Where the accounts disagree
Recorded conflicts between outlets and between witnesses, set out with both positions and their sources, and left unresolved. 50 conflicts recorded.
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The contested question is minute-by-minute conduct. A three-hour gap on the MiraLAX search is not a rounding difference, and both accounts came from Commonwealth witnesses four days apart.
MiraLAX search at 14:02; ThreeV takeaway search at 16:13; the 14-second call at 17:34.
Children's MiraLAX search at 16:46; 3V menu search at 16:43; unanswered call from Patrick at 17:33 and a 14-second call from the defendant at 17:35.
Whiffin, testifying August 17, 2026, gave the last unlock at about 17:13 with a children's laxative search and a text to Patrick; stairs climbed between 17:33 and 17:38; Patrick's unanswered calls at 17:33 and 18:09. These match the case reference.
Boston 25's contemporaneous account of the same testimony gives Whiffin's January 24 searches as Kids Miralax at 4:02 p.m., takeout 3V at 4:13 p.m. and CVS at 4:47 p.m. The 3V and CVS times match the case reference (16:13, 16:47); the MiraLAX time does not (14:02), and 4:02 p.m. sits close to Chiappini's 4:46 p.m.
East Idaho News's transcription of Chiappini's own timeline report for 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on January 24: Apple Maps search for 3V at 4:13 p.m.; children's MiraLAX at 4:46; CVS website at 4:47; call to a CVS store at 4:48; call to Patrick at 4:53; 3V menu and Pedialyte at 5:06 with more than one tab open; calls of 11 seconds at 5:09 and 47 seconds at 5:10; Pedialax at 5:13; a message to Patrick about Pedialax at 5:15; a call from Patrick at 5:33; a 14-second call from her at 5:34. The 4:13 and 5:13 figures match the case reference's 16:13 Apple Maps entry and 17:13 PDLX entry; the 4:46 MiraLAX figure still does not match the reference's 14:02.
The Boston Globe, reporting the same testimony live, gives 4:13 p.m. for the Apple Maps search for ThreeV, texts shortly after 4:50 p.m. about takeout and the menu, and the laxative and menu searches shortly after 5 p.m. with more than one tab open, and a text about the laxative at 5:15 p.m. It gives no 4:43 p.m. menu search.
JULY 29, 2026 BACKFILL, AUGUST 21, 2026. Two business witnesses called on July 29, 2026 timestamp the same afternoon from their own records rather than from a phone extraction. Saria Sweeney of the ThreeV restaurant put the defendant's takeout call at 5:10 p.m. and the pickup at 5:54 p.m. (Boston 25, CBS Boston, Oxygen). Oxygen's compilation of the timeline puts Angela Krause's CVS call at 4:48 p.m. Both figures sit with Chiappini's account as East Idaho News transcribed it — a 4:48 p.m. call to a CVS store and a 47-second call at 5:10 p.m. Patrick Clancy's own evidence the same day put him entering the Kingston CVS at about 5:32 p.m. and calling the defendant at about 5:33 to 5:35, matching the 5:33 and 5:34 calls in that account. NONE OF THIS BEARS ON THE MIRALAX TIME, which is the part still open.
PARTLY RESOLVED. Whiffin's testimony corroborates the reference timeline, which makes Chiappini's reported times the outlier. One likely explanation is two separate laxative searches, MiraLAX earlier in the afternoon and PDLX at about 17:13, which reporting conflated into one. The remaining gap may therefore be a reporting artefact rather than a disagreement between examiners. REOPENED AUGUST 21, 2026 BY THE AUGUST 17 BACKFILL. The two-searches explanation assumed Whiffin put MiraLAX at 14:02 and a separate PDLX search at about 17:13. Boston 25, reporting Whiffin live, puts the MiraLAX search at 4:02 p.m. If that is what he said, the three-hour gap is between two reports of a single witness rather than between two examiners, and the partial resolution does not hold. No outlet other than Boston 25 gives a time for the MiraLAX search on August 17, and the case reference figure has not been changed. AUGUST 13 BACKFILL, AUGUST 21, 2026. Reading the August 13 coverage in full narrows this. Both East Idaho News and the Boston Globe, reporting Chiappini live, put the Apple Maps search for the restaurant at 4:13 p.m., matching the reference's 16:13, and East Idaho News records a separate Pedialax search at 5:13 p.m. matching the reference's 17:13 PDLX entry. That supports the two-laxative-searches reading and makes Boston 25's 4:43 p.m. menu search the outlier for that item. What remains genuinely open is the MiraLAX time: 4:46 p.m. on both Chiappini accounts against 14:02 in the reference, and 4:02 p.m. in Boston 25's account of Whiffin. The day 13 entry now records both accounts and treats neither as settled.
