375. The Lindsay Clancy Trial Part 3

Summary

The Prosecutors: The Lindsay Clancy Trial Part 3 (Episode 375)

PodcastOne | August 3, 2026
Hosts: Brett and Alice
Case discussion: The Commonwealth v. Lindsay Clancy, days 2–3 of trial

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Brett and Alice—both prosecutors—continue their in-depth coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial, focusing on testimony from days 2 and 3. The episode dissects the heart-wrenching evidence and legal complexities surrounding the case in which Lindsay Clancy is on trial for the murder of her three children during an apparent psychotic episode following postpartum struggles. Brett and Alice break down legal standards regarding criminal responsibility and mental disease, analyze trial strategy, evaluate the handling of emotional and factual testimony, and provide unique behind-the-scenes insight into how both the prosecution and the defense are presenting their cases.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Understanding Legal Standards in Insanity Defense

• Misconceptions about Mental Health and Legal Responsibility

  • Brett and Alice thoroughly address misconceptions seen in public commentary, clarifying that failure by the medical system, while tragic and societally important, is largely irrelevant to Lindsay Clancy’s criminal responsibility.
    • Brett: “The only question for the trial itself is what was her mental state on that day, regardless of what caused her to be in that state?” [07:30]
  • Alice reinforces the distinction between having a mental health diagnosis and meeting legal insanity standards:
    • “It is not: you open Door A, she has a mental diagnosis, therefore she is not guilty for the murders of her three children. That is not the case whatsoever.” [08:53]

• Massachusetts Legal Standard for Criminal Responsibility

  • The standard is from Commonwealth v. McCool (modified from M’Naghten):
    1. The defendant must have a mental disease or defect.
    2. As a result, they must lack substantial capacity to either:
    • appreciate the criminality or moral wrongfulness of their conduct (cognitive prong), or
    • conform their conduct to the law (volitional prong).
  • Alice reads the jury instructions directly:
    • “A person is not criminally responsible... if he has a mental disease or defect and, as a result... lacks the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality... or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.” [16:01]
  • They stress: merely hearing voices or having a mental illness is not sufficient; inability to resist those voices is essential.
    • Brett: “It’s not, is she hearing voices? It’s can she say no?” [13:39]

Emotional Testimony and Trial Strategy

The Impactful Testimony of Patrick Clancy (Victims’ Father and Lindsay’s Husband)

• Father’s Emotional Burden
  • Alice: “I can’t imagine the tragedy... to testify at length for days about your children’s clothing and the moment you found them dead... He looks like a man who is barely holding it together.” [35:45]
  • Brett pushes back against public criticism of Patrick’s apparent composure:
    • “All I can think is, I hope that karma is not real... and you have your reaction judged by others who have never been in that position…” [37:11]
• 911 Call and Evidence
  • Details of the 911 call by Patrick upon finding the children were so harrowing that the courtroom needed a break afterward:
    • Brett: “He’s screaming these primal screams... trying to save their lives. But it’s not gonna happen. Everyone is crying, Lindsay’s crying. Reports in the courtrooms, the jurors were bawling.” [39:21]
• Strategy Flaws
  • Brett and Alice argue it was a strategic misstep for the prosecution to start with Patrick, who, in testimony and life, does not support their theory of Lindsay’s criminal responsibility:
    • Brett: “Ordinarily, the father of three dead children would be a great place to start. But he’s not in that mindset… [He] agrees that Lindsay is not criminally responsible for this.” [44:32]
    • This gave the defense an early win, using Patrick to push back on “doctor shopping” claims, clarify medication history, and dismantle prosecution arguments about Lindsay’s intent. [50:55–57:47]

Testimony of First Responders

• Raw, Devastating Accounts
  • Alice: “So much respect for all first responders…testifying back to back, breaking down on the stand…I was like, oh my goodness, you guys have a tough job.” [03:30]
  • The testimony from police and EMTs is described as more authentic, immediately viscerally impactful, and should have been used as the trial openers for the prosecution.
    • Brett: “[Stephen Hall, first responder] could barely keep it together. The horror that he saw and how absolutely terrible it was…Exactly the kind of testimony you should have started with.” [82:16]
  • Defense wisely refrained from cross-examining these witnesses:
    • Alice: “There’s nothing the defense can get out of these witnesses. And so what they can appear is that they are just as heartbroken along with Lindsay that these kids are dead.” [86:40]

Timeline/Events Clarified by Secondary Witnesses

• Staff from CVS and a restaurant (3V) testified to their normal, routine conversations with Lindsay earlier on the day of the killings; she did not appear disturbed or incoherent. The prosecution uses this to imply normalcy, the defense highlights that psychosis is not always outwardly visible. [40:38]

Prosecution and Defense Approaches: Mistakes and Effectiveness

• Prosecution Missteps
  • Failed to secure or properly introduce key medical records (e.g., Women & Infants evaluation).
  • Presented weak, easily rebutted points (e.g., the “methods to kill” web search which Patrick credibly explained was about a singer’s suicide). [51:56]
  • Emphasized irrelevant parenting notes, making them seem suspiciously controlling when they were ordinary notes for a nanny—undermined on the stand by Patrick:
    • Alice: “Honestly, these notes sound like notes I’ve written…” [77:46—80:45]
• Defense Successes
  • Used prosecution witnesses (Patrick) to refute prosecution theory early; established Lindsay’s efforts to seek help and downplayed the supposed “doctor shopping.”
  • Showcased the mishandling of evidence and confusion in the prosecution’s approach.
  • Paired emotional rapport-building and restraint (no cross) with strategic, pointed cross-examination only when necessary (though one minor misstep noted in being a bit too aggressive with a firefighter witness).
    • Brett: “It seemed like a misstep, honestly. The first misstep by the defense and a very minor one.” [92:18]

Key Legal Concepts Explained

• Jury’s Role in Determining Insanity
  • The determination of mental disease/defect is legal, not purely medical:
    • Brett: “…at the end of the day, it’s really up to the jury. If the jury decides…‘I don’t think she does’—that is within their rights...” [18:37]
• Burden Shifting
  • While the prosecution must rebut, the defense must first present evidence of mental disease to shift the burden:
    • Brett: “This is not your typical criminal trial where the defendant doesn’t have to prove anything…” [18:37]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Mental Illness and Agency:
  Alice: “People with mental illnesses, huge spectrum, are not removed of all agency of their actions.” [09:59]
• On the Trial’s Emotional Toll:
  Brett: “I can’t even imagine what this is like for [the jury].” [44:32]
• On the Nature of the Murders:
  Alice: “Strangling someone face to face takes time. And I’m sure we’re going to hear more about this. But this is not an instantaneous snap like pulling a trigger. This was done methodically and took many minutes in between with people who likely were able to fight back in some manner.” [12:14]
• On Trial Strategy:
  Brett: “The prosecution is presenting a case like they’re the defense… The prosecution has to come in with a coherent theory and then it’s the defense who’s like, anything could happen.” [76:12, 77:04]
• On Parental Notes as ‘Controlling’:
  Alice: “These notes honestly sound like notes I’ve written… probably every parent would say, yeah, ditto.” [77:46]

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Significant Timestamps for Important Segments

• Legal Standards & Public Misconceptions: [04:27]–[18:37]
• Jury Instructions Read and Explained: [16:01]–[17:28]
• Analysis of Prosecution/Defense Burden: [18:37]–[21:07]
• Analysis of Testimony—Patrick Clancy: [35:45]–[44:32]
• Discussing Strategy Missteps (Prosecution): [44:32]–[62:34]
• First Responders’ Testimony: [82:10]–[89:32]
• Emotional/Procedural Handling of Courtroom: [39:21]–[44:32]; [86:40]–[86:52]
• Parenting Notes Cross-Examination: [77:36]–[80:49]
• Prosecution redirect missteps—Web search, medical care: [71:01]–[76:12]

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Flow, Tone, and Style

Brett and Alice keep their analysis candid, empathetic, and often conversational, using their legal expertise to provide clarity amidst emotion and public confusion. They are not afraid to criticize trial attorneys or court strategy, but do so thoughtfully, with a focus on what it means for truth and justice. Their tone balances professional detachment with genuine human empathy for all involved, especially victims and the accused.

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Summary Takeaways

• This portion of the trial has centered on legal, medical, and emotional complexities, with both prosecution and defense struggling to balance sympathy, medical reality, and legal standards.
• Prosecution’s strategy and handling of witnesses have been criticized as scattered and sometimes counterproductive; defense has gained early ground by methodically rebutting key prosecution claims through prosecution’s own witnesses.
• Testimony from first responders has been the most emotionally devastating and effective in highlighting the horror of what occurred—serving to frame the case as a true tragedy, regardless of legal outcome.
• The jury instructions empower the jury to make the final call on Lindsay Clancy’s criminal responsibility, underscoring the importance of clear and effective trial presentation.
• Ultimately, this is a case with no winners—only competing attempts to reckon with immense loss, the limits of psychiatric understanding, and the legal system’s effort to do justice under excruciating circumstances.

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For those following the trial or interested in legal procedure and true crime, this episode provides both a strong legal primer and a moving account of the human stakes at play.

Transcript

[Brett]

This podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking. 48 hours before the trail goes cold. From A E and Crime House. This is the official podcast from the famous true crime series the first 48.

[Alice]

I'm Carter Roy.

[Brett]

Every Thursday I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth with long form storytelling built for your ears. Listen to and follow the First 48 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm brett. And I'm alice and we are the prosecut. Today on the Prosecutors. We look at the testimony in day two and three of the Lindsay Clancy trial. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett. I'm joined as always by my fiery co host Alice True.

[Alice]

I will not deny that because you know, I always think I'm like a calm, cool, collected person. In fact, tonight at dinner with my kids, I have so many of them and they're also crazy. I was like, guys, let's not jump to like temper tantrums. You know, something's just not a big deal. Nary two minutes later, number two, Squanto did something like crazy. Spilled milk everywhere and it was totally his fault and I just flew off the handle and he was like, I was just trying to help Britney pick up a napkin, which he was. He had spilled it trying to help his sister and then I felt so bad.

