UPDATE: PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial ended a fourth day of deliberations without a verdict Tuesday after earlier saying they couldn’t agree whether the Massachusetts mother is criminally responsible for killing her three young children.

Not long after arriving at the courthouse, the jury sent Judge William Sullivan a note saying they had been unable to reach a unanimous decision despite many hours of back and forth. He told them to keep trying.

It was the jury’s first indication of an impasse in the closely watched trial that has focused on maternal mental health after childbirth, and which has stirred deep divisions among the public.

Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny strangling her children but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing. Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

Clancy stared straight ahead as the jury entered in the morning to say they were at a standstill, then looked toward them as the judge spoke.

Sullivan told the jurors that he recognized it had been a long trial with more than 80 witnesses and 300 exhibits. “But because of that, I’m going to ask you to go back out,” he said.

They’re expected to resume deliberations Thursday.

What happens if there’s a hung jury

The jury could convict her of murder or manslaughter, or acquit her if jurors believe her deteriorating mental health was to blame. A conviction could lead to a life prison sentence. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines she is a danger to the public.

If jurors can’t reach a verdict and a mistrial is declared, the charges against Clancy would remain. Prosecutors would need to decide whether to try Clancy again before an entirely new group of jurors.

ORIGINAL STORY: PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — The judge in the Lindsay Clancy trial told jurors to keep deliberating Tuesday after they said they could not reach a unanimous decision on whether to hold the Massachusetts mother criminally responsible for killing her three young children at her home in 2023.

Coming near the start of the fourth day of deliberations, this was the first time there was any indication from the jury that they were at an impasse. On Friday, the jurors asked to look at a knife that Clancy used to cut herself and bags with empty prescription pill bottles found in her house.

Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny strangling her children but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing. Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

The jury could convict her of murder or manslaughter, or acquit her if jurors believe her deteriorating mental health was to blame. A conviction could lead to a life prison sentence. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines she is a danger to the public.

Clancy’s lawyer argued at the trial that she loved her children, but killed them because she lost her grip on reality — and on herself — due to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth. In the months before the killings, Clancy sought treatment for her worsening mental health, including a stay in a psychiatric hospital.