It affects the sequence of events at two hospitals and which physician's account attaches to which child.
Cora was pronounced deceased at 19:28 at Beth Israel Deaconess Plymouth.
Dawson was declared dead at 7:28pm after more than forty minutes of combined paramedic and hospital resuscitation.
AUGUST 3 BACKFILL, AUGUST 21, 2026. Boston 25's live blog of Dr. Snyder's testimony records that after about half an hour of treatment Cora Clancy was declared dead at 7:28 p.m. on January 24, 2023 - the same time Dr. Tenerowicz gave for Dawson at the same hospital. That is the account this note previously relied on boston.com to rule out.
boston.com, covering the same testimony, has roughly thirty minutes of CPR and Cora's death declared around 7:30 p.m. East Idaho News's account of Snyder's testimony carries no time of death at all.
REOPENED BY THE AUGUST 3 BACKFILL OF AUGUST 21, 2026. The earlier resolution rested on a single outlet's around 7:30 p.m. for Cora against Tenerowicz's 7:28 p.m. for Dawson. Boston 25, covering the same testimony contemporaneously, puts Cora's declaration at 7:28 p.m. exactly. Two children were pronounced at Beth Israel Deaconess Plymouth within minutes of each other and both physicians testified, so the accounts are not necessarily inconsistent - but no source read establishes which child the 7:28 p.m. in the case reference belongs to, and the two outlets covering Snyder do not agree. Recorded unresolved. The resolution note in data/case-reference.json and the key point on the July 31, 2026 day entry were written on the earlier reading and have not been rewritten; that is out of scope for the day being backfilled.
The defense's criminal-responsibility opinion is built on bipolar disorder with postpartum psychosis. The treating psychiatrist did not make that diagnosis.
Mental disease or defect identified as bipolar disorder with postpartum psychosis; unable to appreciate wrongfulness or conform conduct to the law.
Did not diagnose bipolar disorder, and never observed signs of psychosis across fourteen telemedicine appointments ending the day before.
A second defense expert gave the same picture: Clancy was psychotic on the day of the killings, the condition described as postpartum psychosis, and he gave the opinion that she was not criminally responsible. The outlets do not render the underlying diagnosis identically — the Boston Globe reports bipolar disorder with major depression, CBS Boston severe depression, mild mania and bipolar disorder in the period leading up to the killings, and East Idaho News bipolar 2 with severe depression. Reported by the Boston Globe, Boston 25, CBS Boston and East Idaho News.
The Commonwealth's rebuttal psychiatrist gave the jury the opposite diagnosis. He testified to a major depressive episode running from late 2022 into January 2023, and told the jury he found no evidence Clancy was bipolar at the time of the deaths, no mania or hypomania, and no reason to diagnose bipolar disorder in the absence of manic episodes. He also said she did not present psychotic symptoms, treating her fears that medication had damaged her and that she would lose her children as worries matching things she had actually experienced rather than as fixed false beliefs meeting the definition of a delusion, and said the onset of her symptoms fell well outside the postpartum period as the DSM describes it — the Boston Globe giving that limit as largely four weeks after birth. Separately he told the jury there is no reason psychosis in itself stops a person knowing right from wrong. The no-bipolar finding is carried by five outlets: the Boston Globe, Boston 25, East Idaho News, CBS Boston and Fox News Digital.
On cross-examination the defense went at the no-mania finding with its own long-standing example. The Boston Globe at 14:59 reports Kevin Reddington asking Mack whether Clancy running a road race some weeks after giving birth would indicate manic behavior, and Mack answering that it would not; asked about other forms of exercise and about decluttering, Mack answered that such things would not in and of themselves indicate mania. The road race is the example Reddington put to the perinatal nurse practitioner on August 11, 2026 as possible manic behavior, and a defense expert put the 5K entered around the youngest child's delivery to the jury as bearing on an undiagnosed manic onset. Reported by the Boston Globe alone.
A Commonwealth objection was sustained-or-overruled on a defense question about a bipolar diagnosis during Jollotta's cross on August 11, 2026; the ruling is not clear from reporting. As of the afternoon of August 21, 2026 the jury has heard two defense experts diagnose bipolar disorder with postpartum psychosis, the treating psychiatrist say she made no such diagnosis, and the Commonwealth's rebuttal expert diagnose a major depressive episode with no mania and no psychosis. This is a dispute between witnesses, not between outlets, and it is for the jury. The no-mania finding is the load-bearing part of the rebuttal case, because without manic episodes there is no bipolar diagnosis, and the defense's cross-examination of Mack on the afternoon of August 21 attacked it directly.