[Brett]

You call that manipulation, Alice?

[Alice]

Yeah, I know he definitely probably was manipulating me. But I was like, I just preached not being fiery, but who am I kidding? I'm like the fieriest person I know. But I'm going to try not to be fiery during this trial.

[Brett]

Yeah, we'll see about that.

[Alice]

I don't know how that I'm trying really hard to just like sparkling water every night. It's like a tree.

[Brett]

There you go. I following you, trying to tie things in. A lot of testimony from firefighters these last couple days. So fiery firefighters. There you go.

[Alice]

I didn't even make that connection. And you did. You've come so far. You've come so far. Can I also just say so much respect for all first responders. Oh, God, the things they have to go. This is just like every day for them. And hearing them all testify back to back, breaking down on the stand, I was like, oh my goodness, you guys have a tough job.

[Brett]

And you know what I kept thinking during this whole thing? Number one, God bless those people for what they do. And number two, at least in this trial, we don't have to act like they might be co conspirators, which we had to do in the Karen Reed trial.

[Alice]

Yes.

[Brett]

These are the exact same types of people just responding to an incident and dealing down the street can.

[Alice]

Like down the street from Karen Reid.

[Brett]

Yeah. One dude was sitting at his house on his day off.

[Alice]

On his day off. And he drove in his personal truck because he heard the all hands. Yeah. And he was like, it's my day off and I'm coming. Okay, I totally agree with you.

[Brett]

We're going to walk through a lot of this testimony. Really difficult testimony. Honestly, it's what the Commonwealth should have started with. We'll talk about that as well. Before we get into this though, I want to clear up what I see as a common misconception in the discussions of this case. And it comes from a good place. And I'm not even saying this discussion is bad to have, but I just want it to be clear to everybody who's following this and isn't a legal expert what the significance is or isn't of certain things. So one thing I've seen a lot, and I'm not saying this isn't true, is that the medical system failed her, the doctors failed her, they over prescribed her, they didn't spend enough time with her, they threw medication at her instead of actually treating the underlying issue that this is an indictment of women's health care. This is a result of the fact that we don't study women's health care enough, that we don't study women's mental health enough. All of those things may be true, but to a certain extent they really don't matter in this case. And I want to do just an analogy to this as we're thinking through these issues. Some of you have heard of Bud Dwyer before. If you haven't heard of Bud Dwyer, you've probably heard the song hey man, nice shot. Especially if you're from our generation. You grew up in the 90s. Big song on the alternative music scene. It's not about Kurt Cobain, which a lot of people think. It's all about Bud, Dwight Dwyer and Bud Dwyer was this politician in Pennsylvania, I think it's Pennsylvania, forgive me if it's not. And he was convicted of corruption. So he's convicted of corruption, he's going to go to prison. He has this press conference, you can find it online, has a press conference, says he's innocent, picks up a paper bag, pulls out a massive firearm and shoots himself on television, kills himself subsequently, it turns out he actually was innocent. He was wrongfully convicted, he was wrongfully accused, he was cleared of all wrongdoing. Change that story a little bit and just say that this man who has his whole life destroyed, he's financially ruined, his career is over, he has no future. Instead of a suicide, it's a murder suicide, but he fails in the suicide. Now, he has clearly been failed in many ways. The things that led to what happened are these awful, horrific things that are beyond his control. But if he had gone to trial, those things would not have had anything to do with his guilt or innocence. You're in a similar situation here. So with Lindsay Clancy, as we're going to discuss, the only reason any of these things are relevant to her guilt or innocence is to the extent they show she had some mental disease or defect that prevented her from being able to conform her actions to the law. Now imagine the exact opposite situation. Imagine she'd gotten the best care imaginable, that they knew exactly what was wrong with her, that it was incredibly well studied, that the doctors who treated her won Nobel prizes for the work they did. But despite all that, she still suffered from some sort of mental illness that prevented her from being able to conform her acts to the law. The fact that the system, medical system didn't fail her and the doctors did great and they treated her and everything else would not have any bearing on whether or not she is guilty or innocence. The only question, and we're going to go into this more with the standard, the only question for the trial itself is what was her mental state on that day, regardless of what caused her to be in that state? And I just think this is important because I've seen so many commentators say things like they shouldn't even bought the trial because she was failed by the system, or they shouldn't even had the trial because she did everything she could. Those are all really great points and they might even be really great lessons. But when it comes to the trial itself, they're almost irrelevant.

[Alice]

And herein lies why. There are two different lawsuits, three really, the civil lawsuits against the medical system, because that's putting on trial the Care that she got versus the criminal trial that we are currently watching in real time right now, finishing day three is about the criminal intent behind what she did. And this may be very frustrating, and this is where this is going to be somewhat of an oversimplification, but this is where the conflating of really different aspects of the law is harming some people's ability to see what is actually at issue in the criminal trial. I see a lot of people say basically, she clearly had some sort of mental diagnosis. Anything, whether it's psychosis or depression or anxiety or insomnia, anything, right? The fact that she has some sort of mental defect, and I'm using that term because it's the legal term, a mental diagnosis, she is therefore not guilty. That is not the legal standard here. We've said that the Massachusetts standard is somewhat different than the McNaughton test, but still, even in Massachusetts, it is not. You open door A. She has a mental diagnosis, therefore she is not guilty for the murders of her three children. That is not the case whatsoever. And that oversimplification, I think, goes beyond this trial. I think there are really harmful effects to that kind of dialogue and misunderstanding of the law. Because what that tends to do is even though we're talking about a legal case and there are legal standards that differ, you know, we have to, like, make these reasonable man standards. That is not necessarily a medical diagnosis. I think what it tends to do is essentially put everyone with any sort of a mental diagnosis into one bucket, which is to take away all of their agency, saying that they're not responsible for any of their actions. And that is clearly not true. It is a spectrum. And there are many, many women diagnosed with postpartum depression who do not go to the ends that Lindsay Clancy went to. I know this may seem hyperbolic. I may be ringing some big bell that shouldn't be rung. But I'm seeing where these discussions are leading, and it's drawing on a lot of people's emotional heartstrings, and it's spiraling into, I think, larger discussions that are incredibly important. But one effect of this spiral I'm seeing is something that I think could be potentially damaging as we talk about the legal case, but as well as how we view our society, which is that people with mental illnesses, huge spectrum, are not removed of all agency of their actions.

[Brett]

And look, mental illness is stigmatized enough. We don't need to accidentally stigmatize it more by seeming to indicate if you have some sort of mental illness, you can't Be a good mother. You can't be trusted with your kids, or you're a danger to society, or you can't control your actions or anything. I mean, there's a reason the legal standard is so high and it's higher. It is so much higher than just you have some sort of medical diagnosis. It goes well beyond that. And there's just a reason we don't do it that way. I've talked about this before. I've got this one friend who. And they really are a friend. I didn't mean to say it that

[Alice]

way, but this one friend getting all fiery about everything. They're going to text you tonight and be like, I thought we were friends.

[Brett]

Who's just absolutely convinced that everyone who commits a crime has a mental illness and therefore shouldn't be punished. They should be treated in some way. And I'm like, that is so insulting to people have mental illnesses. And I just. I worry somewhat about that unintended carryover. And I'm not saying these other issues aren't important. We shouldn't discuss them. I mean, the state of mental health care for women, physical health care for women, frankly, as we've talked about, is just atrocious. And I can't even believe it's as bad as it is in 2026. I'm just shocked by it in. In so many ways.

[Alice]

But I still don't know what I think about this. There's just still so much. But Kate J. Had said something in the chat right now that I giggle at, because both Brett and I verbalized this exact same sentiment, which is, if an evil voice is telling me to kill my children, I'mma tell it no. I may absolutely hear that voice. But, like, I don't have to say yes. But that goes to the bigger point of. That's why this is such an interesting case. We have to see how the voices that she says she heard, the interaction of her drugs, all of these things affected her in those moments in which she ended her children's lives. Because as we're hearing from all of these first responders, they were killed one at a time. And strangling someone face to face takes time. And I'm sure we're going to hear more about this. But this is not an instantaneous snap like pulling a trigger. This was done methodically and took many minutes in between with people who likely were able to fight back in some manner. So it was not an incredibly easy task to do. And this is something that, you know, the prosecution, I think, did do a good Job of with all the first responders is we do have to think about what was going through her head. Could she control herself despite all of these things that she was dealing with in her mental illness? And that's why we care here.

[Brett]

And you joke, but that's literally the standard. It's not, is she hearing voices? It's can she say no? If she can say no to the voice and then she commits the crime anyways, she's guilty, it has to basically be that she can't say no.

[Alice]

And.

[Brett]

And I want to talk about this legal standard because I keep seeing this sort of conflation of mental illness. So we're going to go back through this standard of what it is in Massachusetts because I want all you guys to have this as you continue through this trial and as we really get into expert testimony, which is going to happen in the coming weeks about her mental state. So let's reiterate the standard. It's Commonwealth versus McCool. It is different from the McNaughton standard, and it says that a defendant is not criminally responsible if at the time of the crime she, number one, had a mental disease or defect. That's step one. You gotta get to step one or you're done. It's one of those. It's necessary but not sufficient. You have to have a mental disease or defect number one. But you don't stop there. And as a result of that mental disease or defect, one of two things is true. You lacked substantial capacity to either appreciate the criminality or moral wrongfulness of your conduct. This is what we call the cognitive prong. So do you recognize that it's wrong? I'm going to go ahead and say in this case, I don't even think Lindsay Clancy is arguing that. I think Lindsay Clancy acknowledges that she knew killing her kids was wrong. It was just she had the second prong, which is she lacked the substantial capacity to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law. So the voice is so overpowering that she does this thing. Now. Maybe she'll say at the time she did not realize it was morally wrong to kill her children. I don't know. And I kind of wonder if she'll testify. That's another thing we can discuss later. But you got to have the mental disease or defect number one. And you have to have one of those two things. Either you lack the substantial capacity to recognize it's wrong, or you lack the substantial capacity to not do the wrong thing. It has to be one of those two things. So it is not enough for her defense attorney to establish that she has a mental illness, that simply is not enough.

