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 finished testifying in direct-exam in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial in Massachusetts this morning (Wednesday, August 26, day 21). Saathoff is a senior psychiatrist in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Analysis Unit. Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague questioned him. You can watch the first day of Saathoff's testimony here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrmO6iFkt8o 01:10 "in the small amount of time that Ms. Clancy had in the in the home without her husband, it was important in order to carry this out, as well as her suicide, to do this quickly, methodically." "Having no instructions as to how to do it, but being able to execute those decisions, including being able to get a phone call and and then return it to her husband in the process of all of this. Certainly, the phone call was not expected." 05:00 "Records demonstrates that sense of isolation she felt, even even in the company of others. That sense that she was just having a problem that was difficult, difficult for her to understand. Difficult for others to understand, and of course the suicidal feelings that came about, and then ultimately those feelings about harming her children. This is not something that she could share." 06:22 "She indicated that financial was one of the stressors that she was encountering. So to believe that her brain had been damaged, that she was not able to do what she loved, which was labor and delivery nursing, but also not in a position to help support the family, really, would be a burden for anyone, and and and certainly that sense of burdensomeness was something that I believe she was experiencing." 08:53 "And was there anything significant in your review of the case in terms of her reporting that Ativan helped her with those thoughts?" "Yes." "How so?" "So Ativan is a lorazepam, a benzodiazepine. This is a medication that is very helpful for treating anxiety. It also can help relax people, help help them sleep." 10:18 "And doctor, did the fact that the the intrusive thoughts went away when taking the Ativan, according to Ms. Clancy, give you further evidence that it was in fact internal thoughts and not an external voice." "Yes." 10:38 "if someone is experiencing psychosis and is experiencing command hallucinations, can that person still know the difference between right and wrong?" "Yes." "How so?" "Well, hallucinations, even command hallucinations, when they occur do not propel an individual to automatically obey them, and in fact, many people will engage in behaviors to stop the actions that the the voices is is claiming." 23:55 "based on your review of all of the records and your your meetings with Ms. Clancy and your collateral interviews, did you form an opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty as to whether or not Lindsay Clancy on January 24, 2023, could appreciate the difference between right and wrong?" "Yes." "And what was that opinion?" "My opinion is that she did have the capacity to appreciate right from wrong." 24:27 "Ms. Clancy had just met with her psychiatrist, Dr. Tufts, the day before, and in that discussion with Dr. Tufts, as as documented, she denied suicidal ideation, and she also denied thoughts of harm to others." "Also, with regard to the appreciation between right and wrong, the planning involved prior to the strangling of her children, I thought was significant. The searches for distance of ThreeV, the searches of CVS, all done prior to her sending fairly late in the afternoon a text asking her husband if he didn't mind takeout from ThreeV." "So that planning, that preparatory planning, I thought was significant. The avoidance of witnesses-you know, a witness during a time when one is committing a crime can intervene, not just report, but also intervene-and so the fact that this was done without any witness present during a time where she had asked the potential witness to to go on a longer errand also I thought was significant." "Concealment is another thing that we that I think indicated an understanding of of right and wrong. I mean, the children were strangled all in the basement, and according to Mr. Clancy, the door to his office had been closed when he arrived to the basement. Timing, timing was really, really significant in this. There was a window of time that Ms. Clancy was aware of, in which she would need to kill her three children, as well as to kill herself, which she expected would happen." "She was conscious of time and told me that she had mapped out the distance, et cetera, because she didn't want her husband to be gone too long. But in this case, I think the issue of of time and and her husband returning, rather than being a solution for her, was a problem. And so, to accomplish all of this in the course of that amount of time that Mr. Clancy was gone, I thought was significant. Really showed an awareness of time in terms of the weapons used. "