Four Clancy Jurors Have Now Spoken and They Don't Agree, Patrick Clancy's Lawyer Says Enough Is Enough, and a Two-Year-Old in Illinois

0:03 Calaroga Shark Media. Good morning. This is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Shark Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Thursday, September 10th, 2026. On Monday, we said we were putting the Lindsay Clancy case down until Judge Sullivan reconvenes on September 29th. That lasted about 48 hours, and it is not because we went looking. It is because four of the 12 people who sat in that jury room have now given interviews, and their accounts do not match each other. Three of them went on television Tuesday and blamed one man for the mistrial. The foreperson said she was excited to be filling out the not guilty forms when he told her he still would not sign.

0:50 And then a fourth juror gave a completely different picture of that room. She said the majority was trying to sway him from the very beginnings. She said he was not the only person in there who refused to move. And she said she would defend him. Also this week, Patrick Clancy's lawyer put out a statement warning the people who have spent months accusing him of murdering his own children that law enforcement has been notified and there will be consequences. And then there is a case in Illinois that I have been going back and forth about all week involving a two-year-old boy named Barrett and a mother whose lawyers say she was psychotic. We are going to handle that one carefully, and I will tell you exactly what I am not going to do with it. Let's get into it. Last Friday, after seven days and roughly 38 hours, Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy case. Jury notes indicated the panel was split 11 to 1 in favor of acquitting her on grounds of lack of criminal responsibility. Sullivan has temporarily sealed the jurors' names. That is a protective measure and a sensible one.

2:00 Three of them came forward anyway, voluntarily, and sat down with NBC Boston on Tuesday. The foreperson, Ronnie Carlson, and two other jurors, Kelly Farina and Paula Devlin. Here's what they said, and I want to be fair to them because some of it is genuinely illuminating. Carlson explained what the jury was actually doing in there, and she explained it better than most of the coverage has. She said they were not trying to figure out whether Lindsay Clancy killed the children. She did, and she admitted it. They were trying to figure out whether she knew right from wrong at the time. And she described how she got there. She said everything in that trial proved this woman loved her children, the journals, her mother-in-law's testimony, all of it.

2:45 And that if that was true, then something must have broken. That is a jury doing its job. Then she described the moment it fell apart. She said the holdout had reasonable doubt, that he admitted he had reasonable doubt. She said she started filling out the forms, that there were three of them, and that she was so excited. And then he said he was still not going to say she was not guilty. Paula Devlin described that juror as arrogant and said he really did not take in anything anybody said. The three of them also said they found Kevin Reddington entertaining, that his whole demeanor was funny. that he made one of them laugh out loud, and that they needed some of that. Now, those two things, being excited and being entertained, have set off a considerable amount of anger online. People are furious that a juror described herself as excited to sign an acquittal in a case with three dead children, and furious that anybody found anything in that courtroom entertaining. I want to push back on that, at least partly. Those 12 people sat through five and a half weeks of the worst material any of them will ever encounter. If a defense attorney with 50 years of courtroom instincts occasionally broke the tension, that is not disrespect.

4:02 That is how human beings survive a room like that. Anybody who has worked a hospital, a firehouse, or a homicide unit knows exactly what that is. And the word excited in context is a woman describing the moment she thought seven days of deadlock were finally over. It was clumsy. It was not celebratory. But then, on Tuesday, a fourth juror talked to CBS Boston, and she told a different story. She has not been named. She said she had not followed the case at all before she was summoned, because she does not watch the news, and she described herself as close to a perfect juror for this trial. She has no children of her own. She walked in with no view. And her initial view after hearing the evidence was that Lindsay Clancy was guilty. She said originally she felt Clancy was guilty and criminally responsible. She voted to acquit anyway. And here is what she said about that.

4:58 Maybe she still believes it in a certain way. Think about that for a second. That is a juror who voted not guilty and is telling you out loud that she is not at peace with it. That is not weakness. That is what reasonable doubt actually feels like from the inside. You do not have to be convinced of innocence. You have to be unconvinced of guilt. And those are extremely different things. And almost nobody who has not sat on a jury understands the difference. She explained why she got there. She said she believed this was a woman who was not mentally healthy, who was in the throes of a significant mental crisis, and who was so deep in it she could not see her way out. And she said the prosecution never gave her a moment where she could say, yes, 100%, I am certain. She said there was too much gray area.

