A jury is to determine whether Lindsay Clancy is criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023 in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She was being treated for postpartum mental health issues when she killed the children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was 8 months old. Plymouth County Superior Court Judge William Sullivan is presiding over the jury trial, which began on July 27 and is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Curated by: Meghann Cuniff (223 videos)
Gregory Saathoff is a senior psychiatrist in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Analysis Unit. He is the final witness in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial in Plymouth County Superior Court in Massachusetts. He began testifying as a rebuttal witness for prosecutors on Tuesday (August 25, day 20) and will continue on Wednesday. 07:32 "In consulting to a maximum security women's prison, I would say five to seven women who had killed their children." 09:40 "Could you estimate how many how many patients you have treated who suffered from psychosis?" "Thousands." 17:36 "Psychosis is a symptom." "And why is it a symptom of mental illness and not its own defined mental illness?" "Well, because there are many different possible causes of psychosis. Someone who has a serious medical problem, for example, can actually become psychotic, but brain tumor is one one example in which those symptoms of psychosis show themselves. But there are other ways that people can experience psychosis. Some can be secondary to, say, drug abuse." 23:53 "For your review of Lindsay Clancy, what types of records and other materials did you review?" "Well, it was they were extensive. They involved significant medical records, not just the psychiatric records, outpatient and inpatient, but also medical records..." 26:16 "No, I wouldn't say that's typical. Certainly for any evaluation, it's important to try and obtain as much information as possible. But in this case, I think the amount of information was was truly significant." 26:45 "I interviewed Ms. Clancy on two occasions. One was on the 29th of May of this year, and the other was the 4th of June. I believe on the 20th of May, I interviewed her for approximately six, six and a half hours, and then the second time in June 4, it was about five hours." 27:24 "for personal reasons, I was unable to travel at that time, and so I requested the ability to have a an interview by way of of a Zoom video platform, and that was that was approved." 29:01 "she was very pleasant, very responsive to questions that I asked on on both occasions" 30:54 "I interviewed Patrick Clancy, also on a Zoom platform" 35:25 "Well, what was significant to me is that she had not spoken about hearing voices before that to any of the mental health professionals, the psychiatrists, the nurse practitioners, the physicians and staff in the emergency departments or at McLean." "And so this was the first time that she reported that was was documented, but also that she experienced an auditory hallucination, according to what she told me, so that was that was unusual, and then also what was very unusual was the fact that the voice Stopped with the death of or the the strangling of her of of her youngest son Callan, and that she went upstairs and then proceeded to engage in behavior in an effort to to kill herself, but that the voice had had stopped as soon as she had strangled her last Callan, her youngest child." 38:54 "Based on your training and experience in dealing with diagnosing and treating people who have psychosis, and what you've learned in all your training and schooling, is it typical for someone in psychosis to hear a voice only one time, never before, never after?" "No." 40:21 committing the act is not curative of the voice. I've I've not I've not ever seen that" 43:02 "Now you mentioned the defendant told you that when she received the call from her husband at 533 and called him back at 534, that she was getting dinner ready for her children. Correct?" "Yes." "And did she tell you what she was about to to get out of the refrigerator?" "Yes, she said she was at the refrigerator and that the refrigerator door was open and that she was getting chicken nuggets out of the refrigerator section for her children." 44:05 "And so, is there any significance to you in the defendant telling you that when she got the phone call from Patrick, when he's at CVS, that she's making chicken nuggets versus Patrick and telling you that that had already happened, and the the crime scene photos showing you the bowl was already on the couch." "Well, it's inconsistent." "And are inconsistencies like that important in your evaluations in cases like this?" "Yes." "Now, in your collateral interview with Patrick Clancy, did you learn from him that when he left the residence, the children were already eating chicken nuggets on the couch?" 45:03 "The widely divergent reports from Lindsay Clancy versus her husband Patrick raise questions about About what she is telling me and and how things are happening" 53:31 lamictal prescription testimony 54:58 " The fact that three providers recommended this medication to help her, and the defendant chose not to take it because of the potential of this rash, was that significant to you in any way in your evaluation?" "Yes." 01:25:08 "Is there any significance to the fact that this voice is telling her to kill the children, but not telling her how to kill the children?" "Yes."