[Alice]

So let's read the actual jury instructions that this jury will be given on this point. This is the law that they will be asked to apply. Criminal responsibility is a legal term. A person is not criminally responsible for his conduct if he has a mental disease or defect, and as a result of that mental disease or defect, lacks the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality or wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. So that is the instructions they will hear and will hear through the stream at the end of this trial. Note, guys, I'm already seeing people get very heated. Like we've already said, this is going to be a very personal case, no matter if you have suffered from postpartum depression or not, because we all know someone who has suffered with something. And this cuts to the core. When you have a parent killing a child, it cuts to the core of humanity. So I understand the high emotions here. Note what this jury instruction and what the law is saying. I agree with you that there are people who may be in the midst of psychosis who can hear voices, who cannot say no. The law provides for that. Right. The example I gave earlier of you can say no.

[Brett]

Yes.

[Alice]

I'm saying there is a situation where you can say no, and the law is saying it does not apply to the situations where you can say no. You have to show that you had this mental defect and you had no ability to conform your acts to the law.

[Brett]

So if you're out there thinking you hear voices, you have to do it. You're just wrong. There are plenty of people you can talk to, people we've talked to people, people email us all the time who've been in situations like this where they have heard voices telling them to do horrible things and then didn't do it. I'm not saying Lindsay Clancy was in the position where she could say no, but it is absolutely the case that people hear voices and do not follow them. The question is, can Lindsey Clancy show that she was one of those people who heard the voices and had no ability to say no? That is the ultimate question. It's not whether or not she's hearing voices.

[Alice]

And to be very clear, on day three of trial, so far, it has not yet been established at all. It just hasn't come in yet what she was thinking. I know it's been reported. And in their civil complaints, they have said that there was a voice she heard right before the killings that has not been established in this trial yet that she heard voices when she heard them, how often she heard them, what she heard them say. So just note that when that testimony comes out, it may change how we're all viewing the facts here. But as of day three of the trial, the hearing of the voices for Lindsay Clancy has not yet been established as evidence.

[Brett]

So the jury instruction goes on and somebody does she have to prove anything? She actually does. So ultimately, it's on the commonwealth to rebut her evidence, but she does have to put on evidence that she has some sort of mental disease or defect. Once she puts on that evidence, then the burden shifts back to the commonwealth to show that she is criminally responsible for what she did. I mean, remember, this is not your typical criminal trial where the defendant doesn't have to prove anything. Ordinarily, it's all along the prosecution. But when you have certain defenses, particularly affirmative defenses, then there is some burden on the defendant. And if you're claiming, if the defense is, yeah, I did it, like all the elements are met of the crime, but I'm still not responsible because I'm not. I'm not mentally sound, then there's some burden on you, at which point it shifts back to the prosecution. So just continuing with this, this is the jury instruction. The jury is going to receive the phrase mental disease or defect is a legal term, not a medical term. Once again, this is important. It need not fit into a formal medical diagnosis. It is for you to determine, in light of all the evidence, whether the defendant had a mental disease or defect. And this is another thing that people have trouble wrapping their heads around. There are going to be experts who testify about this, but at the end of the day, it's really up to the jury. If the jury decides. I mean, look, PhD with 35 years of experience, you're telling me she has a mental disease or defect? I don't think she does. That is within the jury's rights, because this is a legal determination, not a medical determination. So if the commonwealth has proved to you beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not suffering from mental disease or defect at the time of the killing, the Commonwealth has satisfied its burden of proving that the defendant was criminally responsible. So prong one is, is there a mental disease or defect? I don't honestly don't even really understand why the commonwealth is fighting on this. As we've seen, it seems like they are. It's a little hard to say because their opening statement was so all over the place. But if you've watched the testimony. It feels like they are pushing back on this notion that she even had a mental disease or defect. We'll see how far that goes. But I think the much stronger position for the Commonwealth is to say, yes, we acknowledge she had a mental disease or defect, but she doesn't meet these other requirements that we're going to talk about now.

[Alice]

So if the Commonwealth has not proved to you beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not suffering from a mental disease or defect at the time of the killing, then you must consider whether as a result of a mental disease or defect, the defendant lacked the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality or wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. To establish that the defendant had the substantial, substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law, the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any mental disease or defect that may have existed did not deprive the defendant of his ability to behave as the law requires, that is to obey the law. This is going to be really interesting. We just told you at the beginning, like the way she was treated and how she was failed by the medical system, blah, blah, blah. That doesn't affect the core of whether she was able to act with criminality here. But interestingly, to show this, I know it's going to be whether she was able to choose to not hear the voices or whatever it is many, many times before, this is going to cut against her as well. This is going to be something the defense brings up because they already have. And it's going to cut against her. All the times leading up to this, in the four months where she reported that she was in fact either thinking about self harm or it was too much for her, where she was very lucid about how bad she was and checked herself in to get help, seeking to get additional counseling, all of these things are gonna be really interesting and something for the jury to weigh. Like if she was able to recognize and conform herself, I would say that's conforming yourself to the law. If you know you're gonna hurt yourself and you check yourself in. Right? And what that means when she chooses not to do that here, is it because she couldn't conform herself to the law, or she was tired of trying and tired of trying is not the same thing as not being able to conform yourself. So this is where you need the jury. This is why we said this case had to go to trial. This is something for the jury to weigh.

[Brett]

And I think this is a reason that the prosecution is going to focus so much on whether or not this was a premeditated type thing, whether this was planned, whether her sending Patrick off was intentional, whether the fact that she was having her best day was because she had decided to do this. All that's going to be important because that means at all points up to when he left, she was able not to kill her kids. You know, she didn't try and kill her kids right in front of Patrick when he could have stopped her. That's going to be sort of the type of argument that the prosecution's going to make. Now, look, maybe that's wrong. Maybe the voice has so much control, it's telling her, don't do it until he leaves. This is also a problem with her story. And I was having this discussion on Facebook about whether or not she should testify, and some people were like, how would she be able to testify about what she was thinking then? She's already told people she heard the voice. She's filed the civil lawsuit. Like, she's made statements about what her mental state was at the time. I don't think she can claim that she was in the depths of some mental fog, and she doesn't even remember those three months or what happened. And she woke up at the bottom and looked up at the window and had no idea how she even ended up there. And that was her first moment of clarity or whatever. Like, three months later, she came out of it. I don't think she's gonna be able to say that because she's already made clear she remembers that moment. She remembers the voice. She has described the voice and what it said. So I think she's in a position where she's gonna have to talk about that at some point.

[Alice]

And really interesting about this on the timeline we already know is that at the time she's reporting so far from the civil complaint that she's hearing the voice, she's spoken to. And we've already seen some of these witnesses in the trial. A CVS attendant, right. About the Pedialax drug, the 3V takeout person, and Patrick when he calls her, and she calls him right back. Right. So she is talking to three separate people during this time of alleged psychosis. Doesn't mean while you're in psychosis, you cannot appear to be normal. But this is all going to factor into the whole how much is she under the control? And it's. She's unable to control herself when there actually are a lot of intervening points where she has outside contact.

[Brett]

All right, so we've talked about this. Appreciate your wrongdoing. The jury instructions continue. The word appreciate means to understand rather than merely to know, which I think it's so interesting. The way this differs from m', Naughton. Right. Like m', Naughton, I think, is basically, you know it's wrong and you do it anyway. You're in trouble. But here, you need to understand it. You have to understand why it's wrong. Criminality means the legal significance of the conduct. Wrongfulness means the moral significance of the conduct. The Commonwealth must prove that the defendant knew and understood that his conduct was illegal or that it was wrong. It is not enough for the Commonwealth to show that the defendant merely knew or was intellectually aware that his conduct was wrong or illegal. Rather, the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a mental disease or defect did not deprive the defendant of a meaningful understanding of the legal or moral significance of his conduct. But the defendant must have been able to realize in some meaningful way that his conduct was illegal or wrong. Once again, going to the whole sending him off thing, right? Like, she sends him off because she knows if she tries to do this, he's going to stop her because she has an understanding of what she's doing and that it is a morally wrong thing to do.

[Alice]

So this is the last part of the jury instructions in considering whether the Commonwealth has met its burden of proof. You may consider all the evidence that has been presented at this trial, and you may consider the facts underlying the crime and evidence of the defendant's actions before and after the crime. You may consider the opinions of any experts who testified and give those opinions whatever weight you think they deserve. So that is the entirety of the jury instructions for this, the mental defect part, which is the bulk of what we're trying to decide here.

