipitating a mistrial, the charges leveled against Clancy would remain extant, and the prosecution would be compelled to deliberate upon the advisability of reinitiating proceedings against him.

The jury commenced deliberations on Thursday afternoon; by Friday, they had requested to examine the knife Clancy had used to inflict self-lacerations shortly after the killings, along with the bags containing empty prescription pill bottles discovered within her residence.

Over the course of more than four weeks of testimony, jurors were presented with divergent expert medical opinions regarding Clancy’s mental state in the aftermath of her third child’s birth, alongside assessments of her criminal responsibility.

Clancy’s counsel contended that she harbored profound affection for her offspring, yet resorted to their demise only after succumbing to a catastrophic dissolution of her perceptual faculties — and of her very selfhood — precipitated by postpartum psychosis, a singularly rare psychiatric affliction that may manifest in the wake of parturition.

Both Clancy’s mother and sister testified that she became anxious, paranoid and suicidal.

In the months preceding the deaths of Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy—aged 5, 3 and 8 months—Clancy sought treatment for her deteriorating mental state, including a period of inpatient care at a psychiatric facility.

Barely three weeks had elapsed since her discharge when she dispatched her husband on an errand and, in the basement of their home south of Boston, dispatched the children with exercise bands.

She subsequently leapt from a second-floor window and remains permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

Prosecutors contended that Clancy, beset by depression and weary of existence, made a deliberate determination to end her children's lives prior to attempting suicide.

A forensic psychologist, testifying on behalf of the prosecution, asserted that he had deduced Clancy's motive for killing the children stemmed from her desire to terminate her own life while being unwilling to leave them behind.

Her defense contended that she suffered from bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis, which ultimately engendered the delusional conviction that she was hearing a voice commanding her to kill the children so that she might thereby end her own life.

A psychologist testifying on behalf of the defense asserted that Clancy failed to apprehend the "wrongfulness" of her actions owing to her psychiatric condition.

Clancy elected to refrain from testifying.

She observed the proceedings from the defense table, succumbing to intermittent bouts of weeping, particularly when prosecutors presented the jury with autopsy photographs of the children.

The jury likewise devoted two days to hearing testimony from her former spouse, Patrick Clancy, alongside the harrowing recording of his 911 call—a call he was still engaged in when he came upon the children’s lifeless bodies, a mere matter of minutes after discovering his wife gravely injured in the yard.

In interviews, Patrick Clancy has articulated his forgiveness of his former wife, whom he perceived as afflicted rather than malevolent.

This trial constitutes the inaugural occasion on which he has encountered Lindsay Clancy since the tragic events.

Postpartum psychosis—the condition that Clancy’s attorney asserts she was experiencing when she perpetrated the filicides—is considerably more grave and markedly less prevalent than postpartum depression.

Epidemiological estimates suggest that the condition afflicts between one and two per thousand postpartum women.

While the majority of those affected do not pose a threat to their offspring, mothers presenting with severe manifestations may exhibit a propensity for self-harm or harm directed toward their children.