A command hallucination would go directly to the McHoul standard. Its absence from every contemporaneous clinical record is the Commonwealth's answer to it.
The defendant reported hearing a male voice ordering her to kill the children, relayed by a psychologist (08-18) and by a hospital chaplain who had seen her more than fourteen times (08-20).
The chaplain's own detailed notes contain no record of voice-hearing; Dr. Zeizel conceded nothing in the medical records documents voices telling her to kill, only that she wanted to die.
The chaplain's account, given in full on 08-20, does not itself state the content of the command. Every outlet carries her saying Clancy alluded to having heard a persistent male voice which told her that if she did not follow the command, neither she nor her children would be safe. None quotes her saying what the command was. NBC10 Boston, ABC News, East Idaho News and Boston 25's filed story each summarize her as having said the voice told Clancy to kill the children and then herself, matching earlier defense witnesses, but that is the outlets' gloss rather than the sentence they quote. She also testified that Clancy raised the voice several times across their visits.
The cross-examination on 08-20 went entirely to the absence of the voice from the chaplain's own notes, and to how specific those notes were about everything else. ADA Jennifer Sprague established that Cavanaugh documented each interaction in the Brigham and Women's record in detail and never once wrote that Clancy reported a voice or what it said, and Cavanaugh agreed. Sprague then read entries about Clancy's fear of never walking again and of being vulnerable to others, an entry in which Clancy said she was deserving of what had happened, a request for help applying for Social Security disability benefits, entries describing her as hopeful about a Spaulding discharge and optimistic about her physical progress, and an entry about playing cards with her mother. Cavanaugh answered that her notes are not verbatim transcripts, that she is not medically trained, that she was there to bear witness to suffering rather than to evaluate a patient, and that there are limits on what she records from privileged spiritual communication. On redirect she agreed that a word such as hopeful was her own assessment rather than a quotation; LA Magazine alone reports a recross in which Sprague noted that some entries do carry quotation marks and asked whether those were Clancy's actual words. Her answer is not reported.
The defense's psychiatric expert placed a command hallucination on the day itself, telling the jury she was not psychotic every moment and had functioned normally earlier that day until it began, and describing an accompanying delusion of influence in which her body felt taken over by an external force. At about 11:31 he put the command directly to the jury: Boston 25 reports him saying she heard a voice commanding her to engage in the killing behavior and felt she had to obey the instructions, and CBS Boston quotes him saying she not only heard a command but felt her body taken over by an external force, in a dream state and without control of her own body. He rested his criminal responsibility opinion on it, and the Boston Globe reports him accounting for the gap in the records by saying Clancy was not fully revealing about her impulses to harm her children because she feared losing them. Reported across the morning by the Boston Globe, Boston 25, CBS Boston and East Idaho News. Still an account given to an examiner four months afterward rather than anything in a contemporaneous record.
On cross-examination the Commonwealth turned the expert's own writing against the thread: CBS Boston reports ADA Jennifer Sprague putting to Resnick an article he wrote called "Faking It", in which he said command hallucinations are easy to fabricate and that people often ignore the commands when they are dangerous. No outlet reports how he answered that line. She also pressed him on why Clancy had not resisted the voice — the Boston Globe reports him answering that patients vary, some acting on such commands and some not — and put to him that Clancy heard the voice and acted on it at once, which CBS Boston reports he rejected: he said Clancy had impulses to harm her children and did resist them until the command hallucination overwhelmed her. Sprague further contrasted Clancy with Andrea Yates, who had committed herself to hospitals five times and attempted suicide twice before killing her children (CBS Boston), and disputed that the records showed Clancy crying daily, pointing to hopes Clancy had expressed of becoming a postpartum advocate and of taking part in a wheelchair marathon (CBS Boston), a line East Idaho News independently reports at about 11:45 as inconsistencies between his testimony and the hospital documentation of her emotional state and her crying. The cross ended at about 11:51 and the defense rested; no redirect examination is reported.
The Commonwealth's investigative theory that the account was coached surfaced on August 12, 2026, six days before Dr. Zeizel testified, and was disowned by the Commonwealth's own witness. Reddington asked Sgt. Daniel Lawlor whether the district attorneys contended that Zeizel told the defendant to call Patrick Clancy and say she heard voices; the Commonwealth objected, the jury was sent out for a voir dire, and when it returned Lawlor told the jury that Trooper Joshua McKelligan had described the theory to him, that it was speculation, and that there was no investigative basis for it. On voir dire, out of the jury's presence, Boston 25 and East Idaho News report evidence that the defendant used the psychologist's cell phone at the hospital to call her husband and told him she heard voices, and that he reported the call to the State Police and to the grand jury.