[Brett]

And like I said, we just wanted to discuss this one more time. Just so you're clear. Going in, wherever you end up, whatever you think after all the. The evidence comes in, is your opinion. No matter how this trial comes out, I don't think I'm gonna have strong feelings one way or the other that it's the right or quote, unquote, wrong decision or whatever. But I just want you to know what the actual legal standard is. So as you're listening to people discuss it, as you're listening to the evidence come in, this is what they need to be able to prove. So ask yourself, whatever the lead up was to this, however we got to this point, at that moment, as she's wrapping these exercise bands around the throats of her children and strangling them probably for some amount of time while they struggled against her. At that moment, was she, quote, unquote, insane? For the purposes of Massachusetts law, that's all that matters, is that that moment and those other issues are really important issues. They're issues that need to be discussed and addressed. But for this criminal trial, that moment is really all that matters. With that, let's look at the testimony up to this point. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Guys, it seems like every season has its stresses, and certainly when summer comes to an end, the stress piles on. The holidays are coming, kids are going back to school, your schedule is so full, sometimes you can feel overwhelmed and sometimes you just want someone to talk to. That's where BetterHelp comes in. Now, you've heard us talk about BetterHelp for a long time, but I don't know that we've ever actually talked about how much people love the service when they use it. You can check it out [e-mail] reviews to see amazing customer reviews in real time more than 6 million people have used BetterHelp globally. The consistent feedback from real users makes it easy to see why so many people continue to choose BetterHelp. And therapists at BetterHelp have at least three years and a thousand hours of hands on experience. BetterHelp makes it easy to get started. All you have to do is answer a few questions, get matched with a therapist based on your needs, and switch therapists at any time. If the fit's not right, see the

[Alice]

reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com prosecutors that's better H-E-L-P.com prosecutors running a business means you're always reachable until you're not. And the moment you miss that call, that text, that follow up, a competitor is the one that picks it up. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q U O the business phone system built so you never miss an opportunity I work at a law firm. I know there are way too many calls coming in for me to be able to pick up every single one of them. But a missed call is a missed opportunity. Now, with Quo, all your calls, texts and voicemails live in one place, so anyone on your team can pick up a conversation to see the full history and respond fast. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, trusted by over 90,000 businesses who rely on it to stay reachable and look professional every day.

[Brett]

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[Alice]

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[Brett]

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[Alice]

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[Brett]

As we left you the last time, we were in the middle of Patrick's testimony. He continued on day two and he finishes up with emotional testimony about finding the children. And this was, this was rough. He was with Lindsay for several minutes. You know, he gets back, he finds her on the ground. She's obviously injured. He's called 91 1. He's waiting on first responders. She tells him the kids were in the basement, but she never suggests that anything is wrong with them, which I think is another point that probably the prosecution's going to note. Even at that moment when the suicide has failed and she's laying on the ground, she doesn't say, oh, my God, the kids in the basement, you need to get down there and try and save them. I've done something horrible. She never says that. She doesn't tell him there's anything wrong. And I think in his mind he's thinking, she put them in the basement so she could do this thing. Like she separated herself from them so that she could take her own life. So at this point in the story, he's excused for the moment. And you can do this in trial. You don't have to ask all the questions at once. He's excused for the moment. Subject to recall is what we call it. So he'll be recalled later and he books it out of that place because he knows what's coming.

[Alice]

And so he takes the stand all day. On day two of trial, as we Predicted, actually. So he goes just about all day. It is utterly devastating to see him take the stand. Day two, because I can't imagine the tragedy. I know a lot of people watching are like, why isn't he more cut up or sad or cry? You know, there are first responders who are crying more than the father. I don't understand the amount of strength it takes to take the stand, to testify at length for days about your children's clothing and the moment you found them dead and your entire life was shattered. And he looks like a man who is barely holding it together, like in life. And I am, like, all props to him even being there and being honestly one of the least hostile witnesses I've ever taken. I've had much more hostile witnesses. He could be much more obstinate, and he is there trying to provide information. So I say that as a plea to lay off Patrick Clancy and his responses, because none of us can understand his emotional response, but the fact that he books it out of there because he knows that what they're about to play, he knows exactly. Even though he's not in the courtroom for it, it's going to be his voice on the 911 call. And so I just. I wanted to say that because there have been some really cruel things said about Patrick's emotional response on the stand. And those of us who spent years in court, it's a different kind of stress being on the stand, living out the worst moments of your life. So that's my soapbox that I'll get off of now.

[Brett]

Whenever I see people commenting on Patrick's reaction, all I can think is, I hope that karma is not real, because I hope you never find yourself in that exact same position. And then you have your reaction judged by others who have never been in that position and hopefully never will be and can't imagine. I don't know how you sit in judgment over that man and his demeanor on the stand as he testifies about the murder of his three children while his wife, the mother of those three children, his ex wife, sits there bawling, crying in a wheelchair, who murdered them. If you can judge that, you're a better person than I am, because I certainly don't feel like I'm in a position to judge how he acts or whether he cries enough or not enough over this. But. So at this point, he leaves the prosecution, they introduce some evidence. And I'll say this, you can tell how the defense and the prosecution are working together. I saw one attorney was like, this is so weird. They're never, they're not laying foundation for anything. We don't have to lay foundation if there's an agreement. And I'm sure the defense was like,

[Alice]

let's not walk through every picture.

[Brett]

Exactly. You don't have to ask him to identify. Is this the exercise band you found wrapped around your daughter's neck? He didn't have to do that. The defense said he didn't have to do that. So he leaves and then they introduce those pieces of evidence. And for me, I don't know how you guys felt about this. If you're watching it when those things came in, it was like a body blow. Just as she's pulling out those exercise bands and just imagining them wrapped around those babies throats. That was a lot and was a. Obviously a really emotional moment. They got overshadowed somewhat, I think a lot I think by the playing of the 911 call. So the judge decided to have the NETWORKS Mute the 911 call. The 911 call is out there. I do not advise you seeking it out. As Alice and I have talked about, they're just things that scar your soul and they never heal. You don't need to hear it.

[Alice]

Think about what a man would sound like if he is just walked into the worst nightmare of anyone's life.

[Brett]

Yes. And apparently that's exactly, that's the best description. He has called 911 for Lindsay and apparently, you know, he's got like the phone with him. He doesn't even realize he has it, it's still going or whatever. He goes downstairs to check on his kids, probably to make sure they stay downstairs, don't come upstairs. He doesn't know what he's gonna find. And then he finds the unimaginable. And he's screaming these primal screams. He's screaming that she killed the kids. He's like taking these exercise bands off of their throats trying to save them, trying to save their lives. But it's not gonna happen. Everyone is crying, Lindsay's crying. Reports in the courtrooms, the jurors were bawling. It was just a awful experience for everyone. And after they played the 911 call, they took a break, like an hour long break. They're like, we are stopping and we're going to take a break. And they took that break until they came back later with some. I don't know, I don't. The unusual witnesses. I mean, I guess you could argue we needed a break from serious witnesses at this point, but they certainly took it when they came back.

[Alice]

I Mean, we'll see how all of the narratives flow comes out in the end. But this was so intensely emotional, which I think favors the prosecution's narrative. Right. Like, how horrific all of this is. Obviously, the defense is going to say, yes, this is so horrific. No person in the right mind would have done that. But I thought by calling the next couple witnesses, cut up a little bit of their flow because they did not get into a flow with Patrick because he is a hostile witness. He. He doesn't want to be there. He's barely holding it together. So he's giving answers, but it is. He's not telling a story. And then they play this 911 call, which is guttural, but then they call Angela Kraus, who is a CBS general manager. If you remember, Lindsay had been looking for Pedialax Miralax for Cora, and that was part of the chore list that she sent Patrick on so that he would have two stops before coming back home. And she had called CVS to make sure that they had pdlx. Now, Angela Kraus is the one who spoke to Lindsay. And we have the video from the CVS of Patrick getting the children's medicines. And that's basically it. She's asked a couple questions, like, did you talk to her? Yes. Did she seem normal? Yes. Angela doesn't know Lindsay, but she said she sounded like a regular person. She didn't sound like she was halting or difficult to understand or shaking voices, none of those things. The point of this part of the testimony is just to say she appeared normal, was able to have a regular conversation, drew no kind of attention to the fact that she may have been in any sort of a psychotic break or something like that. She didn't get any questions from the defense. Makes sense. Remember, the defense didn't want to. Didn't want to. They basically wanted to jump straight to the mental defect, not all the stuff leading up to the murders. Next, they called Saria Sweeney, who worked at 3V, the takeout place that Patrick was sent to pick up dinner that night. Sweeney had talked to Lindsay, same as the CVS general manager. She said nothing strange was about that conversation. She seemed like a regular person. Didn't raise any sort of, you know, alarms for me at the time. So those are two pretty straightforward witnesses. They're fitting into the timeline of the story that they're telling, but they don't have a lot of knowledge other than the fact that they spoke to Lindsay briefly right before she committed these murders. I guess they had to come in at Some point. So it was probably right that the defense didn't drag it out. They were pretty much up and down. Now, the defense in defense of Patrick, it starts off with, if I say anything that's too tough or you need to break, let me know. This is something the prosecution never really did, and they really should have. Now, people, I get this critique a lot when I. Because it's my style, and I'm just never gonna change my style. I tend to be more of the touchy feely questioner. I'm not always good cop, but I try to build rapport with my witnesses in the first instance. So almost always I start with something like, if you don't understand my question, like a blame it on me, right? Let me know, and I'll try to rephrase so it makes more sense. Things like that. The prosecution really just jumped in, and that's why it was a little bit stark, hearing straight from Patrick. Whereas when the defense stood up, he was showing both to Patrick as well as to the jury that I care about what you've been through, and I really appreciate you being here. The defense does a great job of this with basically all the witnesses, all the thanks to the witnesses. You may think it's schmaltzy or whatever. Honestly, the jury's watching, and it is about likability, and it's also about just human connection because these people are on the stand for probably the worst thing, all of them, across the board that they've ever witnessed. And so it's. I did not come off schmaltzy. For me, it was good lawyering to me, and I thought built rapport better with Patrick than the prosecution started with.

