The lone juror who declined to find Lindsay Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity has shared a touching image of his newborn daughter as a fundraiser launched after he allegedly faced death threats and doxing continues to grow.
Michael Desronvil, 48, is pictured cradling his baby daughter in a photograph posted by his attorney, Edward Paltzik. The image surfaced after Desronvil became the focus of intense public backlash over his role in Clancy’s murder trial.
Desronvil reportedly stood alone against the other 11 jurors, refusing to agree that Clancy, 36, should be acquitted of murdering her children on the grounds of insanity. The deadlock ultimately resulted in a mistrial.
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, was tried in connection with the deaths of her three young children at the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in 2023.
Her defense focused on her mental state at the time of the killings. Clancy did not dispute that she had killed her children, but argued that postpartum psychosis meant she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, were found strangled at their Duxbury home on January 24, 2023.
After jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict and a mistrial was declared, several members of the panel spoke publicly about what they described as an extraordinary breakdown during deliberations.
They said 11 jurors supported acquitting Clancy, while Desronvil remained the sole holdout.
Michael Desronvil, 48, is pictured holding his newborn daughter in an image shared on GiveSendGo, where more than $360,900 was raised for the holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy’s trial
Desronvil refused to join the 11 other jurors who supported finding Clancy, 36, not guilty of murdering her children by reason of insanity, resulting in a mistrial in the closely watched case
The father was pictured in an image shared by his attorney, Paltzik, on X. A fundraiser was launched “if they come for him, and they will” to help cover “security, lawyers and lost work”
Several jurors later accused Desronvil of refusing to seriously engage with their arguments, with some characterizing his conduct as “arrogant.”
Another juror described his behavior as “shocking.”
Paula Devlin, 65, told the Daily Mail that Desronvil’s explanations for his guilty vote “made no sense” when he was pressed. She said he remained largely “quiet” throughout the weeklong deliberations.
According to Devlin, he spent more time policing the tone of the group’s discussions than explaining why he believed Clancy was guilty.
“The main thing he focused on is sometimes we would all want to talk at once, and that was very upsetting to him,” she said.
“He would get upset and say, ‘Listen to what she’s saying, listen to what he’s saying, be respectful.’”
“We were trying to say to him that sometimes somebody says something and they get lost in their thought or they can’t find the right word, and somebody else puts that word in there for them or finishes their thought. That’s how normal conversation works.”
“But when that would happen, he would get upset and just take all this time lecturing us about not being respectful.”
Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, were found strangled at their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, on January 24, 2023
Fellow juror Paula Devlin, 65, told the Daily Mail that the holdout juror made ‘no sense’ when pressed on his reasons for his vote and was ‘quiet’ for most of the week-long deliberations
Devlin also claimed the holdout was a married man and rarely fraternized with the group during the trial, instead preferring to speak to his wife or watch videos on his phone.
Devlin said the 11 jurors who decided Clancy was not guilty of murder or manslaughter in the deaths of her kids felt ‘defeat’ and ‘anger’ when the mistrial was declared.
She told the Daily Mail: ‘I don’t want to bash anybody, even that person.
‘They did whatever they did for their reasons, and we will never know, and we will never understand.
‘That’s what hurts so much.’
Three other women who served as jurors also spoke out earlier this week.
‘We weren’t trying to figure out if she murdered the children, she did and she’s admitting to that. We’re trying to figure out: Did she know right from wrong at that time?’ jury foreperson Roni Carlson recounted to NBC Boston.
‘And with everybody saying she loved her children so much and everything proved she loved her children, from her journals to her mother-in-law, everything proved that she loved her children,’ Carlson continued. ‘So she had to have snapped.’
Clancy did not deny that she killed her three children, but argued she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity as she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time
‘He had reasonable doubt. He admitted he had reasonable doubt,’ Carlson said.
‘I started filling out the forms, I was so excited. There were three forms I had to fill out, and then he said, ‘But I’m still not going to say she’s not guilty.”
The father from a Haitian immigrant family had a fundraiser launched ‘if they come for him, and they will’ to cover ‘security, lawyers and lost work,’ the GiveSendGo page said.
After Desronvil was identified as the holdout juror he explained in a statement that ‘based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses and what the prosecution presented, I thought it was enough proof that [Clancy] knew exactly what she was doing.’
He doubled-down, emphasizing that he ‘didn’t have any doubts’ about Clancy’s guilt.
The fundraiser garnered a flurry of donations in wake of the jurors identity surfacing publicly and reached over $361,970 as of Sunday evening.
Desronvil received ‘death threats, doxxing and harassment’ following the trial’s collapse and reportedly had to leave his home, opting to stay at an ‘undisclosed secure location’ in New England, according to his attorney.
In a statement on X, Paltzik said: ‘Michael will be making a personal statement in the near future, in his own words. But in the meantime, this is only me talking. I want to thank everyone who has sent me emails, texts, and voice messages over the last few days intended to support Michael.
Desronvil received ‘death threats, doxxing and harassment’ following the trial’s collapse and reportedly had to leave his home, opting to stay at an ‘undisclosed secure location’ in New England, according to his attorney
‘Thank you for being caring and nice people. I apologize profusely that I cannot respond to all of them right now but I wanted to say we really appreciate and notice every message, and it all matters a great deal.
Every individual message that was sent matters a lot to us. I also want to say that if you disagree with us about anything that we say, that’s your right. In fact, I’d be concerned if every single person agreed with every single thing we say. This country was built on intelligent debate in the public square.
‘That’s the same reason we support the good faith right of an individual juror to follow the evidence and the law to wherever they take him or her, free from fear of reprisal.’
Since the juror was pulled into the controversial case, it was revealed that the recently new father had previously faced domestic violence allegations and had an active restraining order against him, court records and police reports showed.
NBC10 Boston revealed how he was allegedly charged with assault in September 2021 following an incident involving his then-wife.
A police report obtained by the station said the man’s 13-year-old nephew called 911 and alleged his uncle had grabbed his wife around the throat before throwing her into a dresser.
The man’s mother was allegedly screaming, ‘You’re evil!’ as officers arrested him, according to the report cited by NBC10.
The criminal charge was ultimately dismissed, and the couple later divorced.
His ex-wife told the station that she had not wanted to testify because she feared she could lose custody of her daughter. But the juror allegedly became embroiled in another family confrontation years later.
Last year, the same nephew who had called police during the 2021 episode obtained a restraining order against his uncle, according to NBC10.
In an affidavit, the teenager accused his uncle of knocking him to the ground and repeatedly punching him in the face.
The nephew claimed his uncle told him: ‘You ruined my f***ing life,’ in an apparent reference to his earlier decision to call police.
‘You’ve had this coming your way for a long time,’ the juror allegedly added, according to the affidavit quoted by NBC10.
The restraining order was still active when the man was chosen to sit on the Clancy jury and throughout the weeks of evidence in the explosive case, the station reported.
Family members contacted by NBC10 said they had been estranged from him since the alleged confrontation with his nephew and claimed they had no idea he had been serving on the Clancy jury.
One relative went further, describing him to the station as a ‘narcissist’ and saying she did not believe he should have been allowed to serve on such a consequential case.
The Daily Mail reached out to Paltzik and Clancy’s lawyer Kevin Reddington for comment.