5:48 Now here is the part that matters most. She was asked about the holdout. And she did not join the pile on. She said that juror was not the only one in that room who was unwilling to see things from the other side. She said there were some big personalities in there. She said the majority of the room was trying to sway that person from the very beginning. and she said plainly that she would defend that individual. She also described shouting loud enough to be heard from other rooms in the courthouse. So now you have two accounts from inside the same room. One is three people describing an arrogant man who would not engage. The other is a fourth person describing 11 people leaning on one from the moment the door closed, with big personalities and raised voices. Both of those accounts came from people who were actually there. Both of them are probably partly true.

6:39 And that is precisely why deliberations are secret. And precisely why I said on Monday that a note from a foreperson is not a finding of fact. It is one person's account of an argument. Look, I'm going to say the same thing I said Monday and I am going to keep saying it. That man has not spoken publicly. His name is under seal. He did nothing that any court has found improper. Judge Sullivan looked directly at the accusation that he was refusing to follow the law and said the note did not show that. And in the space of one week, he has been accused of perjury in open court by a defense attorney, told on national television to lose sleep, and now described as arrogant by his fellow jurors on the local news. And a fourth juror who was in the same room says the pressure ran the other way. The one thing everybody seems to agree on is that he had reasonable doubt and would not vote to acquit. And I want to be careful here, because if that is accurate, it may in fact be a misunderstanding of the instruction. Reasonable doubt about guilt is supposed to produce a not guilty verdict. That is what it is for. But we do not know what he actually thought, because he has not said a word. And until he does, the only fair position is the one Judge Sullivan took. You do not get to referee somebody's conscience from outside the room. There is one more thing from that fourth juror, and it is the most important thing anybody has said about this case in two weeks.

8:10 She talked about Patrick Clancy's 911 call, the one the judge ordered the cameras turned off for. She said she will never be the same after that call. She described a visceral, blood-curdling scream. And she said that the people online pushing theories that Patrick had something to do with his children's deaths would feel differently if they had heard it. Cora Clancy was five. Dawson Clancy was three. Callan Clancy was eight months old. Twelve strangers heard something on a recording that they will carry for the rest of their lives. Someone has to say their names. When we come back, the father of those three children has hired a lawyer and is coming after the people who say he killed them.

9:01 On the night of January 24th, 2023, Patrick Clancy left his house to pick up takeout and a prescription for his five-year-old daughter. He was gone about 25 minutes. He came home to find his wife outside in the snow and his three children dead in the basement. He was the first witness the Commonwealth called at his wife's murder trial. He testified about all of it. He has since divorced her, remarried, and moved out of Massachusetts. He has also publicly forgiven her and described her as a good mother who became ill. And for months, a substantial number of people on the internet have been saying he did it. On Tuesday morning, his attorney, Howard Cooper, issued a statement. And it is one of the more direct things I have read from a lawyer this year. Cooper said that over the past months, Patrick Clancy and his family have been subjected to a relentless, escalating, and destructive defamation campaign. He said it has been launched and promoted by minor celebrities, so-called influencers, and outright conspiracy theorists, who he said appear intent on boosting their own social media profiles and their own profit by publishing what they know to be falsehoods. He said it has resulted in real-life threats to his clients' reputation, livelihood, and life. And then, enough is enough. Those responsible should understand that there will be consequences, and every appropriate measure will be pursued to hold them accountable, including legally. Law enforcement has been notified.

10:31 A legal analyst described the statement as essentially a cease and desist letter, and that is exactly what it is. It is not a lawsuit. It is a warning shot with a firm's name on it. Now let me deal with the underlying claim directly because it deserves about 15 seconds and then it deserves to be over. Lindsay Clancy has admitted through counsel that she killed her three children. Her own defense at trial was not that somebody else did it. It was that she was not criminally responsible when she did it. The prosecution and the defense agreed on this point. There was no dispute about it in that courtroom for five and a half weeks. And there is CVS surveillance video and phone records placing Patrick Clancy away from that house. The theory that he was involved never came up at trial. Not once. Because there is nothing to it. So could he actually sue? Probably against the right defendants. Defamation requires a false statement of fact published to others made with the required level of fault that causes harm. Accusing a named private individual of murdering his own children is about as clean a false statement of fact as you can construct. Patrick Clancy is not a public figure in the legal sense, which lowers his burden considerably. The practical problems are the ones that always apply.