[Brett]

And look, it's not schmaltzy. The jury is in the middle of a nightmare. If you've ever been in, like, a bad accident or a really difficult situation, you're at the hospital. Little kindnesses mean so much to you in a situation like that, like when a tragedy is happening to you, little kindnesses from strangers really matter. And these jurors are going through it. Man, I can't even imagine what this is like for them. And just seeing little acts of kindness in that courtroom, it matters to them, and it matters to them more than most people, and it matters to them more than it does us watching from a distance. And this is as good as time as any. It was a huge mistake to start with. Patrick. We talked about this before, and I just briefly want to say why. Because when you start a trial like this and you've got this Horrific thing. And you have the defendant sitting over here, and this is the defendant who's going to be looking for sympathy later on. She's looking for the jury to be very understanding and very thoughtful and very open minded about what she went through. And frankly, the prosecution does not want the jury to give her any consideration. They want to shut that down as quickly as possible. They want to bathe this jury in the horror of what happened. They really want them to not like Lindsey Clancy very much at all from the very beginning of this trial. So that by the time the defense is offering its testimony, the jury's kind of shut down. They're like, I don't want to hear it after everything I've heard at this point. I don't even want your excuses. Right. I mean, that's kind of where you want the jury to be. Ordinarily, the father of three dead children would be a great place to start. But he's not in that mindset. He agrees that Lindsay is not criminally responsible for this. He believes this was her inability to do anything. This was insanity. She was insane. It wasn't her. If anybody's to blame, it's the doctors. That's what he believes. And he's not going to come off as supportive of what the prosecution is doing. And you could see that. And the prosecution knew he was going to be that way. And so they treated him like that from the very beginning, which made it even worse that the prosecution did not treat him like a grieving father. And many of you have noticed that and have been very critical and have gotten angry at the prosecution. We got this one fiery Australian on the gallery who thinks everybody's guilty of everything. And she was ready to. To execute Lindsay Clancy on day one. And then she watched the first day and she's. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. That'll change my mind. It's like, that's really bad. If you're the prosecution and things have gone that poorly for you on day one, that's not good. They should have started with the first responders who have no skin in this game and were devastated by what they saw. And it becomes obvious when they testify. Start with them. Have everybody be devastated together. Play the 911 call. Then you have Patrick come on. And to the extent Patrick is not fully jiving with the prosecution at that point, you might even have jurors who are like, I don't understand why you're so hostile to these people who are trying to bring justice to your children. But in starting with Patrick, you lose that. And then even worse, first witness, the defense is getting to put on its case. When they are talking to Patrick, they are putting on their case at the very, very beginning of this trial. And that is just not where you want to be if you're the prosecution.

[Alice]

Yeah, this is all very helpful here. And one other thing about tone. Everyone has their own way of being a lawyer. Watch different lawyers. That was probably the best thing. Both Brett and I got to clerk for judges. And the best thing about being a clerk is you get to watch lots of different styles. Just because you're a prosecutor doesn't mean you're like a hard charging person who has no feelings. That's absolutely not true. And same with the defense. Right? The defense isn't always good at building rapport, but I think the human element, and now that we're like streaming trials and watching them, is something that is effective for all lawyers, prosecutors, and defense counsel. And I wish we saw more of. And we are seeing some of it here, but I do think this is very important. Now there are going to be witnesses like Patrick for the prosecution. You're never gonna build rapport with them because you are just at odds in how you feel. And you need to deal with it appropriately, which is why the defense is leading in of. Hey, we're about to go through some really hard stuff. Let me know if you need to take a break. Something as small as that, it doesn't matter if he doesn't like you. You're acknowledging the fact that you're having to ask really hard questions of him that he would much rather not be asked. Okay, so Patrick is back on the stand, and he testifies that Lindsay always took her medicine as instructed. Now, he notes that there's changing providers, but it's not because necessarily of doctor shopping. It's because of, one, his mom's recommendation. Remember, his mom was also a labor and delivery nurse. And two, Lindsay's provider changed jobs. So some of it was not her driving the change, but external factors that were driving the changes. And she. He said that these doctor appointments were very brief, and she typically met with her doctors and therapists on Zoom until Patrick was the one who insisted that she have an in person meeting with Dr. Gelada. Now, the defense offered the women and infants record. Do you remember how we talked about this? It was from the civil complaint where she went to Providence, like the best place, you know, that studies this, and got evaluated. Weirdly, this drew an objection, even though it's her medical record. Because the state said they didn't have those records. That's weird, because they're prosecuting the case, and I would be really surprised if they didn't have these records because it would not show that the defense didn't turn them over. It would show that they didn't do bare minimum pulling of all her medical records. So maybe they didn't have it. Yeah, maybe they didn't have it, or maybe they got confused. But it's not a good look for the prosecution if, in fact, they've never seen this record because it's known about. And if they did a full pull of her mental health record, you would think this is one of the most important records to be looking at because it was like the evaluation of her mental health very close in time to the murders.

[Brett]

And the defense attorney was like, what do you mean you don't have him? I mean, it was like it was one of those moments where, like, he wasn't being cheeky. Yeah.

[Alice]

He literally was like, what?

[Brett]

What do you mean? It's just. It was one of those moments where I don't know if anybody else noticed that. Maybe that's just something lawyers would notice. I don't know if the jury noticed, but, yeah, you're the prosecution. You're saying that she's not really crazy, but you don't have her records. And I don't know if they were being cheeky. Like, we've got them, but they're bait stamped 100, 150, and these are bait stamped 200, 250. You didn't turn over your bait stamp.

[Alice]

They certainly didn't say that. Like.

[Brett]

Yeah, so it just. It looked like it looked bad.

[Alice]

I mean, it was like they didn't know what they were doing, which was not a good look. And like we've said, trial is a marathon, and it's exhausting and it's tiring, and, like, you don't have time to eat or drink or go to the bathroom. All of these things. So may have just been a momentary blip, but it was a weird blip, whatever it was. In any event, the evaluation got admitted as evidence. So it is now in the trial record. And if they have not seen that before, I hope they're reviewing it tonight.

[Brett]

And look, and I just want to point out again what the defense is doing with Patrick. This is a very rare opportunity very early in the prosecution to counter the prosecution's narrative in toto. I mean, this is not just like, you can pick at each witness. This is. You got a witness who's going to make a whole case for you at the very beginning. And he's doing that. Some of you said, oh, it looks like she's doctor shopping. It looks like she's just trying to find whatever drug she wants. That's the argument the prosecution made. And it's opening. And here you have Patrick saying, no, no, no, no. That's not what was happening. She didn't want to change. She went to one because my mom recommended her, and she went to another one because her old provider changed jobs. She had to. And then she went back to Tufts, who she started with in the beginning, undermining the prosecution's case from the very beginning. And I skipped this earlier. But another thing he talks about, which is really important, you may remember that August 2022, there's this whole discussion how in August 2022, Lindsay looked up suicide methods. And this was before her problem supposedly started and before she had all the drugs she was on. And so it's like, see, it's not really mental illness. It's not the drugs. She was thinking about this way before any of this documented these documented problems. The defense was able to tell this whole story about how Patrick started listening to this country music artist, Tom hall, and this artist who, embarrassingly, I've never heard of, apparently committed suicide. And someone visited his Wikipedia page in August. And wouldn't you know, there's a link to his Wikipedia page about methods of suicide, which someone apparently clicked on. I saw someone online went back to the Wikipedia page as it looked in August 2022 and confirmed that link is there. And so it's like, stuff like that. Wow, okay. I mean, you're already. We're two days in and you're already undermining something. The prosecution said to the point. And this is silly, I don't think this is going to go anywhere necessarily. But the defense filed a motion today after trial to have the portion of the opening struck where they said that Lindsay looked this up. Now, I feel like that's a factual question for the jury to decide, but it's the defense sort of for the public, because so much of this is in the public. Right. Re emphasizing that, like, hey, this is not necessarily accurate. And the wording they used in the opening, it was something like methods to kill. It wasn't methods to kill as methods for suicide. But anyways, I mean, that's the kind of thing we're into at this point, is we've got Patrick undermining the prosecution's case at the very beginning, which only happens if you call Patrick first, you could have put him off. You did not have to call him first, but you did. And so now you've opened yourself to this. The defense had a funny question, I thought, was Lindsay a person who liked to smoke the weed? That's how he put it. Because you may recall it was mentioned that Lindsay had taken a marijuana gummy at some point. Patrick explained that the reason she took that gummy was because she was trying to get sleep. And that was her next attempt. She wasn't. Somebody smoked weed, and it didn't really work. Once again, undermining the prosecution. And they're like, oh, look, she's recreationally taking marijuana before she's going to the hospital. No, it was because of her insomnia. Patrick worked from home, which I thought was interesting. Some people had criticized him for going back to work. He didn't actually go back to work because he worked in the basement. That's where he worked. A month before the murders. It was noted. It was actually two months. This guy corrected at some point. But in November, he had gone to New York, and she kept the kids for two days. The defense attempted to use this to say, hey, you were gone. She kept the kids. She didn't do anything to him then. So does this whole theory of her sending you for takeout really make any sense? Also points out that he would go out for meals with his friends on occasion and maybe go to brunch or whatever. There were just other opportunities for Lindsay to do something like this that she didn't do. They also cast doubt on the number of pills taken. This was a big point the prosecution made last time through Patrick, which didn't have to come through Patrick, by the way. But they did it anyway of her only taking seven pills of this and eight pills of that. And the whole purpose of that was to show, see, it really wasn't medication. Cause she barely even took it. And if she was so sick, why isn't she taking her medication? Luckily for the defense, the prosecution decided to call Patrick first. So he got to rebut that. And he said that the reason that the prosecution even could claim that was because doctors would change her dosage. And when they did, they would give the old pills to him, and he would put the pills in a bag that he kept. So to the extent only a few pills are missing from those bottles, it didn't mean that was all she took. It meant she had gotten a different prescription. And he had later turned over that bag full of pills to the government. But that wasn't the only place there were pills. There were also pill bottles in the drawer next to her bed, all of which were empty. And this makes you wonder why the prosecution would lean into this idea for only taking so many pills. Well, it turns out the police never seized these pill bottles. It's not even clear how much the prosecution really knows about these pill bottles. It was Patrick who pointed them out to the defense team and turned them over to the defense team. And the defense attorney plopped each one of those empty pill bottles on the bar next to Patrick as he's going through all the drugs she was taking.