The Commonwealth's rebuttal psychiatrist did not dispute that Clancy reported a commanding voice — he relayed her description of it to the jury himself. Boston 25 at 14:47 reports her describing it to him as male and laughing, telling her she should kill the children and that it was her last chance so she could kill herself; CBS Boston reports the same content and calls it a loud male voice, without the laughter. Boston 25 at 14:50 adds that she told him she heard it as soon as Patrick Clancy left the house, that she denied locking the bedroom door, and that after taking pills and cutting herself she said she fell through the bedroom window. His evidence went to what the report signified rather than to whether she made it: he told the jury she did not present psychotic symptoms, that there is no reason psychosis in itself stops a person knowing right from wrong, and that the killings were methodical, organized and directed at a goal, pointing to the pediatrician visit, playing with the children, ordinary conversation and her keeping to the rules of the road as evidence of organized functioning. At about 14:44 he gave the opinion that she retained the capacity for criminal responsibility for her actions (Boston 25 and CBS Boston).
The defense's cross-examination attacked the source of the rebuttal expert's facts rather than the voice itself. East Idaho News at 14:52 and CBS Boston both report Mack accepting that his narrative of the day the children died came from Clancy herself, and Reddington pressing whether he took her account as the truth given that he interviewed her in a psychiatric hospital while she was medicated, suicidal and under a round-the-clock watch. Both outlets also report him drawing out that the district attorney's office pays Mack. Separately, East Idaho News at 14:35 reports Mack listing inconsistencies in what she told him — her denial that she locked the bedroom door, uncertainty about the cutting of the window screen, and accounts of feeding the children that did not agree. The cross-examination was still running at the latest entries checked and no outlet reports Mack being asked about the voice on cross.
Both reports post-date January 2023. Neither is contemporaneous with the events.
The defense theory is that prescribing made her worse. The quantified levels do not straightforwardly support a picture of saturation.
Medication burden was severe enough that a Rhode Island partial hospitalization program declined her over it, and she believed the drugs were destroying her mind.
Only quetiapine was elevated, at roughly double expected and neither toxic nor lethal; diazepam and lorazepam were LOWER than expected; the quantities were not consistent with an overdose attempt.
The therapist who made the referral testified she did not know why Women and Infants declined the defendant and that it would surprise her to hear the reason was over-medication. The Boston Globe reports the program citing concerns about her prescription regimen.
Arguing against an intoxication instruction at the charge conference, the Commonwealth characterized the regimen at the time of the killings as 10 milligrams of amitriptyline recently increased to 20, with no real evidence the defendant took the increase, plus a low dose of trazodone and a low dose of Valium, and said the medications the defense relies on were prescribed before the McLean admission and had been out of her system for at least three weeks by January 24, 2023. The defense's answer was that over-prescription, side effects, titration and abrupt cessation against normal medical advice are together the involuntary intoxication. This is argument of counsel, not evidence.
These break searching and joining if silently normalized. Kept explicit.
Det. Maffeo appears as 'Marcanthony' in reporting and 'Mark Anthony' in the case reference.
'NP Rebecca Gelada' in the treatment chronology is almost certainly Rebecca Jollotta, the South Shore perinatal nurse who testified 08-11 and 08-12.
Dr. Springer appears as both 'Kimberley' and 'Kimberly'.
'Kyle Carney' was briefly and wrongly conflated with Sgt. Kyle Pavao. They are different people: Carney is a college friend of Patrick Clancy.
The medical examiner who performed the autopsies on Cora and Dawson appears as Barbara Olson (Boston Globe, boston.com), Barbara Olsen (CBS Boston) and Barbara Vidal Olsen (Boston 25's filed story). The counselor is Latiesha Dukes on August 12 and Latisha or Lateisha Dukes in August 11 coverage. Nicole Bradley of the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office is Nichole to the Boston Globe.