11:49 Some of these accounts are anonymous, and unmasking them means subpoenas to platforms that fight subpoenas. Some are overseas and effectively beyond reach. Suing is expensive and slow, and every filing feeds the thing it is trying to stop because a lawsuit is content too. And there is a harder problem underneath all of it. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act means the platforms carrying this material are generally not liable for what their users post. So the person with a following of 2 million faces a lawsuit. The company that put the video in front of 2 million people does not. That is the entire architecture of this problem, and no defamation suit filed by one grieving father is going to change it. But I want to end this segment on the line in that statement that almost nobody has quoted. Cooper said Patrick has no choice but to address this so he can return his attention to what matters.

12:46 Preserving the memory of Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy, and supporting other women facing perinatal mental health challenges. That is not a line a lawyer writes for effect. Patrick Clancy has been doing exactly that publicly for three years. He is the person who stood up and said his wife was sick when saying anything else would have been easier and more sympathetic. The man whose three children were killed by their mother is spending his time supporting women with perinatal mental illness. And while he does that, people with ring lights are telling their followers he is a murderer for engagement. That's not a mistake. That's a choice. And there is money in it. That is the entire business model, and it is why he is finally hiring lawyers. When we come back, a case in Illinois that I want to be very careful with. Before I start this, one word about why it is on the show at all.

13:54 For six weeks, we have said the Lindsay Clancy case is really a story about a mental health system that watched a woman come apart and did nothing in time. If we only make that argument when it is comfortable and historical, we are not making it. So we are going to make it about a case from nine days ago. Barrett Walsh was two years old. He lived in Frankfort, Illinois, which is about 40 miles southwest of Chicago, with his mother, his father, and three siblings. On September 1st, he died in that house. His mother, Corey Walsh, who is 40, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder. On Tuesday, a Will County judge granted the prosecution's petition to hold her without bond pending trial. She appeared in court in a red jumpsuit with a bandage on her wrist, in handcuffs and shackles, at times with her head down. Her husband, Michael, was not there. He was at Barrett's funeral. I am not going to describe how Barrett died. It is in the court file, it is in other coverage if you want it, and it adds nothing here. Here is what her lawyers say happened. Attorney Robert Kerr told the court his client was in a state of psychosis. He said that when first responders arrived, she was in and out of consciousness, incoherent, calling out the names of different kinds of fruit and singing, follow the yellow brick road. He said she is severely mentally ill, was experiencing hallucinations, and has a psychotic disorder. According to court documents, she told officers she believed her son was the devil. Her co-counsel

15:27 is Andrea Lyon, who nearly two decades ago briefly served on Casey Anthony's defense team. Lyon's statement was short. This is a tragedy for the whole family, and it is also a tragedy that Corey herself was experiencing a psychotic episode when it happened. She said afterward that there are no winners here. Her own psychiatrist, according to her lawyers, described her as a good mother who attended to her children's special needs. Prosecutors argued she poses a real and present threat, and the judge agreed. Her other three children were unharmed. Two school-age children came home and called a neighbor for help. An infant was found on the main floor.

16:08 Now the part that put this case on national television, and the part I have thought hardest about. Prosecutors say witnesses told investigators that Corey Walsh had recently become very invested in the Lindsay Clancy trial, that she followed it, discussed it, and according to one report, was discussing it in a group text in the hours before her son died. TMZ has already run a headline calling her an alleged Lindsay Clancy copycat. I am not going to do that, and I want to tell you exactly why. Nobody knows whether watching a trial had anything to do with what happened in that house. Not the prosecutors, not the defense, not me. Millions of people followed the Clancy trial obsessively for six weeks and did not harm anybody. The overwhelming majority of people with serious mental illness never hurt anyone at all and are far more likely to be victims of violence than to commit it. Drawing a causal line from a true crime obsession to a dead toddler is not analysis. It is a headline, and it is a dangerous one, because the message every struggling mother in America receives from it is, do not tell anyone what is in your head, or they will look at you the way they are looking at her. That is the exact opposite of what anybody should be doing this week. What I will say is this. Her lawyers put a picture in front of that judge on Tuesday of a woman who, by their account, was floridly psychotic when police arrived. Yelling fruit.