[Alice]

So, in other words, this was a very effective cross examination to immediately undermine the narrative put forth by the prosecution in their opening. This doesn't mean that there isn't a good narrative for the prosecution. It's that we've always said this. The prosecution doesn't know exactly what's going to happen, but you have to tell a story, and they did. And you know that the defense's job is to poke holes in that story. You just gave the defense all the opportunities to poke as many holes as possible by putting Patrick as the first witness. This is one of the reasons, I agree, that this is one of the biggest missteps so far in the trial by the prosecution. So, of course, with every witness, once there's a cross examination, you do get to redirect, as the prosecution, or whichever party called them. The redirect, though, has to be focused on the cross examination. So in this redirect, the prosecution said or asked Patrick about planning to go to Boston for his anniversary with Lindsay, but it was canceled because Lindsay didn't feel well. Now, the prosecution offered a photo earlier, but it was of a different earlier trip. So that was kind of strange because they were trying to say they took this trip. And what it showed, I think, was that the prosecution didn't have their facts straight. So here they don't have, like, the women and infants, you know, evaluation. They didn't seize these pill bottles and were leaning heavily on the fact that she only took a couple of these, couple of that, and that Patrick's the one having to point out evidence and gives it to the prosecution that directly undermines their theory. They're saying that they went to Boston, but they didn't go to Boston. They try to say that, here's a picture of you on a trip, and it's like, different trip. Good try. All of this just makes the prosecution look like they're bumbling, which, look, we've told you it is really hard. Being the prosecution, the burden is on you. You have to bring the entire trial. Right. Your job is not to poke holes. You are there to build the bookshelf and put all the evidence on the bookshelf. With that said, if we're on day three of a six to eight week trial and we've already had all these little kind of micro missteps, they're giant to the jury. That's just the truth. When I'm the prosecutor and I make one of those missteps, I know it and I see it, and I want to melt into the floor. And there were multiple of these before

[Brett]

we move on to that. They tried to do this the day before he shut him down, the day before. They should have had time to figure this out. And yet they come back with it when he's also had another day to think about it. And he's like, no, you're right. We did plan a trip to Boston and we canceled it because Lindsay wasn't feeling well. And they're like, but there's all these text messages where you plan. See where you said she could get a new fight and you can go to the gym, see where you're planning the trip. And Patrick's like, yeah, we planned that whole elaborate trip and she was so bad off, we canceled it. And it's like, why are you doing this? It was just so bad. And part of this is the strategy from the very beginning, because when you decide your strategy is going to be to prove that she's not really sick, you know, this was all just a put on or something. I'm not even sure what their theory is. And then you're trying to prove it through, like, see, she took a selfie. See, they went to Boston. Ooh, she took a marijuana gummy. You're gonna run into these walls. This was the wrong theory. It's not the theory of this case. And if she's guilty, it's not why she's guilty.

[Alice]

And looking at the. Yeah, looking at the evidence, that's not the theory you want to go with. I think it should be uncontested. If they are contesting, it's weird. She absolutely had anxiety and depression. I don't know if that was her official diagnosis, but she definitely suffered from something and probably had to do with postpartum. So whether we put, I don't know, all the medical terms of if it's just depression or postpartum depression, she definitely was suffering with something. You can accept that as the prosecution and still say she was able to comply with the law. Or there's another tact I think you could take here as well. She didn't have psychosis because I don't think the evidence is clear so far that she has psychosis. And those are two very different things. I think people can understand or empathize as a defense that if someone is in psychosis, even if you don't have a medical background, you'd be like, huh, someone who is completely psychotic can't control themselves. I think people can understand that, whereas people can see, like I know lots of people with depression. Depression itself doesn't mean you go and kill three children methodically, slowly, as you stare them in their bloodshot eyes and watch the light drain from them. Why the prosecution is trying to climb up this hill that they don't have to I don't understand. Except that she has anxiety depression and that she's really actually is struggling with things. A lot of people struggle with things, just maybe not to this effect.

[Brett]

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[Alice]

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[Brett]

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[Alice]

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[Alice]

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[Brett]

A colossal monster. A city in ruins. No way out except inside of the all electric Toyota Chr. John Cho star in Escape test drive Toyota's new all electric family today Toyota let's go places. We went through the all this at the beginning. The reason so many people are confused. The prosecution has set it up as though they have to prove she didn't have any kind of mental illness. That's the way they've set it up. And people are like, I don't know, I'm not really buying this whole idea. She doesn't have mental illness. Maybe she is not guilty. It's like, God, you guys have made

[Alice]

this so much harder than it needed to be. We really are. We're like trying to go up a mountain. We're going up Mount Everest when we did not need to do so. Okay, they're not done with their redirect. They talk about the pills because obviously the empty pill bottles is a big part of the cross examination. Now Patrick says he can't say definitively that she took every pill as directed because duh, she's an adult with free will who he's not around all the time And I think anyone listening to that recognizes it. He did testify that she took pills as directed in the direct. And then, of course, in the cross, they were showing all these empty bottles. But I think it's very believable when he responds with, yeah, she always took things by the instruction, but then again, I wasn't with her all the time. I certainly didn't think she was ever going to kill our children. That happened. So what do I know? So I think what he's saying is very believable, but it further undermines kind of the prosecution's theory here. They go back. I don't know why they do this. He already said the Tom hall search was his. They go back to the August Facebook search. So they note that Lindsay signed onto Facebook around the time of the click on the link to suicide methods. Now, I'll note that the logging into Facebook could have been automatic because it was apparently on the site for like three minutes, which doesn't seem that long. I know my phone, like, sees my face and automatically logs onto a bunch of things that happens all the time to my credit card, for example. Apple Pay is always trying to log on for me as soon as it sees my face and wants me to spend money. But I'm not actually trying to log on. Right. So anyway, so that I think that is somewhat questionable. But she's logged on for three minutes on Facebook, or her username is logged on and whoever is on the computer clicked on a link to a bridge in Australia where people commit suicide.

[Brett]

Here's the other thing. Number one, they're sharing an iPad. So to me, it's absolutely possible that when he gets on the iPad and turns it on, it automatically logs into the Facebook account it was logged into before, which was hers. Doesn't really prove much. But also, even if in August, when she was feeling fine, she's reading a Wikipedia page about Tom hall, who her husband keeps listening to. I don't know why he's listening to this random guy. She looks at a Wikipedia page of his and sees suicide methods. That doesn't mean anything. And I don't normally buy into that. Could be anything. She just happened to look up suicide methods right before an attempted suicide. I normally like poo poo that, but this was a while before. I mean, this is August. The killings happen in January. She supposedly is fine in August. That's when he's listening to Tom hall, who killed himself. There's a perfectly believable explanation for this.

[Alice]

And how uncomfortable is this? I mean, I, I doom scroll and Doom search things all the time at, like, midnight, after all my kids are asleep, after we've recorded a podcast, and I'm too amp to fall asleep. And literally God knows what I've searched right for them. So you can imagine Patrick's. Because he has already said this was likely his search. Right? He was the one listening to Tom Hall. And I don't know about you guys, but when I. When, like, I'm fed some video and if I'm seeing some video that comes across, like my Instagram, that's like X number of people have died on this bridge in Australia by jumping off, I'd be like, oh, what bridge is this? I probably would click on it and I probably wouldn't remember it because that's how doom scrolling works, right? I'm not saying this is what happened here, but it seems like such a tangential thread over here, especially when he's already said definitively that he was the one listening to Tom Hall. And that theory is probably not good, that it's Lindsay searching for suicide methods in August, you know, months before the actual murder suicide attempt. I would have abandoned this. I recognize writing your outlines ahead of time, but you gotta be swift on your feet. And I don't think this was an effective use of redirect. It did not bolster the prosecution's theory here. So then they do another thing that I am really confused about. So the prosecution hammers in with Patrick that there was no court order or anything else keeping Lindsay at McLean Hospital. I don't get it, because I think that actually helps the defense. It just shows that she went voluntarily, she was trying to get help, and it feeds into this whole narrative of, like, she's failed by the medical system and that it made her get so bad that she couldn't control her own actions, and that's what led to the murders. So I'm not really sure what they were getting at there. Do you?

[Brett]

No, no. And it only gets worse because the next question they ask, this whole New York thing, they're like, well, when you went to New York, she hadn't started taking Seroquel yet, had she? And I'm like, what? So are you saying that the reason she didn't kill the kids while he was in New York is because she hadn't taken the drug that set off the psychotic episode that eventually led to her killing the kids? Is that the argument you're making? Because that's what it sounds like you're saying. And that doesn't seem like a really good argument for you. To make as a prosecution. But that's what they said. And he's like, yeah, that's true. Like she had not started taking seroquel yet. They then talk about how it's not a 20 foot drop, it's only a 12 foot drop. And I don't really understand what the theory of the prosecution is here. So they're talking about the drop from the window to the ground. Are they arguing this was a fake suicide attempt?

[Alice]

Which.

[Brett]

Oh. Because if that's their argument, okay, fine, good luck. It's a fake suicide attempt.

[Alice]

Right.

[Brett]

They. They reiterate this several time with the first responders. But here's the problem. The theory that they laid out in the opening was not that this was a fake suicide attempt. It was that Lindsay had decided to kill herself and she didn't think anybody else could take care of her kids as good as she could, so she decided to take them with her. That's what they said in opening. So if it's a fake suicide attempt, how does that fit in with your theory? And to me, the prosecution is presenting a case like they're the defense. And as we talk about often, the defense can give you multiple theories that don't make sense and contradict each other because they're just trying to create doubt. But the prosecution doesn't need to do that. That's bad for the prosecution. So I don't understand what point they're trying to make.

[Alice]

The prosecution has to come in with a coherent theory and then it's the defense who's like, anything could happen. The spaghetti at the wall method.

[Brett]

Right?

[Alice]

That's what reasonable doubt is. It's like you give them a spaghetti on the wall theory that someone can grasp onto and say it's possible, but they seem to be doing this. And I'm very confused by it. Especially when she's sitting there in a wheelchair. You know, this optically. This. She's going to be sitting there in a wheelchair. So you're fighting a losing battle on that front already.