On August 13 the country singer is Tom T. Hall to the Boston Globe and Tom Hall to every other outlet. The restaurant appears as ThreeV, Three V and 3V. The examined device is a Surface Pro laptop (CBS Boston, WPRI, East Idaho News), a laptop (Boston Globe, NBC Boston), a computer (Boston 25) and a shared tablet (boston.com). The defendant's parents are Paula and Mike Musgrove to the Boston Globe and boston.com and Paul and Mike Musgrove to CT Insider. The medical examiner is Barbara Olson to boston.com and Barbara Vidal Olson to East Idaho News. The second forensic examiner's rank is sergeant (East Idaho News, NBC Boston, WPRI), detective (CBS Boston) and trooper (Boston Globe, CT Insider); Pavao is a sergeant to Boston 25 and CBS Boston and a trooper in Boston Globe and AP photo captions. The trooper who performed the second extraction is rendered 'Trooper Rabbit' by East Idaho News and appears as Lt. Joseph Rabbitt in the case reference.
On July 29 the ThreeV hostess is Saria Sweeney (Boston 25, Oxygen), Saria Shelgren (Boston Globe), Sweeney Schelgren (CBS Boston) and Saria Sweeney Shelgren (boston.com); this file uses Saria Sweeney. The product the defendant telephoned the Kingston CVS about is a stool softener (Boston Globe), medicine for the children (CBS Boston), Miralax or Pedia-Lax (CBS Boston, Oxygen) and 'Pedialight' as Boston 25's reporter rendered it. The restaurant is ThreeV, 3-V and 3V within the same day's coverage.
The McLean psychiatrist is Alia Goodheart to boston.com, the Boston Globe, Boston 25, CBS Boston and WBUR, Ali Goodheart to East Idaho News, and Aliyah Goodhart in the treatment chronology in the case reference. The fitness club in Kingston is the Kingsbury Club to boston.com, the Boston Globe and CBS Boston and Kingsberry to East Idaho News.
On August 4 the South Shore Hospital surgeon is Cristina Carpio (Boston Globe, boston.com, Boston 25), Christina Carpio (WJAR) and Cristina Karpio (CBS Boston), and is a general surgeon to CBS Boston and boston.com and a trauma surgeon to East Idaho News. Lt. Joseph Rabbitt is Lt. Joseph Rabbit to CBS Boston. The toxicologist is Hilary Griffiths to boston.com and Boston 25 and Hillary Griffiths to MassLive. Clonazepam is rendered Klonazepam in MassLive's list of the pill bottles.
The defense case is that the family saw a woman in crisis and sought help. The Commonwealth drew out that the person best placed to escalate did not.
The defendant's sister, a licensed social worker, testified the defendant reported suicidal ideation every day for a month by late December 2022, and that she had a gut feeling something was wrong.
On cross she acknowledged she filed no report, despite being a mandated reporter. The defendant's mother testified she was not concerned for the children's safety because she was present.
The defense used it to question the thoroughness of the investigation into her medication use.
Capt. Santos testified he did not search the nightstand drawer, suggesting another searcher had probably already covered that area.
Reddington produced the drawer's contents in court, empty prescription bottles, an Apple Watch and sleep aids. Santos could not say why they were not seized.
Trooper Joshua McKelligan, the case officer, testified on the Commonwealth's direct examination that Patrick Clancy told investigators he had found further medication in a nightstand drawer while walking through the house with Reddington and had given it to Reddington rather than to the police. Sprague asked whether he had said why; McKelligan said he had not, and agreed that neither the pills nor the bottles were ever turned in to the State Police.
On cross-examination Reddington put to McKelligan that the first thing he did after taking the medication was to contact the Plymouth County District Attorney's office and tell them they could come and collect it. East Idaho News records McKelligan answering that he did not know what Reddington had said; boston.com and the Boston Globe report him saying he was not aware of the contact. Neither account has been tested against the other.
Lt. Joseph Rabbitt, who executed the search warrant, agreed on cross-examination that the warrant authorized investigators to seize prescription medication in the home, and said he did not know why none of the officers involved had seized additional bottles prescribed to Lindsay Clancy that were in a drawer of the nightstand beside her bed. boston.com describes Reddington hammering again at the drawer, which he says held additional empty pill bottles; East Idaho News records the defense point that the nightstand was not searched although the warrant was executed in the early morning, and the point being put again through Trooper O'Loughlin.
Only that the record should not attribute a contested cross-examination to the wrong advocate. The Commonwealth divides witnesses between two prosecutors and the division is otherwise consistent across the trial.
Jennifer Sprague cross-examined Dr. Elizabeth Laposata on August 18, 2026, and is named in the exchange about the absence of any injury to the top of the defendant's head.
Shanan Buckingham cross-examined Laposata, and put to her the violations found at the Rhode Island medical examiner's office.
Boston 25's account of the cross does not name the prosecutor. Buckingham is separately named by several outlets as cross-examining Susan Clancy and Dr. Donald Condie on the same day, so both prosecutors were working.
