BOSTON (AP) — The judge in the Lindsay Clancy murder case on Thursday refused to declare her not guilty, turning down a defense motion that had argued there wasn't enough evidence to prove she was responsible for killing her three children.
During Clancy's first trial, which ended Sept. 4 with a deadlocked jury, her defense argued that she was not criminally responsible because of a mental disease, specifically a rare condition called postpartum psychosis. As such, the defense didn’t dispute that the 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse carried out the killings at her family's Massachusetts home in 2023.
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Defendant Lindsay Clancy and attorney Kevin Reddington listen to the commonwealth respond to Reddington's motion for dismissal, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, during a hearing set to determine the next steps after a mistrial was declared on Sept. 4th, in Plymouth, Mass. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
Lindsay Clancy's father Michael Musgrove listens to the motions hearing in his daughter's triple murder trial, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
FILE - Lindsay Clancy, listens to testimony from a hospital chaplain during her murder trial, Aug. 20, 2026, in Plymouth, Mass. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, Pool, File)
FILE - Lindsay Clancy, center, speaks with her lawyer Kevin Reddington during proceedings in her murder trial, Aug. 20, 2026, in Plymouth, Mass. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, Pool, File)
However, in a hearing earlier this week, Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington tried to persuade the judge that prosecutors had not offered any proof that Clancy did it. Prosecutors argued there was plenty of evidence, calling Reddington’s claim “laughable.”
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.
Prosecutors have yet to decide whether they will put the case in front of a jury for a second time. They could choose to retry her on first-degree murder charges or seek to try her only on lesser charges, including second-degree murder or manslaughter, or drop the case entirely.
In his ruling Thursday, Judge William Sullivan noted that for the purposes of his decision, he was required to analyze the evidence in the light most favorable to prosecutors — and that it was up to the jury, not the judge, to decide whether to believe expert witnesses for the defense who testified that Clancy was not responsible for her actions because of mental illness.
“There was evidence introduced, both physical and circumstantial, that would permit a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of the charge of murder,” Sullivan wrote.
At the first trial, prosecutors acknowledged that Clancy had mental health problems that included months of treatment and a stay in a psychiatric hospital, but argued that she knew what she was doing when she strangled the children — the youngest just 8 months old — then tried to kill herself.
Sullivan had declared a mistrial with the jury split 11 to 1 in favor of acquitting Clancy of murder charges.
In Tuesday’s hearing, Reddington suggested the entire case “was based on speculation” and listed shortcomings in the prosecution's case. There was almost no police investigation, he claimed, and significant questions revolving around Clancy’s condition outside the night of the killings and her lack of memory of what happened.
At the trial, jurors heard testimony that Clancy said she heard voices instructing her to kill 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan Clancy. Her DNA was found on exercise bands used to strangle them. Before the trial, Reddington himself filed a motion in which he said Clancy was willing to stipulate, in writing, to her involvement in the children’s deaths.
“For the first time, the defendant is arguing that there is no evidence she did this,” Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham told the judge. “I’d suggest to you the entire record is voluminous as to information supporting the fact that she did this.”
Clancy remains charged with murder and is expected to stay at a psychiatric hospital until her case is resolved.
Clancy could have been sentenced to life in prison if convicted of murder. If acquitted, the judge could have ordered her confined to a mental health facility.
Her former husband, Patrick Clancy, who discovered the children's bodies, has said in interviews that he forgives her. The livestreamed trial generated intense public interest and drew attention to maternal mental health after childbirth.
Defendant Lindsay Clancy and attorney Kevin Reddington listen to the commonwealth respond to Reddington's motion for dismissal, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, during a hearing set to determine the next steps after a mistrial was declared on Sept. 4th, in Plymouth, Mass. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
Lindsay Clancy's father Michael Musgrove listens to the motions hearing in his daughter's triple murder trial, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
FILE - Lindsay Clancy, listens to testimony from a hospital chaplain during her murder trial, Aug. 20, 2026, in Plymouth, Mass. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, Pool, File)
FILE - Lindsay Clancy, center, speaks with her lawyer Kevin Reddington during proceedings in her murder trial, Aug. 20, 2026, in Plymouth, Mass. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, Pool, File)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Christa Pike was in critical condition Thursday and receiving “lifesaving care” at a hospital, her lawyers said, a day after a failed attempt to execute her pushed Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions this year and order an independent review.
Pike, who was sentenced to death for a 1995 murder, was taken to a hospital Wednesday night after surviving a double dose of the drug Tennessee uses to execute prisoners.
“We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment,” attorney Randy Spivey said during a news conference. “But we know she is alive right now.”