[Brett]

I'm going to let you cover this because this irritated me so much. I'm gonna let someone else.

[Alice]

Okay. This are also. Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna not be irritated when I. I'm just gonna tell you what happened. Okay. So the next part I will also.

[Brett]

This is the end.

[Alice]

I know. I was gonna say here is our grand finale of Star witness isn't the right word because he's clearly not a start witness for the prosecution, but he is probably the most important witness of the trial. He Is the father of the children, Lindsay's husband at the time. And this is what they end with. They don't end with, I don't know, all the great times they had together. How she was really good at everything she did, that she knew exactly what she was doing. So she was in charge of the medical care of the children. That the day in question, they actually had a great day and she was playing with the kids and she had all her wits about her. None of this. You know what they talk about, but you can't guess unless you watched. They pull out the notes that Lindsay wrote. Now you may be thinking notes she wrote about how she was going to kill them all. No detailed notes for the nanny about how to put down the baby, feed him a bottle. I mean, these notes honestly sound like notes. I've written things like the baby, try to put him down, sleepy, drowsy, but awake, and he drinks a bottle. Please put him down an hour and a half after he's woken up and his next bottle, bottle comes two and a half hours later. Make sure to burp him, don't overfeed him because he has this and that. And then also, if you could get dinner started, it'd be great. You could make sure to cut the sweet potatoes in one inch cubes, make sure to skin them and make sure that all of the vegetables are diced in 1 inch cubes, which is. Sounds to me like a serial killer. No, it doesn't. So this is apparently so important to the prosecutor that she reads through all of these detailed notes to the caregiver in which. I don't know if you caught this, Brett, but one under the breath comment by Patrick eviscerated this entire line of questioning. He was like, yeah, I probably would have left the same notes for our nanny. And probably every parent would say, yeah, ditto. Because when you have like an eight month old baby, schedules matter. They actually do have to eat every like three hours. And I do have to sleep every couple hours, hours. And if they don't, it becomes chaos and it's really hard to manage them and then it's hard to get them back on the schedule. Like tired babies don't sleep. That's not a thing. Yeah, I've had nannies for nine years. I have journals for the last nine years, day by day of the last time the baby ate so that the nanny will know the next time the baby needs to eat if they pooped. So you can know if they've, you know. And I also left notes about what we ate. Because you guys know me, I'm kind of crazy. I don't let my kids eat McDonald's. And so I make a lot of food at home and it's a lot of vegetables and kids, especially if you're feeding an eight month old who's learning how to eat, it does matter how big the food pieces are. And I can imagine that as part of a pretty regular note. Anyways, this was incredibly important to the prosecution. I don't think it sat well with the jury. And the fact that Patrick really was not a dismiss. He could have been way more dismissive to the prosecution than he ever was. And I don't think he was being disrespectful. I think he was annoyed when he made the comment of, yeah, I would probably leave the same notes here.

[Brett]

Yeah. And look, that was the end.

[Alice]

That was it.

[Brett]

As we always say, you remember the first thing, you remember the last thing and a few things in between. The prosecution left off Patrick with, I don't know this jury. I haven't looked at their makeup. I don't know if there's a mom or dad on that jury. I bet there is. And if there is, none of them are going to be surprised by this or think it's significant at all. And I don't even know if the ones who aren't moms and dads will think this is significant. And this is one of those things is anyone who ever tries to make an argument, you have to know to some extent your own blind spots. Apparently these prosecutors looked at these things and were like, wow, can you believe this? She's got it down. Controlling. Really? Yeah, really significant. And she's super controlling.

[Alice]

And there's an entire industry, guys, about time schedules for babies. You can pay so much money to do, like a book and a process called taking care of babies that is down to the minute to make your baby sleep through the night. I mean, it is like, absolutely. I don't know. Some of you have asked, do these prosecutors have children? I don't know. But this is where differing life experiences may come in handy to make sure that you don't have these blind spots.

[Brett]

All right, so that was the end of Patrick. He steps down. And now we're moving on to first responders. We're calling the witnesses. We should have called first, frankly.

[Alice]

This is. This was. Oh, and I can't even. Brett, good thing you're talking about this.

[Brett]

It's so funny because Alice said the person you call first is some big, burly first responder who's gonna break down and talk about how terrible it was. And guess who they called and should have called first. Stephen Hall. Big burly cop who was on the edge of breaking down the entire time. The man could barely keep it together. The horror that he saw and how absolutely terrible it was and how everybody involved was broken. He talks about trying to get a heart monitor from a fire captain, and the fire captain was so upset, he couldn't even tell him where the heart monitor was. It was just. It was brutal, riveting, horrible testimony. Exactly the kind of testimony you should have started with. And really, in some ways, the prosecution found their footing with these officers. Might have called too many. It's unclear, but they are going through the absolute horror in that house. How they get there thinking it's a suicide, and then they hear the screams, and then they see the children and what they find and taking off the onesie from the baby. Just brutal testimony that you're hearing through these witnesses. And the defense totally gets it. Defense attorney stands up, he pauses, he tells, Stephen hall, thank you for your incredible service. No questions. And that's the defense attorney is.

[Alice]

He's reading the room.

[Brett]

He's got this whole folksy thing going on that some people don't like. They think he seems a little disorganized or whatever, and I totally get that, but he just feels so much more real than the prosecutors.

[Alice]

Yeah, Stephen hall was. None of it was fake. It was so real. That's why it was so devastating. That was the witness the prosecution should have started with. He was so authentic, truly big, burly man, like, white hair, big beard built man. And had obviously been in this business for a long time and was still breaking down on the stand. Okay, now is a string of first responders. They next call Brian Josephine to the stand. And the questioning indicates that the prosecution wants to minimize Lindsay's suicide attempt. So they have him testify about the cuts. He notes that the cuts don't look that serious. They were like, was it the first thing you had to treat when you got there? And he was like, no, that wasn't the first thing that needed my medical attention. I think he noted that they weren't bleeding at the time, but that he did see cuts on her wrist and on her throat. And they noted that there was, like, blood around the window where she jumped out of. And so he said that it looked like maybe she had hung from the window and dropped, as opposed to going head first, as the defense said that she did in the opening. So he's standing there with Lindsay in the backyard, when all of a sudden he hears Patrick screaming from inside. This is when Patrick finds the kids. He doesn't know because all he's responded to is this jump, right? So he's with Lindsay and he follows the voice that's screaming into the house. And he says that he goes down the stairs and the stairs split into the left and right. And he says that he follows Patrick's screams, which are to the right. And he describes finding the children and he describes what they look like, which is devastating. A lot of the first responders are asked to describe it and basically it sounds like the kids looked like they were lifeless when found. And he says that he attempts life saving efforts with the kids. And he notes that there are injuries to the kids more than just these exercise bands around their necks. He is the one who says first that there's dried blood on Cora's mouth. And he notes that you have to imagine that these older kids knew what was happening and they fought. We're gonna likely, if the prosecution does a good job, I don't know what this blood is from, but I hope some medical expert is able to tell us what it is. And hopefully what they'll do is go into how much these kids fought, because I think that war will show the jury just how methodical and intentional these acts had to be. But Brian was able to keep it together while telling these things, but the things he was testifying to were just devastating. And the defense very smartly gets up and says, no questions. There's nothing that the defense can get out of these witnesses. And so what they can appear is that they are just as heartbroken along with Lindsay that these kids are dead.

[Brett]

Yeah. And look, this is definitely a situation where you don't want to ask the wrong question. A lot of this you're reading into what they're talking about. He's talking about the blood. He's talking about the blood in her mouth.

[Alice]

He's not a doctor. He's not going to be able to say anything.

[Brett]

Just leave it be in your mind what all this means. And she's five years old, she's not a baby. The jury's over there imagining what's going on, how this went down. And there's also the factor, you know, why are they calling all these people? One reason they're calling all these people is they want you to see all these heroic people who came in and did everything they could to save these kids. They did everything they could to save these kids. Even though it seemed like the Kids were beyond saving. They fought and they talk about that. And then you have Lindsay Clancy sitting over there, their mother who killed them. And the juxtaposition is a powerful thing. The people who tried to save them versus the woman who killed them. And once again, so much of this is getting the jury in a position where they just really are not inclined to buy whatever the excuse is that you're going to hear from Lindsey Clancy later on. Now, at this point, the defense objects to future witnesses as repetitive basis says, look, are we going to listen to every police officer who comes in and testifies about this? They have a sidebar. It appears that the judge is going to somewhat limit these witnesses because they do take a break. I imagine that was so the prosecution could figure out which witnesses to call. Don't know exactly how it went down. Don't know if the judge gave him a number. Don't know if the judge said, you can call these people, but not these people. Really unclear exactly what happened here. I will note that we ended very early in the day because prosecution essentially ran out of witnesses. They were criticized for that. I initially was critical of that, but then I thought about it.

[Alice]

It may be because of this ruling.

[Brett]

Yeah, they could have had a lot of witnesses they planned on calling. They got struck.

[Alice]

Could have been like 15 witnesses, right?

[Brett]

Yeah. So in any event, they come back and they call some more witnesses and everyone. The defense reiterates their objection to all these witnesses. Even if the defense won a limited victory, they're still objecting all the witnesses, preserving the record for later. But nevertheless, we're going to have more first responders. BJ Hussey is a paramedic. He responds to this. He's initially treating Lindsay. He hears his scream, he joins everyone else. He's down there when they find the children. We also have Loring Nudd, who goes by Chuck, and he was a firefighter. EMT is now retired. At one point, one of the children was brought to him. Of course, he immediately starts life saving measures. He's the one who ends up taking a monitor down to the basement. The children were all being worked on. He drives Dawson to the hospital. This is another person the defense had no questions for. Then there was Keith Nettie. He was the one who was at home, had the day off, gets the tone, tone comes out, the all call comes out that they need help and he immediately responds. He jumps in his truck, he drives over and he attempts treatment on Dawson. And once again, the defense has no questions.

