President Donald Trump weighed in Friday on the nationally followed Lindsay Clancy murder case only hours after a Massachusetts judge declared a mistrial following more than a week of jury deliberations.
Asked about the case during an Oval Office event, Trump made clear that he believes Clancy will still face serious consequences despite the jury’s inability to reach a unanimous verdict.
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The president described the deaths of Clancy’s three young children as a “horrible tragedy” and said the extensive television coverage had made the trial difficult to avoid.
His remarks came as prosecutors began confronting the question of whether to put Clancy through a second murder trial following the hung jury.
“It’s a terrible situation,” Trump said, before adding, “Look, she did a horrible, horrible thing. Can’t be worse. But you’ll find out what the price to pay is, there’ll be a price.”
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Trump suggested that the eventual outcome could involve continued confinement in either a psychiatric institution or prison, although that decision rests with Massachusetts prosecutors and courts rather than the White House.
“It’s going to be mental institution or jail or something,” Trump said.
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Clancy, 36, was charged with murdering her children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, inside the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home on January 24, 2023.
There was no dispute at trial that Clancy strangled the children with exercise bands before attempting to take her own life, an attempt that left her paralyzed.
The central issue for jurors was instead whether Clancy was criminally responsible for the killings under Massachusetts law at the time they occurred.
Her attorneys argued that she was suffering from severe mental illness, including postpartum psychosis, and therefore could not legally be held criminally responsible for the deaths.
Prosecutors disputed that defense and argued that Clancy understood what she was doing, pointing to evidence they said demonstrated planning, deliberation and awareness surrounding the killings.
After approximately 38 hours of deliberations spread across seven days, the jury informed Judge William Sullivan that it remained unable to reach the unanimous decision required for a verdict.
Sullivan ultimately declared a mistrial Friday after previous efforts to have jurors continue deliberating failed to break the impasse.
The defense unsuccessfully sought emergency intervention from Massachusetts’ highest court before Sullivan formally ended the trial.
District Attorney Timothy Cruz’s office said following the mistrial that no decision had yet been made about whether prosecutors would seek another trial.
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A status hearing has been scheduled for September 29, when the direction of the case could become clearer.
NEW: President Trump reacts to the Lindsay Clancy case being declared a mistrial:
“It’s a shame. It’s a horrible tragedy.”
“She did a horrible, horrible thing. Can’t be worse.”
Trump says he assumes another trial will follow, adding, “But you’ll find out what the price to pay… pic.twitter.com/uFU9ufs2R7
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 4, 2026
Trump appeared to assume during his comments that another prosecution was likely, telling reporters, “I guess they’re going to go through another trial.”
“It’s too bad,” he added.
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When a reporter asked Trump whether he had personally been following the proceedings, the president pointed to the extraordinary amount of national media attention surrounding the case.
“It’s hard not to, it’s on television so much,” Trump said.
The Clancy trial attracted intense interest because the facts of the children’s deaths were largely undisputed.
The defense portrayed the killings as the product of catastrophic psychiatric illness, while prosecutors maintained that mental illness alone did not establish that Clancy lacked criminal responsibility when she killed her children.
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Those competing arguments ultimately produced a jury that could not reach the unanimous verdict required to resolve the case.
Trump, meanwhile, left little ambiguity about his personal reaction to the underlying acts, repeatedly emphasizing the severity of what occurred even as the legal system remains unable to deliver a final judgment.
“It’s a shame,” the president said. “It’s a horrible tragedy.”
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
