Commonwealth v. Clancy

 2383CR00198 · Plymouth Superior

Commonwealth v. Clancy, August 19, 2026

WednesdayreporteddefenseDay 16 of 28

The defense's criminal-responsibility opinion, an hour and a quarter of cross-examination aimed at the expert rather than the diagnosis, a TikTok witness excluded but her subject matter admitted in documents, and an unexplained early end.

Key points
  • THE DEFENSE'S CRIMINAL-RESPONSIBILITY OPINION CAME OUT ON DIRECT, AT ABOUT 10:20. Both limbs of the McHoul standard were put to the jury in one answer: a mental disease or defect, identified as bipolar disorder with postpartum psychosis; an inability to conform her behavior to the rule of law; and no appreciation of the wrongfulness of her act. This is the defense's central affirmative evidence on the only live issue in the case, and every outlet read carried it in substantially the same words.
  • THE OPINION RESTS ON AN ACCOUNT THE CONTEMPORANEOUS RECORDS DO NOT CONTAIN, AND HE SAID SO HIMSELF. Asked where in the records between September 2022 and January 2023 the defendant told a provider that a voice was telling her to kill herself, he answered that it is not in the records. The records have intrusive thoughts and a wish to die; they do not have the voice. The only time she specifically described a male voice was in recounting January 24, 2023 itself. This is the single most damaging answer of the day for the side that called him.
  • THE VOICE REACHED HIM SECOND-HAND, AND HE WENT LOOKING FOR IT. He testified he learned of the male voice from Sheila Cavanaugh, a hospital chaplain, having asked other people about their interactions with the defendant — volunteering that it was not a fishing expedition. Combined with the point above, the command hallucination remains in the case entirely through what the defendant said to others after the killings.
  • THE ANSWER THAT SHE SOUGHT HELP INSTEAD CUTS BOTH WAYS. He agreed that when she heard voices urging self-harm before January 24 she did not act on them, and added that she sought help instead. For the defense that is evidence she was ill and trying; for the Commonwealth it is evidence she could resist the voices she reported. Boston 25 places the exchange at the very end of cross-examination, which suggests the Commonwealth meant to leave it there.
  • TREATER AND EXAMINER IN THE SAME PERSON — THE COMMONWEALTH'S THEORY OF THE CASE AGAINST THIS WITNESS. Buckingham built it piece by piece: a letter in which he called the defendant his patient, appearances at her arraignment and hearings at Reddington's request, a January 2023 news conference beside her lawyer with the footage played in court, only one other defendant he had spent thirty-five hours with, only one other he had cared deeply for, no press conference for anyone else. He did not deny any of it — he confirmed she was his patient and that he cares about her, and argued that empathy and rapport are appropriate.
  • HE HAD NOT READ EVERYTHING HE RELIED ON. East Idaho News reports he first said he had not reviewed Dr. Phillip Resnick's report although his own document lists it as a source, and after a sidebar said he had perused it without reading the whole thing, and that he had not read every page of the Tewksbury records. LA Magazine reports him confronted with Tewksbury notes he acknowledged he had not reviewed. For an expert whose opinion is built on records review, this is a structural attack rather than a detail.
  • TWO SPECIFIC ERRORS IN HIS REPORT WERE PUT TO HIM. WJAR names both: a visit he dated December 15 that was in fact December 20, and a medication he had identified as trazodone on Tuesday that was in fact Zoloft. The Associated Press reports the errors generally without naming them.