The slides are the defense's visual account of how the fall from the window produced the spinal fracture, which goes to whether the fall was a genuine suicide attempt. Whether half of that exhibit reached the jury is not a detail.
Judge Sullivan disallowed defense slides 1 to 3 and permitted slides 4 to 6.
Judge Sullivan permitted slides 4 to 6 and raised concerns about slides 1 to 3 but ultimately allowed all of them, with a recess taken to modify them.
The argument is reported — Buckingham saying the window well is drawn in the wrong place and that slide four puts the defendant landing where the window well actually is, Reddington saying the measurements are accurate — but no ruling is stated.
The argument took place with the jury out. Two of the three live blogs describe an outcome and they do not agree; the third describes none. No exhibit numbers were reported for the slides.
The Commonwealth used prior testimony of hers from a 2011 Rhode Island case to attack her consistency. How long she said unconsciousness and death take under ligature as against manual strangulation is the substance of that attack and bears on how long the killings took.
Manual strangulation: unconsciousness in 10 to 20 seconds, with a further 2 to 3 minutes of pressure before death — the figures from her 2011 testimony. Ligature strangulation: unconsciousness within 4 to 10 seconds, death within 5 to 10 minutes.
In ligature strangulation unconsciousness comes in 5 to 20 seconds, with death after continuous pressure of up to five minutes.
The Boston Globe reports the confrontation with the 2011 case and her answer that the two cases involved distinct forms of strangulation, but gives no intervals. Neither set of figures should be quoted as hers on the strength of a single outlet.
The killings were on January 24, 2023 and the whole device timeline is built on that afternoon. A voice heard the previous day would be a materially different fact, and the account is already contested because no contemporaneous clinical record contains it.
Dr. Paul Zeizel testified that on the February 6, 2023 speakerphone call the defendant told Patrick Clancy she had heard a voice on January 23 telling her she had no choice but to kill her children and then kill herself. The same account has her saying she had not been in contact with him since January 23.
Zeizel testified she told Patrick Clancy she heard a male voice ordering her, telling her she did not have any choice but that she had to kill her children and then kill herself. No date is attached to the voice.
Three outlets give the account without a date and one gives January 23. The January 23 date is not carried into the January 24 timeline in the case reference on the strength of this. It may be East Idaho News's error, or it may be what the witness said; nothing read settles it.
The Commonwealth's cross-examination of Zeizel on August 19 went to his objectivity and to whether he was both treating the defendant and working for the defense. The extent of his contact with her is part of that.
Zeizel testified he had met the defendant more than 45 times, including after her transfer to Tewksbury State Hospital.
Approximately 60 times over the last three years, including during the trial.
More than 35 hours with the defendant over dozens of visits.
Over 35 hours and over 50 visits.
Cross-examination proceeded on the footing that he had spent 35 hours evaluating her, a figure the prosecutor used twice without contradiction.
The same witness on consecutive days. The hours figure is stable at more than 35 across every outlet; only the visit count moves, from more than 45 on the first day to roughly 50 or 60 on the second. The figures may both be his — a floor given on Tuesday and a fuller count on Wednesday — or the higher numbers may be a reporting convergence. The August 19 entry records the spread rather than picking one.
The opinion that the defendant could not appreciate the wrongfulness of her act and could not conform her conduct to the law is the defense's central affirmative evidence on the only live issue in the case. Whether it came from the defense's own questioning or was drawn out by the Commonwealth changes how the day reads.
Reddington was still on direct examination through Wednesday morning; direct ended at about 10:17 to 10:20 with the criminal-responsibility opinion, and cross-examination began after it.
The forensic psychologist completed his cross-examination to start the day.
Five outlets against one, and the five include three timestamped live blogs whose entries show Reddington asking the questions up to the opinion. The August 19 entry follows the five and records CBS Boston's framing as a conflict rather than adopting it. CBS Boston's own detail elsewhere in the same story is consistent with the majority account.
Emily Thorndike's proposed evidence went to whether the defendant's four- or five-day admission to McLean over the New Year holiday gave her real clinical contact. How long staff were permitted to spend with a patient is the concrete number in that account. Her evidence was excluded, so the jury heard neither figure, but the underlying staffing records were admitted.
She said McLean's guidelines discouraged providers from meeting with mental health patients for longer than 20 minutes, because there are other things to do.
On cross-examination the prosecutor asked whether there was a rule that caretakers could spend only 5 minutes with a patient, and she said yes, her supervisors had told her that.
The two figures may describe different things — a ceiling on a therapy session as against a floor on a routine check — or one outlet may have the number wrong. No other outlet read gives a figure. Neither is adopted.