[Alice]

So next they call another firefighter, Patrick Dwyer. Who responded to what he thought was an attempted suicide. I think about all these people, how they show up and you don't know if you're walking to a dangerous situation. Suicide attempt, triple murder. This is just. I don't think I fully appreciated how little they knew going into these situations. But you really appreciate this because he's. I just thought I was responding to a suicide attempt. But when he arrived, those on scene immediately sent him to the basement. And that's when he saw that there were kids involved. So he was sent to work on Cora. And they all go into a lot of detail because they're all. There's three children and they're trying breathing methods, cpr, compressions. And he notes that it takes usually more than one person to do CPR and compressions because you have to have someone constantly doing compressions while someone else is doing other life saving measures. And it's just. It sounds like a war zone down there. The defense asks him no questions appropriately. So next they call Jennifer Stratton, who is the first female firefighter in the department. Now, she was sent in to the basement as well. And she treated Callan and Cora, who were found next to each other. She was the one who actually removed Callan's pajamas to treat him. And it was one of those just, you know, stopping moments in court when they lifted up the pajamas, when they entered those into evidence. Cause it was just this tiny pair of baby pajamas. Now, despite Jennifer's efforts, she was not able to get a pulse. Next was Robert Costanza, who was also a firefighter. And you may remember him from the others because he had a fantastic mustache. Now, he responded by ambulance and he talked about the wounds on Clancy. So this was again, the defense trying to go more into how Clancy's. Lindsay's suicide attempt was superficial and not real. So he said that the cuts looked superficial. And he was the one who took Clancy to South Shore Hospital. She was treated for opioid overdose, including using Narcan on her. And that even though he Narcan'd her, he said that she never fully woke up when he was with her. Now the defense does cross examine Robert Costanza. And there are actually, you know, up to this point, they haven't really asked any questions. And when they have stood up, they've been very rapport building, the nice guy. But here they get kind of tested with Costanza. So they asked some questions about how like Narcan and benzodiazepines work and the extent, if it works at all. And they get some Info about Lindsay's injuries to her spine and her ribs, how they're all broken, and they just are seemingly very combative with this witness. I guess maybe he's the first one who's really testifying to whether she really got injured or not. I'm not really sure, but I'm not sure he's the right one to get testy about it with.

[Brett]

And he was like, you see this sometimes? And he was. He just tell. Like, he was completely like, yeah, I mean, I. I could see her neck through the holes in the brace and the defense. So you studied her neck? And he's like, I didn't study her neck. I could just see that she wasn't cut that badly. And the injuries to her neck are going to end up being superficial. So even. Even fighting this out with him seems a little weird. And it seemed like a misstep, honestly. The first misstep by the defense and a very minor one. Just getting tested with the wrong guy. Then there's Daniel Daughtry. This is the paramedic who treated Lindsay. Talks about how this is total chaos. He loads Lindsay on a backboard. He treats her initially. Then he's in the ambulance with Dawson. The defense asked him if it was wicked cold that night, which is another lovely Boston moment, because they're trying to say, look, maybe she didn't bleed that much because it was cold. Hypothermia, it slows down the circulation, all that sort of of stuff. And, you know, it is really interesting, though, like we said, they're talking about these kids. They're having to drill into their bones to try and get these. These lines in. And I think Jennifer talked about that.

[Alice]

Yeah, I did not know that was right.

[Brett]

Yeah, it was wild. And then finally, there was Vincent Cahill. He is a Duxbury police department officer. He was on patrol that day. He was a good win to stand on because he was pretty powerful. He shows up. As he's coming down the stairs to the basement. Patrick is screaming, and he doesn't really know why, but then he looks and he sees two kids on the floor. He checks Cora's pulse. He's working on here when fire shows up, and they take over. He starts to back up, and he actually bumps into Kalin. I don't know if he didn't see him or what, but then he turns around. He's checking his pulse. He doesn't have one. He's, like, picking up furniture and moving it. I mean, he basically. He picks up this one couch and puts it on another Couch just trying to make room for all these first responders to get in. And it's really. All the testimony was really intense. He talks about taking turns doing breathing and compressions on Korra with one of his other first responders. And they're trying everything they can to bring these kids back, and they never regained a pulse, and they never were able to really accomplish anything, despite all their efforts to save the children. So that was the end for today. Tomorrow they're doing field trips. They're going to the CVS. They're going to the 3V restaurant. Seems a little weird. I don't know. I think distance. They're getting distance. Maybe feeling for how far away it is. I'm not sure. And of course, they're gonna go to the house. They're doing that in the morning. They do plan to have court in the afternoon, but as we've seen, they ended today at basically lunchtime. So we'll see if they actually do anything tomorrow. I doubt we'll have an episode tomorrow because there just won't be that much court unless something really big happens. Probably wait until after Monday's testimony to have another episode, but they say their own schedule. I guess we'll find out. To me, you still have to have the medical examiners for the kids talk about the injuries, talk about any signs of struggle, signs of fighting back. You really want to get that evidence out there. And then once you finish with that, it's gonna be all her mental state, and it's gonna be everybody who treated her. It's gonna be medical experts. Defense is gonna have a long case that they're gonna present. I imagine they're gonna put on a lot of people. So that's gonna be fascinating to see exactly how that goes and what the state can establish about her mental state and what the defense can put forward to try and cast doubt on that mental state. We'll just have to see how it goes. I mean, right now, what we have is an incredibly difficult to watch brutal case that is horrific in every way. But we still don't know if this is a awful trap. I mean, it's an awful tragedy. No more. But is it just a tragedy, or is there also some criminal liability? You guys have asked a lot of questions about this case. Can she be found guilty or not guilty? Can she be found guilty but sent to a hospital? I mean, she probably will end up in a medical facility, like a prison medical facility, but it won't be a hospital.

[Alice]

No.

[Brett]

If she's found guilty, yeah. If she's found not guilty, then she'll be sent for some period of time to determine whether or not she's dangerous. But.

[Alice]

And the fact, I don't know where she stands right now, whether that's going to come into play at all, but she's presenting as not in the midst of psychosis.

[Brett]

She is being held at a hospital, so. But I wonder if those doctors testify or what.

[Alice]

Yeah, I wonder if it's because of her physical limitations. Just because a regular prison may not have the accommodations like getting into a bed, for example. I don't know what's the reason for her being in a medical facility.

[Brett]

Yeah. But anyways, look, this is a complicated case. It's a difficult case, it's a hard case. It's an emotional case. Thank you guys for listening to us talk about it. Thanks for sticking with us. I hope we're answering your questions. I hope we're making this more clear. You're not trying to tell you what to think, but we want you to at least have the framework to think about these cases with if you have thoughts. We've already got a bunch of thoughts. I mean, it's so interesting. Someone sent us a very lengthy, I'm gonna put it as, I'll say, an argument that people don't plan suicides. And this was based on their personal experience. And I totally appreciate that and I was glad for their view. But we also receive a whole lot of emails from people who talk about the planning for suicide attempts and the mental feelings once you've decided on a course of action. And I don't know, that's just a fascinating thing that could play into this case. We really appreciate you guys opening up to us. Seen a lot of that on the gallery. People are just pouring their hearts out about their experiences with these things and I hope that that's helpful for you and I hope it's helpful for people who are seeing it. Join the gallery if you want to discuss this case, shoot us an email. Prosecutors pod gmail.com follow us on all your social media at Prosecutors, Pod, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. We're all over the place. If you want to get these episodes early and ad free, you can do that through Patreon. You can do it through Apple subscriptions. If you join our substack, you can get the videos early and ad free or you can watch us record these on Patreon. I think that's all the plugs. Alice, do you have anything else you want to say before we sign off?

[Alice]

For now, no. Thank you guys. For coming on this journey with us. And this is, like we said along, it's going to be emotional, as it should be whenever you have three children whose lives are ended early. So thanks for following along with us and having really respectful discussion about this and let us know what you think too. We really do welcome your thoughts on both the law as we're describing them and if we're getting anything wrong, especially on the medical side.

[Brett]

Yeah, and what I love about you doctors and nurses is you're always so very sure of your position and then some other doctor comes on and does the opposite. We saw this in the Robert Wan case. Just absolutely sure of your opinion. And that's great. I think that's important for a doctor to really feel confident in their view. But it's funny watching you guys argue about this stuff. So I've enjoyed that. But yes, feel free to share anything you think is important. All right, guys, I don't know when we'll see you again, but it'll probably be soon. We'll continue watching this trial. I hope you will as well. And we'll talk about it with you next time. But until then, I'm Brett.

[Alice]

And I'm Alice.

[Brett]

And we are the prosecutors. Yo, yo.

[Alice]

That's the way I'm gonna start all of these Lindsay episodes. It's kind of hard for me because I can't listen to this when 3/4 of my children are around. I can do it around the baby because he doesn't understand. But it's so intense. I cannot have the three year old hearing about foam coming out of Dawson's mouth. I'm like, oh my goodness. So this is. It's very intense.

[Brett]

Cuz I'm like, I let my kids listen up. Pretty much all this is.

[Alice]

This is different. This is different.

[Brett]

So he really shouldn't have killed that woman. Absolutely should not have. That is a good lesson,

[Alice]

Sam. Now you know from this, the more you know.

[Brett]

But when it comes to this case, I'm not letting them hear it because I don't want them to even.

[Alice]

Because the kids are exactly their ages. Right.

[Brett]

Okay, let's. You gotta come up with a word for you. You're gonna have to. So many words.

[Alice]

Just do happy words. Would you do happy words, please?

[Brett]

Like happy words, but they don't fit. You're not happy,

[Alice]

Sam.

[Brett]

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[Alice]

Trilogy.

[Brett]

Welcome to the real world, Mean girls. Shut up. Titanic. I'm the king of the world. And so much more. For Showtime press nothing. They're free 24. 7.

[Alice]

That is so effective on Pluto TV

[Brett]

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