  • THE TEWKSBURY DAILY RECORDS WERE THE COMMONWEALTH'S BEST NON-EXPERT MATERIAL ON THIS DAY, AND THE DEFENSE MET THEM WITH THE SAME DOCUMENTS. Buckingham read the anniversary and birthday entries — sociable, pleasant on approach, dominoes, a coffee group, family visits, sleeping normally, nothing recorded that she did to mark her children. Reddington read the other half: extremely well regarded and well liked on the unit, not laughing and partying, bad days and worse days, and the answer the Boston Globe led its recap on — that she loves and misses her children and thinks of them almost every moment of the day. The Globe treated that as the first time in the whole trial the jury heard how the defendant now feels about the three children.
  • THE ZOLOFT BOTTLE IS SINGLE-SOURCED BUT MATTERS. East Idaho News alone reports the prosecutor holding up a bottle showing thirty dispensed and twenty-three remaining, so seven taken. It goes directly to the defense's overmedication theory and to what she actually ingested, and it has not been corroborated by any other outlet read.
  • THE DEFENSE LOST THE WITNESS AND KEPT THE SUBJECT. Thorndike was excluded, but Judge Sullivan admitted McLean's staffing and program records in her place, and CBS Boston reports he allowed comparison records for the week before the admission. The defense can still argue thin holiday staffing to the jury; it just cannot do it through a witness who worked there.
  • THE EXCLUSION WAS ON MATERIALITY, NOT CREDIBILITY OR GAMESMANSHIP. Judge Sullivan said twice that he found her credible, and LA Magazine reports he expressly rejected any suggestion of bad faith or unfair surprise in a witness added late, noting the Commonwealth had known about her for over a week. The ground was the year-long gap and changed personnel. That distinction matters for any appellate record.
  • THE COMMONWEALTH'S THREE RETAINED EXPERTS WERE NAMED IN OPEN COURT, IN A QUESTION THAT WAS NEVER FINISHED. The Boston Globe reports Reddington appearing to begin asking why the district attorney's office took so long to retain three doctors of its own, and names them as Kirk Heilbrun, Avram Mack and Gregory Saathoff. The objection came before he could continue. East Idaho News describes an entirely different blocked question, a hypothetical about a young woman who kills her children and is in a wheelchair, so it is not certain which question drew the objection.
  • THE OUTLETS DO NOT AGREE ON HOW MUCH TIME HE SPENT WITH HER. Approximately sixty meetings over three years (ABC News, USA TODAY), more than fifty visits and over thirty-five hours (LA Magazine), more than thirty-five hours over dozens of visits (Associated Press), more than forty-five times as reported from the previous day (Boston Globe). The extent of his contact was itself a subject of cross-examination, so the spread is not cosmetic.
  • CBS BOSTON'S FRAMING OF THE MORNING IS AT ODDS WITH EVERY OTHER OUTLET. Its recap says the psychologist completed his cross-examination to start the day; the Boston Globe, Boston 25, ABC News, East Idaho News and the Patriot Ledger all have Reddington still on direct examination until about 10:17 to 10:20, with cross beginning after. On the other accounts the criminal-responsibility opinion was elicited by the defense, not extracted by the Commonwealth.
  • NOBODY EXPLAINED THE EARLY END, AND NOBODY WAS ALLOWED TO GUESS. The jury was sent home shortly after 2:30 p.m. on an unforeseen circumstance, with an instruction not to speculate and not to hold it against either side. CBS Boston reports the judge saying the case remained on schedule. No outlet read learned what the circumstance was.
  • REDDINGTON DID NOT MOVE FOR A MISTRIAL OVER TUESDAY'S MORTAL SIN QUESTION. LA Magazine reports speculation outside the courtroom on Wednesday morning that the defense might, and reports Reddington confirming to it that he did not, asking why he would want to start the trial over. That is an out-of-court statement to a reporter, not something said on the record, but it closes a question left open by the August 18 sitting.
  • THE DEFENSE HAD CALLED EIGHT WITNESSES BY THE END OF THIS DAY, on ABC News's count — four on August 17, four on August 18, with Zeizel carrying over into the 19th and Thorndike never reaching the jury.

