The lone male holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy’s triple-murder trial is speaking out for the first time as he faces scorching attacks for refusing to join the 11 jurors who wanted to find the Massachusetts mother not criminally responsible for killing her three young children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan.
Michael P. Desronvil, 48, has been identified as the pro-conviction holdout after a local NBC Boston outlet published a controversial report diving into his personal background, including allegations of domestic violence. In his first statement Thursday, Desronvil blasted claims that he refused to follow the law and took shots at his fellow jurors.
“I didn’t have any doubts,” Desronvil said in a statement to NewsNation, directly refuting claims he disregarded the law or lied under oath. He then turned the tables on his fellow jurors, describing a hostile panel that refused to hear him out.
“As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence present,” he added. “Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses, and what the prosecution presents, I thought it was enough proof that she knew exactly what she was doing and planned.”
Desronvil, a Bridgewater resident, is a father from a Haitian immigrant family and a committed Christian, according to the New York Post. However, his brother previously denied that religion played any role in his decision. His immigrant family reportedly moved to the United States and settled in Massachusetts in 1982. He would have been about 4 years old when his family arrived in the country, the outlet reported.
The juror, who had remained anonymous until now, stood alone during 38 hours of heated deliberations in the trial that captivated and divided the nation. Since the mistrial on September 4, his fellow jurors have hit the media circuit to criticize Desronvil, describing him as “arrogant” and accusing him of refusing to listen to the mostly white women on the jury.
The jury foreperson, identified as an older woman named Roni, described one particularly frustrating moment when she believed the panel had finally reached a breakthrough.
“He had reasonable doubt,” Roni told NBC Boston. “He admitted he had reasonable doubt after we watched that video of the interview.”
Roni said she became so convinced the jury was finally prepared to move forward that she began filling out the required forms with glee.
“I started filling out the forms. I was so excited,” she said. “I actually — there were three forms I had to fill out, and I started filling them out. I wrote my signature on each one.” Shortly thereafter, the jury sent a formal note to the judge deriding the holdout, prompting an unsuccessful attempt from Clancy’s defense to bounce Desronvil from the panel, The Daily Wire reported.
Tensions turned personal and public after another female juror revealed on CBS that the holdout was a black man, prompting host Gayle King to gasp and collect her thoughts.
The revelation, combined with media reports about Desronvil’s personal life, appears to have fueled online sleuths searching for him. An NBC report alleged he abused his wife and, citing court documents and interviews with family members, reported that he was under an active restraining order and facing eviction for nonpayment of rent. According to the report, the juror was accused by a nephew of grabbing his then-wife by the throat in 2021. The couple divorced after the incident, and the criminal charges against him were later dropped. The restraining order was reportedly taken out by the same nephew, who said the juror punched him and threatened him after he called police about the initial incident.
“Those details raise questions about the jury selection process,” the outlet reported. According to Massachusetts law, however, the dropped charges would not have kept him off the jury. Only having a felony conviction within the last seven years — or pending felony charges — would have barred the juror from service.
The juror’s brother said those media reports fanned the flames of internet sleuths, who eventually tracked down his family, doxed his identity, and turned their lives upside down.
“My family cannot leave the house,” the brother said. “They are leaving notes at my mother’s house. They won’t leave us alone, and we don’t know anything. People have been calling me like crazy. It’s crazy.”
In January 2023, Clancy led her three young children to the basement of their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home and strangled them one by one with exercise bands. She admitted to killing her children, but defense attorney Kevin Reddington argued she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis and suffered a mental break while her husband, Patrick, was out running errands for the family of five.
More than three years later, Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial September 4 after the jury became hopelessly deadlocked and failed to reach a verdict. “It is with a heavy heart, we report we cannot come to a unanimous decision,” the jurors wrote in their final note to the judge.
The most serious charges Clancy faced were three counts of first-degree murder, each carrying a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. She is expected to remain at Tewksbury State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital, for now. Reddington is now pushing to throw out the case completely and even pleaded with President Donald Trump for a pardon, despite the president having no authority to pardon someone for a state offense.
