‘Just Beyond Heartbreaking’: CNN Anchor Fights Tears as Reporter Details ‘Horrific’ Lindsay Clancy Killings

CNN’s Pamela Brown fought back tears as the killing of Lindsay Clancy’s children was described following a judge’s decision to declare a mistrial in the sensational case before briefly pausing his ruling.

Lawyer and CNN correspondent Jean Casarez joined Brown on The Situation Room to break down the complicated new steps in Clancy’s trial on Friday following the dramatic ruling.

Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on Friday after a jury of nine women and three men repeatedly told the court they could not reach a verdict.

Clancy defense attorney Kevin Reddington immediately requested an emergency stay, and the judge gave him only one hour to make his appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

Casarez explained that if Reddington is successful, the judge’s mistrial ruling would be appealed. Reddington said it was one juror that is acting as the holdout in a unanimous decision.

As pictures of Clancy’s children — five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan — played out on the screen, Brown, a mother of three, became emotional. Casarez also described testimony about the killings, including an exercise band needing to be used for over a minute in order to actually kill the children.

Cora, she said, “loved bows” and was a “girly girl” while Dawson loved “trucks in general.”

“It’s just beyond heartbreaking. We’re looking at pictures right now of these beautiful children and I…It just makes you want to cry when you describe the evidence that was presented in the courtroom with those exercise bands,” she said, fighting back tears. “I’m sorry it’s just awful…this trial has evoked a lot of emotion.”

Clancy admitted strangling her three young children and afterwards attempted to commit suicide, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Her defense has argued her actions were motivated by postpartum psychosis.

Casarez told Brown:

It is. And, you know, Pam, on first degree murder, one of the theories is extreme atrocity and cruelty. And the reason prosecutors brought that charge is because of the cruelty of the way the three young children who were placed face down on the floor in the basement, of how they were killed. That’s why that charge was brought. And the prosecution, the commonwealth, is representing those victims, those lives that they believed should have justice, no matter what side you’re on. Three children were gone and the prosecution felt they had a responsibility here to bring this case before their community for those children.

Watch above via CNN.

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