Witnesses (2)

Dr. Paul ZeizelDefense
Clinical and forensic psychologist. First met the defendant on February 4, 2023, eleven days after the killings, at Reddington's request and under a court order, while she was handcuffed to a bed in the intensive care unit at Brigham and Women's Hospital; he did not treat her before the killings. The outlets do not agree on how much contact he has had with her: ABC News and USA TODAY give approximately sixty meetings over three years, LA Magazine over thirty-five hours and more than fifty visits, the Associated Press more than thirty-five hours over dozens of visits, and the Boston Globe reported him saying more than forty-five times on the preceding day. LA Magazine reports he confirmed that part of his role was evaluating whether she was competent to stand trial.
Direct: Reddington Cross: Buckingham
  • TESTIMONY COMPLETE, ON HIS SECOND DAY. He had been called Tuesday and was still on direct examination when Wednesday began. He resumed at about 09:52 to 10:05 after the delayed start, finished direct at about 10:17 to 10:20, was cross-examined until about 11:36 to 11:44, was redirected across a recess, took a short further round from the Commonwealth, and left the stand at about 12:35 to 12:41.
  • DIRECT — the autumn of 2022. He traced a months-long deterioration from her medical records and his own examinations: increasingly depressed and withdrawn, fatigued, struggling with basic hygiene, having difficulty caring for the children, and describing what LA Magazine reports she called a busy brain. ABC News reports him describing derealization — a sense of detachment from one's surroundings — alongside symptoms of psychosis.
  • DIRECT — November 29, 2022. East Idaho News alone reports him placing a visit to the nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta on this date and describing psychotic dissociation and a flattened affect.
  • DIRECT — the perinatal clinic in December 2022. She presented saying her brain was damaged, that she should kill herself and that she was never going to get any better. East Idaho News dates the clinic visit to December 2 and identifies it as the South Shore clinic; the Associated Press gives only December 2022.
  • DIRECT — the suicide hotline. She called twice in December and got no help. East Idaho News reports him dating the first call to about December 4 and saying she was turned away because she had no plan, and a second call around December 15.
  • DIRECT — the paranoia. She feared other people could hear her thoughts, and her concern was that if people could hear her thoughts her children would be removed from her care. He testified she was having paranoid symptoms of psychosis. LA Magazine renders the fear as police or child protective services taking the children.
  • DIRECT — anhedonia. Her records showed she presented with anhedonia, which he described as an inability to feel joy: no laughter, no pleasure, living life without pleasure.
  • DIRECT — the medications and the programs. East Idaho News reports him naming Seroquel, Remeron and Klonopin, a partial hospitalization program in Rhode Island that Patrick Clancy took her to on December 15, a voluntary four-day admission to McLean Hospital in early January 2023, and her leaving it to attend her daughter's birthday party on January 7.
  • DIRECT — mid-January 2023. While she was tapering her prescriptions the intrusive thoughts became unrelenting and, in his words, were getting worse and were telling her to kill herself. ABC News reports him distinguishing intrusive thoughts from ordinary ones: ego-dystonic, unwanted, and interfering with the ability to get through the day. By January 2023, he said, she could barely get through her day.
  • DIRECT — hallucinations. WJAR reports Reddington asking whether she complained of hearing things that were not there, and Zeizel answering yes.
  • DIRECT — psychosis and ordinary function, the day's central defense answer to the Commonwealth's case. He testified that people in a psychotic state can still do the everyday tasks of living. The Associated Press ties the point to driving and searching the internet, and to the fact that on the day of the killings she took her daughter to the doctor, played with the children in the snow and searched online for a pharmacy and a restaurant; East Idaho News reports him describing her building a snowman in the backyard with the children and Googling directions to a restaurant that same day. Reddington put it to him that the absence of unicorns in the corner, of slurred speech and of an inability to walk did not, to a degree of medical certainty, mean she was not psychotic, and he agreed it did not.
  • DIRECT — psychological testing. He administered the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, which measures for antisocial personality disorder, and a mental status examination, and found she does not have any type of antisocial personality disorder, also known as sociopathy.
  • DIRECT — the sociopathy searches. Reddington took him to her internet searches asking whether sociopathy can be cured and asked whether they showed she believed she was a homicidal maniac or fell in the same period as her searches on the effects of medication; Zeizel took the second reading, and said she continued to search the effects of medication, heaviness and psychosis.