The objection stopped the question, drew a sidebar and then a recess. On the Boston Globe's account the unfinished question named the Commonwealth's three retained experts in open court and asked why the district attorney's office had taken so long to engage them; on East Idaho News's account it was an unrelated hypothetical. Those are different events.
Reddington appeared to begin asking why it took the district attorney's office so long to retain three doctors of its own, presumably Kirk Heilbrun, Avram Mack and Gregory Saathoff. The prosecution objected before he could continue.
Reddington attempted a hypothetical question about a young woman who kills her children, is in a wheelchair and is indicted. The prosecutor objected and a sidebar was called.
Both accounts place an objection, a sidebar and then a recess in the same stretch of redirect, so they may be describing two separate blocked questions rather than one. No outlet reports how either objection was ruled on. The Globe's naming of the three Commonwealth experts here is not the only place they appear together: the same paper's pre-trial witness preview of July 27 lists Heilbrun, Mack and Saathoff among the prosecution's mental health experts, along with a fourth, Dr. Margarita Abi Zeid Daou of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. That corroborates whom the Commonwealth retained. It does not settle which question was blocked here, and it does not identify the rebuttal witnesses, since four named experts cannot fill the three rebuttal seats the reporting describes.
The sentence — being very emotional and upset because the praise heaped on McLean was misleading — is the stated reason for Zeizel's appearance at a January 2023 news conference, which was the Commonwealth's best material on his objectivity. If it belongs to the excluded witness instead, his explanation for the news conference is unsourced.
East Idaho News prints the sentence at 11:40 as Zeizel's answer on redirect about the news conference, and again at 12:55 as Emily Thorndike's explanation for posting her TikTok video.
Thorndike's explanation for the video was that what was discussed in court was not aligned with her own experience. Neither outlet reports her saying anything about praise heaped on McLean, and neither reports the sentence from Zeizel.
Most likely a duplication in the live blog rather than two witnesses saying the same thing an hour apart. The August 19 entry carries the sentence for Zeizel with an explicit caution and does not carry it for Thorndike.
The Apple Watch heart rate series is the only physiological record of the defendant's afternoon. The final reading of 57 bpm at 5:23 p.m. is agreed and is what both sides argue from. The day's peak is the shape of everything before it, and a peak of 152 describes a different afternoon from a peak of 123.
The average for the day was in the 80s and 90s and the high was 152.
The readings ranged over seconds; the highest was 123 bpm and the last was at 5:23 p.m. at 57 bpm.
The average was in the high 80s and low 90s; no peak given.
The two figures were published a minute apart by reporters in the same courtroom. East Idaho News also reports a top heart rate of 108 bpm during a morning stair climb, so 123 may be a reading from a narrower window than the whole day. Neither is adopted, and the case reference records no peak.
The Commonwealth's case on the last fortnight is that the defendant was improving. A family member who told investigators the day after the killings that her sister had seemed OK two weeks earlier is direct support for it. Whether she adopted that statement on the stand or declined to recall it changes what the jury can do with it.
Asked whether she recalled telling police the day after the killings that the defendant had seemed OK, Ozga said yes, and added that her sister's texts had seemed to indicate she was better.
Asked whether she told investigators the defendant seemed to be getting better, Ozga answered no, that she did not recall, and that she had been in complete shock.
Sprague pointed out that Ozga had previously told investigators the defendant seemed OK when they saw each other at the birthday party. Neither outlet reports the answer.
The questions the two outlets record are not identical — seemed OK at the party as against seemed to be getting better — so they may be two exchanges rather than one. Her mother was asked a materially identical question on the same afternoon and answered that she did not recall. Not resolved.
Patrick Clancy is the Commonwealth's first witness and the only lay witness to the household in the weeks before January 24. Whether the defense had begun testing his account on the first day or only on the third changes which of his concessions were volunteered on direct and which were drawn out on cross.
Patrick Clancy was already under cross-examination when Judge Sullivan adjourned at about 3 p.m. on July 27, 2026, with the 911 call not yet played.
He was still on direct examination at adjournment and would continue on direct when court resumed Wednesday, with cross-examination still to come.
Reddington's cross-examination ran roughly two hours and concluded at about 3:45 p.m. on July 29, 2026, the day the 911 call was played.
JULY 29, 2026 BACKFILL, AUGUST 21, 2026. Read in full, the July 29 live blogs put the cross-examination beginning that afternoon: the witness retook the stand at about 14:14 and Reddington began at 14:16 (Boston 25), about 14:15 (CBS Boston) or 14:18 (Boston Globe). Nothing in the July 29 coverage places any defense questioning of this witness on July 27, which leaves Boston 25's July 27 entry the only support for the earlier start.
