PLYMOUTH, Mass. (Court TV) — Massachusetts State Police took a woman into custody on charges of juror intimidation after she was allegedly filming outside the courthouse where Lindsay Clancy is standing trial.
Dawn Light appears in court on Sept. 2, 2026. (Court TV)
A spokesperson for Massachusetts State Police told Court TV that they took Dawn Light, 56, into custody at approximately 3:40 p.m. on Tuesday outside the courthouse. She was arrested on a single charge of aggravated intimidation of a witness, jurors, or person furnishing information in connection with criminal proceedings.
Light pleaded not guilty at her arraignment on Wednesday morning, where prosecutors asked that she be held on $50,000 cash bail.
Prosecutors said Light was arrested after she was seen sitting in the Plymouth County courthouse’s parking lot — a restricted area — using her phone to record people leaving the building. When police approached her, she told them she was “waiting to see if Lindsay Clancy would come out of the building.”
Clancy, 36, is charged with three counts of murder in the deaths of her children. Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, were strangled in the family’s home on Jan. 24, 2023. Clancy has admitted to killing her children using exercise bands, but has pleaded not guilty, arguing that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and not legally responsible for her actions at the time.
The case has captured national attention, with hundreds of people gathering outside the courthouse in a silent rally to support Clancy. An online fundraiser to support Clancy’s parents, who have funded her defense, had reached more than $1.11 million as of Wednesday morning.
Jurors were dismissed just after 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday from the Plymouth County courthouse, hours after reporting that they were deadlocked and unable to come to a decision in the case. Judge William Sullivan asked them to return to the jury deliberation room to try again. By Tuesday evening, the panel had deliberated for more than 20 hours.
It is illegal in all 50 states to record jurors in any trial or report on their identities. Media inside the courtroom are under strict instructions never to show the panel. In Plymouth County, jurors leave through a private entrance at the back of the courthouse, guarded by state police troopers.
Light allowed police to look through her phone; while they initially didn’t see anything, they found video of individuals confirmed to be members of the Clancy jury leaving the courthouse in the device’s “deleted files.”
Light’s attorney opposed the prosecutor’s request for cash bail, arguing that the defendant is a retired nurse living on a fixed income and could not afford it. The judge agreed to release Light without cash bail, but said she must stay away from the Plymouth County courthouse and all witnesses and jurors in the Clancy trial.
In the Clancy courtroom on Wednesday, Sullivan questioned each juror at sidebar before the panel resumed its fifth day of deliberations. Sullivan also admonished the gallery and online viewers, warning them to stay away from the jurors.
If convicted, Light faces a potential sentence of up to 21½ years in state prison.