  • DIRECT — THE OPINION, at about 10:17 to 10:20. In his opinion she had a mental disease or defect, which he identified as bipolar disorder with postpartum psychosis; she was unable to conform her behavior to the rule of law; and she had no appreciation for the wrongfulness of her act. Carried in those terms by the Boston Globe, Boston 25, CBS Boston, the Associated Press, WJAR, ABC News and LA Magazine. East Idaho News alone renders the second limb as a loss of substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her act.
  • CROSS — who pays him. The Commonwealth opened on his work as a defense expert, noting that much of his recent work has been for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state's public defender agency. He answered that as recently as July he had submitted written testimony for the prosecution in a Suffolk County case. East Idaho News adds that he is an independent contractor for a company under contract to the Department of Corrections, that he earned about $340,000 in 2024 and about $300,000 the year before, and that he has worked on this case for forty-one months; those figures are reported by that outlet alone.
  • CROSS — the relationship with defense counsel. Asked whether he had done quite a bit of work with Reddington over the years, he called that an expansive term; told the question required a yes or a no, he answered yes.
  • CROSS — ERRORS IN HIS REPORT. WJAR gives the two the prosecutor named: that the visit to Women and Infants was on December 20 and not the 15th as he had it, and that he had testified on Tuesday she was on trazodone when in fact she was prescribed Zoloft. The Associated Press reports more generally that prosecutors pointed out mistakes in his report.
  • CROSS — what he had not read. East Idaho News reports that he was asked whether he had reviewed Dr. Phillip Resnick's report and said he had not, although his own document lists it as a source; after a defense objection and a sidebar he said he had perused it without reading the whole thing, and that he had reviewed the Tewksbury records but not every page. LA Magazine reports Buckingham questioning whether he had reviewed the entirety of the medical record and confronting him with Tewksbury notes he acknowledged he had not reviewed.
  • CROSS — the Zoloft bottle. East Idaho News alone reports the prosecutor holding up a Zoloft bottle: thirty pills in the prescription and twenty-three left, so only seven gone. The same outlet reports her noting a 25mg Seroquel prescription for sleep in December 2022.
  • CROSS — the first meeting, February 4, 2023. He had described her as foggy about what had happened and not knowing where she was; the prosecution put it to him that she was lucid enough to give him her husband's phone number from memory. His answer was that not knowing where you are does not mean you cannot have a conversation. Asked whether she asked about her children in those first conversations, he said she did not. East Idaho News adds that he was asked whether he knew she had by then changed her health care proxy from Patrick Clancy to her parents, and was not aware of it.
  • CROSS — how he learned about the voice. He said he had not only overheard the speakerphone call but had spoken to other people about their interactions with her, and that it was not a fishing expedition. He named Sheila Cavanaugh, a chaplain at Brigham and Women's Hospital, as having relayed to him that the defendant said she heard a male voice instructing her to kill her children and then herself.
  • CROSS — THE RECORDS DO NOT CONTAIN THE VOICE. Asked where in the records, between September 2022 and January 2023, she told any provider that a voice told her to kill herself, he answered that it is not in the records. He agreed that when she described intrusive thoughts she never described them as a voice telling her to kill herself, and that as far as her own reports went it was simply that she felt she wanted to die. Asked whose voice the intrusive thoughts were, he said she did not identify whose voice it was, and agreed the only time she specifically described a male voice was in recounting January 24, 2023. He said there are multiple layers to hearing intrusive thoughts, and East Idaho News reports him saying he had asked her about it many different ways over time rather than once.
  • CROSS — SHE DID NOT ACT ON THE EARLIER VOICES. Asked whether, at any time between September 2022 and January 2023 when she heard a voice telling her to harm herself, she failed to act on it, he agreed — and volunteered that she sought help instead. Boston 25 places this exchange at the close of cross-examination.
  • CROSS — masking. The prosecution returned to his evidence that psychotic people can have normal interactions and put the pediatrician visit with Cora on the day of the killings to him, arguing that a person in a psychotic state carries significant distress and that masking it would take an enormous amount of control. He answered that voices run on a continuum, some nominal and whispering and some yelling and screaming, and that the more upsetting and demanding the voice the harder it is to resist. East Idaho News reports his answer to the extreme-stress proposition as: it depends.
