Postpartum depression murder trial — Massachusetts v. Lindsay Clancy

Currently Playing: Chaplain Says Lindsay Clancy Told Her In Hospital, 'I'm Glad My Children Are Safe'

Sheila Cavanaugh is a board-certified chaplain at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who met with Lindsay Clancy when she was there after killing her three children in January 2023. Cavanaugh testified as a defense witness in Clancy's murder trial in Plymouth County Superior Court this morning (Thursday, August 20, day 17). 02:12 "My husband and I are the parents of four adopted children. When I was pursuing my master's degree at Boston College, it was a three-year master's, but it took me five years because we adopted our fourth child while I was in graduate school. She was a 14-year-old girl from Bogota, Colombia." 02:56 "I arrived on the morning of Wednesday, January 25, 2023. I arrived at approximately 8:30 that morning because I was there to relieve the overnight chaplain who was carrying the pager. I was taking over the pager shift, which went from nine to 1 p.m. Although I was working a full day, when I arrived that morning. She said to me, 'Did you hear the news?'" hearsay objection sustained 04:05 "And when you went in to see Lindsay, what was what did you observe?" "Well, the unit itself was filled with law enforcement officers, both outside the doors of the unit. There was Brigham Security, but the unit itself was flooded. There were people from Plymouth County, Boston City Police, Brigham Security. So I had to make my way through concentric circles of law enforcement to even get to the room. I was permitted to see Lindsay, although she could not speak at that time." "And what was her condition that you observed?" "She was dressed in medical armor. She had tubes. She was intubated. She had bandages. She had a neck brace. She was just covered and layered in equipment that enabled her to breathe." 05:24 "I saw her the next day. Again, she could not speak. She was intubated as well. That was the first week that she was hospitalized." 06:11 "I believe she was extubated the weekend of the 28th, but I didn't work that weekend, so I saw her on Tuesday the 31st." 06:40 "She continued to look like the photograph you just saw. She was covered, tubes everywhere, the neck brace. Her emotional state was very neutral, a flat affect. But I remember vividly the first thing she said to me. Now she had heard me for a couple of days, we had been praying together, and so when I went in on Tuesday the 31st, she said to me as I held her hand to comfort her, "I am so glad my children are safe." 07:16 "Was there any other conversation that you had with her?" "I replied theologically to Lindsay, and I said, 'Lindsay, your children are safe. They're safe in heaven with God.' And I held her hand throughout that conversation, and we prayed for them." 07:37 "Did she make any other statements to you?" "She did. She alluded to having heard a voice, and the voice, according to Lindsay, told her that if she did not follow the command, neither she nor her children would be safe." "And did she indicate whether it was a male voice, a female voice, loud, soft?" "She alluded to the fact that it was a male voice and it was persistent." 08:06 "Any further conversation that you recall about that?" "That came up several times. I visited Lindsay minimally 14 times while she was hospitalized at the Brigham, and the voice conversation came up several times during several of our visits." 10:11 "How many times have you seen Lindsay at Tewksbury Hospital?" "Perhaps 200 times." 11:48 cross-exam by Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Sprague 13:38 "You wrote very detailed notes that are contained in the Brigham and Women's Hospital records regarding your interactions with Lindsey Clancy, didn't you?" "Yes, I did." "And in all of these notes that detail every time you interacted with her, you never once wrote that she told you she heard a voice or what that voice said. Correct?" "Correct." 14:00 "And you also said that this voice, talking about the voice, came up in several of your meetings. Correct? "Correct." "And you never once wrote about any of it in any of your very detailed notes. Correct?" "Well, chaplain notes are not verbatim transcripts of patient conversations. I'm not there to evaluate the patient. I'm there to bear witness to their suffering." "Okay, but the question was, you did not document those statements in your notes, correct?" "Correct." 17:01 "In those conversations with her at Spalding, did she tell you that how in those first weeks at Spalding, that part of her physical therapy she was working out with a yellow exercise band?" "No. I don't recall her telling me that." 17:32 re-direct by defense attorney Kevin Reddington "Were you aware of what expenses her family and were incurring as a result of her physical incapacity, paralysis, and being in the hospital?" "From my experience with thousands of patients, I had a very clear idea of the enormous expense." 18:33 "Because I'm not a medically trained clinician, I approach patients in a in a vortex of trust..." 19:24 re-cross by Sprague