Gayle King needed a moment to process a juror’s revelation about the Lindsay Clancy trial.
Paula Devlin, a juror from the deadlocked panel, told King during a “CBS Mornings” interview Friday that the single holdout who blocked a verdict was a Black man in his 30s. Devlin, who served on the 12-person jury, explained that 11 members were white and only one was a person of color.
“Was the person of color a woman or a man?” King, 71, interjected.
When Devlin confirmed the juror was male, King pressed further, stumbling over her words: “Is the holdout juror… a person of c– a black man?”
Devlin answered yes. King asked again to be certain: “a black man is the holdout juror?”
After another affirmative answer, King fell silent on camera. “Woah, I have to sit with that for just a second,” she said, visibly rattled. She paused before continuing the interview.
Devlin said the holdout juror shifted his position after the panel watched a video of an interview with Clancy. He “realized that it wasn’t murder in the first degree,” she explained, suggesting the footage changed his view of the case.
The jury of nine women and three men failed to reach a unanimous verdict, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial. Clancy, a former nurse, faced murder charges in the deaths of her three young children. Prosecutors alleged she strangled them in the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts home in January 2023, then attempted suicide by jumping from a window. Her defense argued she suffered from severe postpartum depression and psychosis, rendering her unable to form the intent required for murder. The case drew national attention to maternal mental health and the criminal justice system’s handling of postpartum illness.
The mistrial came after jurors sent multiple notes indicating they were stuck. The holdout’s race and its significance to King became an unexpected focal point of the post-trial discussion.
Clancy remains in custody as prosecutors weigh whether to retry her on the murder charges.