Woman arrested for intimidating jurors in Lindsay Clancy case is retired nurse

A Massachusetts retired nurse was arrested by Massachusetts State Police and charged with intimidation for her actions outside the courthouse where Lindsay Clancy faced trial for the murder of her three children. Dawn Light, 56, of Sutton, MA, was charged with one count of intimidation of a witness, jurors, or person furnishing information in connection with criminal proceedings, The Patriot Ledger reports.

She was arraigned in the same Plymouth courthouse where Lindsay Clancy is on trial for the murder of her three children and prosecutors asked that bail be set at $50,000 and that conditions be imposed that she must not come near the courthouse. Light was found in the parking lot at the back of the courthouse, where participants in the trial come and go and which is prohibited to the public. 

Police found her with video and photographs of jurors on her phone and made her delete them. She was arrested and charged with juror intimidation. Light's attorneys said in court on Wednesday that she was just trying to get a photo of Clancy, who has seen an outpouring of support from women show believe her defense of postpartum psychosis should render her not guilty of her actions in January 2023, when she admits to having taken the lives of her three children.

Judge William Sullivan, who is presiding over the Clancy case on the third floor of the courthouse, addressed the incident as the court convened on Wednesday morning. "Before we get going," he said, "I just want to make one comment, without an editorial comment. I just want to remind everybody here and elsehwere that there's been an order that's been issued in regards to the conducting of this case, we well as statutes, in this Commonwealth, which relate to jurors, witnesses, attorneys and others in regards to this proceeding. And everybody should be well aware that that order and that statute is being enforced and will be enforced. So I just kinda wanted to put that out there with no follow-up or editorial comment."

Light was arrested around 3:40 pm on Tuesday outside Plymouth Superior Court. The jury had been released for the day just minutes before, after telling Judge Sullivan earlier in the day that they had reached an impasse and could not come to a verdict. They also requested to be released at 3:30 pm and the judge obliged. The jury has not been sequestered.

While the trial has been televised, there has been no photography of jurors. However, reporting from inside the courtroom on Tuesday revealed that two women on the 9 woman, 3 man jury were smiling at each other as the judge read out their note that they could not come to a unanimous decision as to Clancy's guilt.

Police were not explicit as to what led to Light's arrest and they did not confirm that it was connected to the case. The Wednesday arraignment reveals that she was in the parking lot photographing jurors as they left the courthouse.

The jury was back in court on Wednesday morning and returned to their deliberations. The judge has explicitly and repeatedly told jurors not to read or watch anything about the case and to not talk about the case with anyone. 

The case has gained national and international attention with countless articles, news segments, and podcast episodes dedicated to trying to understand not just how a woman could murder her three young children under 5-years-old, but how she could have garnered so much support among mothers and women.

Both online and outside the courthouse, women have gathered wearing pink to show that they believe Clancy, who admitted to killing her children, should be found not guilty due to reason of insanity. Clancy and her attorney Kevin Reddington have claimed that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.