  • CROSS — whether she got help. The prosecution pressed him on his evidence that she went to the emergency room and did not get help, noting she had declined an offer of inpatient treatment in December 2022. He answered that help is in the eye of the beholder, that his testimony was based on his evaluation of her, and that it was not for him to doubt what she believed about the offer. Judge Sullivan then called a brief sidebar.
  • CROSS — THE TEWKSBURY DAILY RECORDS. Buckingham read from the state hospital's daily notes covering the anniversary of the killings and what would have been the children's birthdays. On what would have been Callan's first birthday, four months after the killings, the defendant was recorded interacting with peers with no visible distress; on other birthdays and anniversaries she is recorded as generally sociable and pleasant upon approach, with no behavioral issues and no trouble sleeping. The Associated Press reports the notes mentioning her parents visiting and her talking with other patients but never anything she did to remember her children. The Patriot Ledger adds dominoes with peers and a coffee group; LA Magazine adds her propelling herself down a hallway in her wheelchair, playing games and eating with her mother. East Idaho News reports excerpts read from 2024 and 2025 records and dates one entry to December 24, 2023, which it gives as Cora's birthday. He said he did not doubt the records. He agreed with Buckingham that, given this individual's history, her sleeping habits would be an important thing for the hospital to monitor.
  • CROSS — the workout program. He testified that she told him she lost money in summer 2022, after Callan's birth, in what he called a scam; asked why he called it that, the Patriot Ledger reports him saying that if you spend on marketing and lose all your money with no effort to get it back, it is a scam. He did not say how much was lost. East Idaho News identifies the program as Beachbody, reports the prosecutor answering that lots of people do the program, and reports him questioning whether it mattered in the big picture of the trial.
  • CROSS — CONFIRMATION BIAS AND THE TREATER-EXAMINER PROBLEM, the spine of the cross-examination. Asked whether he was familiar with confirmation bias, he was, and East Idaho News reports him saying the facts come to you and you do not go to the facts, and drawing the distinction that a therapist is an advocate while an examiner looks for the truth. Buckingham then put the two roles together: a letter he wrote seeking accommodations for her transport in which he called her his patient; his appearances at her arraignment and at court hearings at Reddington's request; and a January 2023 news conference at which he appeared alongside Reddington, footage of which was played in court. He confirmed she was his patient.
  • RECROSS — the closing round, after redirect. Asked whether he had ever spent as much time with a defendant he was evaluating for criminal responsibility, he said there had been one other; asked how many others he had cared deeply for, one; asked how many defendants he had given press conferences about, none. East Idaho News adds that he had made no lockup visits during trial because he was sequestered. CBS Boston reports Buckingham putting to him that the defendant continually refers to the deaths as her tragedy, and his answer that it is just one of the things she will say. She closed by establishing that the defendant is on constant one-to-one monitoring at Tewksbury against the risk of suicide, and that she has made no attempt to harm herself since January 24, 2023.
  • REDIRECT — the answer on confirmation bias. He defined it as reaching a conclusion before you form an opinion, invoked tabula rasa, and said that in a proper evaluation you draw no conclusion, the conclusion finds you, and that failing to work that way is what puts you at risk of the bias. LA Magazine reports him adding that his conclusions came from his own evaluations and that he did not look to other providers.
  • REDIRECT — caring for the patient. He said he became involved out of compassion, agreed that he cares about the defendant, and said that caring is not a violation of professional standards — not at all — and that developing empathy and rapport is appropriate and meaningful. Asked whether he was avoiding the truth or giving his opinion, he said he was telling the truth; CBS Boston reports that answer struck from the record after an objection. East Idaho News reports him saying he would not tell the truth just to help her out, and explaining that the accommodation letter was about keeping her from being chained to a van in transport.
  • REDIRECT — the news conference. East Idaho News reports him explaining that the Commonwealth's examination of Patrick Clancy had made him angry, that he was very emotional, and that he was upset because he thought the praise being heaped on McLean was misleading. CAUTION: East Idaho News prints that same sentence twice, once for Zeizel at 11:40 and again for Thorndike at 12:55, and the Boston Globe and ABC News give Thorndike a different sentence at that point. The attribution to Zeizel should be treated as uncertain.
  • REDIRECT — the blocked question, at about 11:45. Reddington began a question, the Commonwealth objected, he asked to approach, and after a brief sidebar Judge Sullivan called a recess. THE OUTLETS DESCRIBE DIFFERENT QUESTIONS: the Boston Globe reports him appearing to begin asking why it took the district attorney's office so long to retain three doctors of its own, and names them as Kirk Heilbrun, Avram Mack and Gregory Saathoff; East Idaho News reports him attempting a hypothetical about a young woman who kills her children, is in a wheelchair and is indicted. Recorded as a conflict; not resolved here.
