The jury in the trial of Lindsay Clancy has finished deliberating for the day without reaching a verdict and will resume deliberations Friday at 9 a.m. ET.
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.
Clancy, 36, is accused of killing her three young children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — by strangulation at the family's Massachusetts home. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Jurors are faced with deciding whether she is criminally responsible. The two sides have presented experts with starkly contradicting testimony on whether Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Clancy has admitted to the killings and later attempted to take her own life by jumping out of two-story window of the home. During closing arguments on Thursday, the defense said Clancy was in a severe postpartum psychotic state at the time and cannot be held criminally responsible.
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"Calling the suicide hotline. We can't help you. Calling another suicide hotline. We can't help you," defense attorney Kevin Reddington told the jury. "My God, what does she have to do? She was reaching out for help and she was not getting it."
Prosecutors, however, claim she was aware of her wrongdoings at the time of the killings and presented expert testimony that told jurors Clancy planned where to kill the children, what to use, and in what order to take their lives.
"This wasn't a woman suffering from a lack of care, a lack of resources. She had an abundance of help, an abundance of care. She had all of that and more," said assistant district attorney Jennifer Sprague.
If convicted of murder, Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.
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