PLYMOUTH, Mass. — The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy was abruptly cut short Wednesday afternoon after Judge William Sullivan told jurors they were being excused due to an “unforeseen circumstance,” offering no further explanation as proceedings resumed the following morning.

Sullivan informed jurors midway through Wednesday’s session that they would be dismissed until Thursday morning, declining to specify the nature of the disruption. “This is not something we saw coming, but you’re not to speculate about what it is,” Sullivan told the panel. “You’re not to hold it against either side. It’s just something that we have to deal with.” The court went into recess at 2:15 p.m., and jurors were formally excused for the day at 2:33 p.m. Proceedings resumed Thursday at 9 a.m., though the judge had not publicly disclosed the underlying cause of Wednesday’s early dismissal.

The disruption came shortly after Sullivan ruled on a separate, contested defense request earlier in Wednesday’s session. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington had sought to call Emily Thorndike, a licensed clinical social worker and former employee of McLean Hospital, the psychiatric facility where Clancy was admitted less than a month before she killed her three children in January 2023. Sullivan denied the request to call Thorndike as a witness.

Reddington had identified Thorndike as a potential witness after she publicly criticized conditions at McLean Hospital on TikTok during the trial’s early stages. He sought to introduce her testimony to counter what he characterized as misleading impressions about the quality of care at the facility, impressions he argued had been created during prosecutors’ earlier questioning of Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick Clancy.

In denying the request, Sullivan acknowledged that Thorndike appeared credible but concluded her testimony carried limited relevance to the case. According to the judge’s ruling, Thorndike had stopped working at McLean Hospital approximately a year before Clancy was admitted there, undercutting the direct evidentiary value of her firsthand knowledge of conditions at the facility during the specific period relevant to the case. Sullivan did, however, permit the defense to submit McLean Hospital records documenting staffing levels and treatment programs as an alternative means of addressing the same underlying issue Reddington had hoped to raise through Thorndike’s testimony.

Clancy, 36, has admitted to strangling her three children — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and 8-month-old Callan — at the family’s Duxbury home in January 2023. She has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, with her defense arguing she was not criminally responsible for the killings because she was experiencing postpartum psychosis at the time. Prosecutors contend she planned the killings and bears legal responsibility for her actions.

Wednesday’s abrupt dismissal added another notable moment to what has already been an emotionally intense trial, now well into its second week of testimony. The proceedings have featured extensive witness accounts from Clancy’s family members, former nanny, treating psychiatric providers, first responders and expert witnesses, painting a detailed picture of her mental health decline in the months preceding the killings.

Supporters of Clancy have continued gathering outside Plymouth Superior Court throughout the trial. According to coverage of the proceedings, Clancy’s attorneys and her supporters maintain that she was in the throes of severe postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings, a position central to the defense’s argument that she should not be held criminally responsible under Massachusetts law.

Wednesday’s session was not the first time the trial has featured contentious exchanges over which witnesses would be permitted to testify or what evidence jurors would be allowed to consider. Throughout the proceedings, Sullivan has periodically ruled on a range of evidentiary disputes between prosecutors and the defense, reflecting the complexity of a case that has required extensive expert psychiatric testimony alongside more conventional witness accounts from family members and first responders.

The specific nature of Wednesday’s “unforeseen circumstance” remained undisclosed as of Thursday morning, with Sullivan’s instruction to jurors explicitly cautioning them against speculating about its cause or allowing it to influence their assessment of either the prosecution’s or the defense’s case. Such instructions are a standard judicial practice used to prevent unrelated courtroom or logistical disruptions from improperly affecting jury deliberations, though the lack of public explanation has left the specific cause of Wednesday’s early dismissal a matter of ongoing curiosity among those following the closely watched trial.

With proceedings having resumed Thursday morning, the trial continues to draw significant public and media attention, both for the graphic and emotionally difficult nature of the testimony presented and for the broader legal questions surrounding how postpartum psychosis is treated under the state’s criminal responsibility standards. The case has also drawn scrutiny toward the mental health care system more broadly, including the adequacy of psychiatric treatment Clancy received in the weeks before the killings, a theme underscored by Wednesday’s dispute over the proposed McLean Hospital testimony.

As of Thursday, no timeline had been publicly indicated for when the prosecution’s or defense’s respective presentation of evidence might conclude, though the trial has already extended well beyond its originally anticipated length, reflecting the scope of expert and lay witness testimony both sides have called to address the central and contested question of Clancy’s mental state at the time of the killings.