  • REDIRECT — THE TEWKSBURY RECORDS, THE OTHER HALF. After the recess Reddington went back to the daily notes and drew out what the Commonwealth had not read. She is, the records show, sociable with her parents and with other patients and extremely well regarded and well liked on that unit by everyone — which, he said, does not mean she is not in mental distress. Asked whether the records suggested she was laughing and partying and having a good time, he said no: Lindsay Clancy has bad days and worse days. He added that she speaks about her children often, that she really loves them and misses them and thinks of them every single day, almost every moment of the day. The Boston Globe treated that answer as the first time in the trial that the jury heard how the defendant now feels about her three children.
  • REDIRECT — suicide risk now. Asked whether she continued to show suicidal thoughts at Tewksbury, he said she is in good hands at the moment but that there is always a concern that suicidal ideation sits directly below the surface. East Idaho News reports him explaining that he visits her in the lockup to make sure she is stable and fit to be at trial.
Emily ThorndikeDefense
Licensed clinical social worker; the Boston Globe describes her as a mental health specialist at McLean Hospital from 2014 to 2021, and she told the court she left in December 2021, about a year before the defendant was admitted. boston.com identifies her as the owner of Wise Mind Therapy Practice and the Patriot Ledger says the practice sees patients virtually; ABC News describes her as a Brooklyn woman with no connection to the defendant. Boston 25 gives her tenure at McLean as seven years, on the same unit to which the defendant was later admitted.
Direct: Reddington Cross: Buckingham
  • HEARD ON VOIR DIRE ONLY AND THEN EXCLUDED. The jury was sent to an early lunch at about 12:36 to 12:45 and she was questioned before Judge Sullivan and counsel from about 12:48 to 1:13, so that he could decide whether her evidence was admissible. The jury never heard a word of it.
  • How she came into the case. She followed the trial on the livestream because she was interested in it and because of her own profession — the Boston Globe adds that she had previously followed the Karen Read trial — and after hearing Patrick Clancy's direct examination she posted a TikTok video saying that what was described in court did not align with her own experience of working at McLean. USA TODAY dates the video to July 29 and reports it disputed the claim that the defendant was frequently assessed during her stay. Reddington saw the video, could not reach her, and sent a private investigator to her house; she said she was initially reluctant to be involved and has been sequestered since being contacted.
  • What she would have told the jury — staffing. There was no individual therapy on the unit; on holidays and weekends one doctor covered twenty-three patients and the visits were optional; the encounters were brief, and she thought it misleading to suggest there was an in-depth doctor session. LA Magazine adds evidence about staffing requirements, the difference between the unit's north and south sides, and oversight by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. ABC News reports her describing the programming as including coloring and playing with clay.
  • What she would have told the jury — that nothing had changed. From the records she had reviewed the staffing ratios were exactly the same and all the groups were the same, with no change whatsoever that she could tell, between her departure and the defendant's admission over the New Year's holiday.
  • CONFLICT ON THE TIME LIMIT SHE DESCRIBED. The Boston Globe reports her saying McLean's guidelines discouraged providers from meeting with a patient for longer than twenty minutes because there are other things to do. East Idaho News reports the prosecutor asking whether there was a rule that caretakers could spend only five minutes with a patient, and her answering that her supervisors had told her so. The two figures are not reconciled here.
  • CROSS — the limits of her knowledge. She had not personally reviewed any of the defendant's McLean records and could not speak to what passed between the nurse and the patient, only to the general shape of everyone's role. Asked whether she had any information that the same supervisors were giving the same instructions in 2023, she said she did not know that. LA Magazine adds that she worked primarily 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, with occasional weekend shifts, and could not say how many beds were occupied during the defendant's stay.
  • EXCLUDED. Judge Sullivan found her credible and ruled her evidence inadmissible on limited materiality; the full ruling is recorded under rulings.

Exhibits and evidence

Rulings and objections

Procedural

Sourcesglobe-day-16 b25-day-16 cbs-day16 eastidaho-day-16 boston-com ap-washtimes nbc-news turnto10 abc7-day-16 abc-day-16 lamag-day-16 ledger-day-16 usatoday-day-16 newsweek
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