17:37 Singing a song from a children's movie. bleeding from her own wrist, telling officers her toddler was the devil. If that is accurate, then somewhere in the days and weeks before September 1st, there were people who saw her. A husband, neighbors, a psychiatrist she apparently already had, and the machinery that is supposed to catch someone in that condition did not catch her in time. That is not a Lindsay Clancy story. It is the same story we have been telling since July, which is that this country is extraordinarily bad at intervening in a psychiatric emergency before it becomes a homicide. There is one legal difference between these two cases that is enormous, and I want you to understand it, because it will decide what happens to Corey Walsh. In Massachusetts, once criminal responsibility is genuinely in play, the burden is on the prosecution.

18:30 The Commonwealth had to prove Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible beyond a reasonable doubt, and 11 of 12 jurors said it had not. In Illinois, the burden runs the other way. The defense has to prove insanity. A legal analyst put it plainly this week, it is a harder road in Illinois than it was in Massachusetts. Same claim, opposite burden, different state line. And Illinois has a third option that Massachusetts does not, which is a verdict of guilty but mentally ill. That is a conviction. You go to prison, and you are supposed to receive treatment there. Critics have argued for decades that it is a compromise verdict that lets juries feel humane while producing the same outcome as a conviction, and it exists in about a dozen states.

19:18 That is not a small technicality. That is very likely the difference between a hospital and a prison, and it depends entirely on which side of a border a woman happened to be living on. Barrett Walsh was two years old. He had three brothers and sisters, and two of them came home from school that day and had to go get a neighbor. Corey Walsh is presumed innocent. She has been convicted of nothing. Everything her lawyer said in court on Tuesday is an assertion that has not been tested, and everything prosecutors said is an allegation. But Barrett is not. not an allegation. He was two. Someone has to say his name, and I would rather it was said here than in a headline calling his mother a copycat. That's the show for Thursday, September 10th. Tomorrow is September 11th, and it is the 25th anniversary. We are doing something different.

20:12 The entire legal story of that day, which almost nobody tells. 25 years and there has never been a trial. There is also a deadline tomorrow that some of you need to know about. So please listen. If today was useful, send it to one person. And if you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment about the jurors. Four people who sat in the same room have now given two different accounts of it. Which one do you believe? And does it change what you think should happen next? I'm Garrett Fisher. Do better. A few notes on sourcing. On the jurors. Judge Sullivan has temporarily sealed the jurors' names. Three jurors identified themselves voluntarily in an interview with NBC Boston. A fourth spoke anonymously to CBS Boston. Their accounts of what happened during deliberations are their own recollections and characterizations. They conflict with one another in significant respects. and none of them has been tested or verified. The juror they describe has not spoken publicly, has not been identified, and has not been found by any court to have done anything improper.

21:20 Judge Sullivan expressly declined to find that he refused to follow the law. We are not going to identify or further describe him. On Patrick Clancy, the claim that he had any involvement in his children's deaths was never raised at trial by either side. Lindsay Clancy admitted through counsel that she killed the children. Her defense was lack of criminal responsibility. The statement described here was issued by his attorney and threatens potential legal action. No lawsuit has been filed as of recording. On the Illinois case, Corey Walsh has been charged and is presumed innocent. She has not been convicted of anything. The description of her condition comes from her defense attorney's arguments at a detention hearing and from court documents and has not been tested. Her lawyers have stated she has not been diagnosed with postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis, and this is not a postpartum case.

22:15 The claim that she had an interest in the Lindsay Clancy trial comes from prosecutors citing witnesses. No court has found any connection between that interest and the death of her son, and we do not assert one. We have deliberately not described how Barrett Walsh died. This episode discusses the deaths of children, suicide, and severe mental illness. If you are struggling, you can call or text 988 in the United States to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. For maternal mental health specifically, the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline is available by call or text at 1-833-TLC-MAMA. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself or a child, that is a medical emergency and help exists. And reaching out for it is the thing that protects everyone.