The failed execution, which one death penalty expert described as unprecedented, led Republican Gov. Bill Lee to order a review, calling what happened “deeply disturbing” and indefinitely postponing Pike’s execution and another one that had been scheduled for this year. It also reignited the debate over the state’s execution procedures, including its single-drug lethal injections.
Spivey called the process cruel and torturous, saying he was “haunted” by watching and hearing Pike talking, singing and then snoring loudly during her more than 90 minutes in the death chamber. Her attorneys also said it was unclear if she might have suffered brain damage from being deprived of oxygen.
May Martinez, whose daughter was murdered by Pike and her boyfriend and who traveled to Nashville to watch the execution, was also upset.
“I didn’t get justice for my daughter,” Martinez told The Associated Press on Thursday.
“I watched the whole thing. She was awake. She was laughing. She was moving her head, moving her feet. She was trying to sit up,” Martinez said. “Didn’t work the first time they gave her a shot. It didn’t work the second time.”
It was not immediately clear what went wrong. Pike’s attorneys said there were a number of possibilities.
The execution team worked for an hour to administer the lethal drugs, said Spivey, who counted at least seven needles in her left arm.
During the struggle to locate a vein, Pike even suggested where they might find one, he said.
“Please try here, please try here,” Spivey recalled her saying. “She told them over and over, please try higher on my shoulder.”
At one point Pike asked prison officials if her arm was supposed to feel that way, though it’s unclear if it was after the first dose entered her body because officials don’t share that information.
Neither the initial nor the backup dose of pentobarbital worked. Pike was still snoring when the execution chamber’s microphone was cut off more than an hour into the attempt.
Another Pike attorney, Steve Ferrell, said she feared there would be complications because of a lifelong blood disorder that made it tough to get needles into her veins. “Throughout her life, she’s explained to us that she had trouble having blood drawn,” he said.
It was quite possible, Ferrell said, that the IV line didn't enter her vein properly and the drug was filling her arm instead of entering her bloodstream.
Lee said it appeared prison staff followed procedure.
Pike's lawyers now want her death sentence to be commuted. Now age 50, she was sentenced to death for a murder she committed at 18. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
An appeals court had stopped her execution an hour before it was scheduled to begin Wednesday morning, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that stay hours later.
It was the second time this year that the state was unable to complete an execution. In the other case, officials couldn't find a suitable vein for an IV line so the drugs weren't administered
Pentobarbital, the barbiturate Tennessee uses for executions, has been used to carry out death sentences in multiple states and by the federal government. But concerns have been raised about the potential for “unnecessary pain and suffering.”
Dr. Ervin Yen, an Oklahoma City anesthesiologist who has no link to Pike's execution but has witnessed others, said it’s possible that if the prison staff was using a small vein, there could have been some burning, as mentioned by Pike’s attorneys.
“It just depends on the vein that you’re injecting it in and how fast you are injecting,” Yen said.
In 2024, Tennessee switched from a three-drug series for lethal injections to a single drug, pentobarbital. That came about two years after the state abruptly halted the execution of Oscar Smith and acknowledged it had failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs had been tested properly.
Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said what Pike experienced is “singular and unparalleled” in that she survived long enough to be moved to a hospital.
Seven others have survived medical problems due to an execution team's failure to access a vein to administer lethal injection drugs, but no one has stayed alive after receiving the drugs used in executions, she said.
Executions in the U.S. have fallen sharply since the beginning of this century, but the number nearly doubled last year behind a record increase in Florida.
Pike would have been the 30th person executed in the U.S. this year.
Strapped to a gurney, Pike described herself as at peace and said “I’m ready to be free. ... This is a happy day.”
But she remained awake, and at one point she complained about a feeling in her arm.
An hour after officials first raised the curtains, witnesses reported that a second dose of pentobarbital was administered. Pike could still be heard snoring behind a closed curtain until the microphone was cut off almost 30 minutes later.
Her lawyers filed an emergency motion with the Tennessee Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and the procedure violated her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.
Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate. The killing stoked fears of Satan worship because of a pentagram carved on Slemmer’s body.
She didn't dispute that she helped kill Slemmer, but supporters argued that her mental illness and allegations of severe sexual abuse should be considered. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder after the killing.
“It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done,” she once said.
This story was updated to correct the spelling of Randy Spivey's last name.
Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, Ed White in Detroit, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, Hallie Golden in Seattle, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
Media witnesses leave Riverbend Maximum Security Institution after the execution of Christa Pike was halted Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Associated Press reporter Kimberly Chandler recounts the moments before the execution of Christa Pike was halted at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
This photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows Christa Pike on Jan. 12, 2023. (TDOC via AP)
Emergency vehicles arrive at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution after the execution of Christa Pike was halted Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Emergency vehicles arrive at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution after the execution of Christa Pike was halted Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Media witnesses recount the moments before the execution of Christa Pike was halted Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