Raised by the July 27, 2026 backfill of August 21, 2026. Three of the four accounts point the same way and Boston 25 appears to be the outlier, but no outlet has been read that places any defense questioning of this witness on July 27, and the conflict is recorded rather than resolved.
Rebecca Jollotta is the Commonwealth witness closest to the seven weeks of psychiatric treatment the defense says failed, and the concessions drawn out of her on cross are among the strongest defense material in the Commonwealth's own case. Whether her evidence ended on August 11 or continued on August 12 determines which day a researcher should search for the end of it.
Jollotta completed direct, cross-examination and the Commonwealth's redirect on August 11, 2026 and stepped down before the jury was sent home that afternoon. Five outlets covering August 11 report her stepping down that day: the Boston Globe, Boston 25, CBS Boston, East Idaho News and boston.com.
Jollotta also testified on August 12, 2026, her evidence continuing from the previous day, on the point that the defendant complained her medications were not working quickly enough and might be making her worse.
The August 12, 2026 coverage has now been read in full — the Boston Globe, Boston 25, boston.com, CBS Boston, East Idaho News and the Patriot Ledger — and none of it places Jollotta on the stand that day. East Idaho News's running witness count for August 12 goes 63 to 68 (Lawlor, Dukes, Daley, Bradley, Stonebridge, Olson), following on without a gap from Jollotta as witness 62 on August 11. The PBS NewsHour piece cited by the old August 12 entry is dated August 12 but reports Jollotta's August 11 testimony, which is the likeliest source of the error.
Raised by the August 11, 2026 backfill of August 21, 2026. The likeliest explanation is that the August 12 outlets carried a recap of Jollotta's evidence alongside the medical examiners who testified that day, and that the recap was read as fresh testimony when the August 12 entry was compiled. That is an explanation, not a finding: the August 12 coverage has not been re-read, and the August 12 entry has not been altered. Anyone reconciling these two entries should read the August 12 live blogs in full first. RESOLVED AUGUST 21, 2026 BY THE AUGUST 12 BACKFILL. The explanation offered above turned out to be right: her evidence ended on August 11. The August 12 entry has been rewritten and no longer lists her, and the PBS source has been dropped from that day. The August 11 entry was not touched.
Callan's cause of death is the one autopsy finding on the youngest child, and a researcher searching for it needs the right sitting day.
Dr. Kimberly Springer testified between about 09:26 and 09:48 on August 6, 2026 about Callan, giving his cause of death as complications of mechanical asphyxia, with autopsy photographs shown to jurors on individual screens at 09:48.
This file's companion day summary for August 12, 2026 also placed Dr. Kimberley Springer on the stand that day on Callan's injuries and cause of death, spelling her forename differently.
Six outlets covering August 12, 2026, read in full, place six witnesses on the stand that day and Springer is not among them. East Idaho News numbers them 63 to 68 with no gap. Boston 25's filed story of August 12 says the medical examiner evidence on Callan had been put before the jury the previous week, which fits August 6.
Raised and resolved by the August 12 backfill of August 21, 2026. Springer testified once, on August 6. The August 12 entry has been rewritten and no longer lists her; the August 6 entry was not touched, and it already recorded that autopsy evidence spanned both dates — which it did, but through Stonebridge and Olson on August 12, not through Springer.
The defense case is that the treatment was uncoordinated and that the over-medication concern raised by an outside program never got back to the person prescribing. Whether the call was made and not returned, or never arrived, is the difference between a missed handoff and a failed one.
No call from Women and Infants ever reached her, and she would certainly have returned one had it come.
Put to the therapist twice on August 12, once by the defense on cross and once by the Commonwealth on redirect, in the form that Women and Infants reached out to Jollotta about the medications on the day of the December 20 interview and got no response. Dukes said she was unaware of it either way.
Dukes did not know why Women and Infants declined the defendant; the Boston Globe reports the program citing concerns about her prescription regimen, and Dukes said it would surprise her to hear the reason given as over-medication.
Recorded by the August 12 backfill of August 21, 2026. Two Commonwealth witnesses on consecutive days. Nothing read reports the Women and Infants side of it — no witness from that program has testified, and the assertion that a call was made reaches the record only as a question put by counsel, which is not evidence. Not resolved here.
Her evidence is the last clinical contact of any kind before the January gap, so the date it stops is the date the treatment record stops.
Four contacts — in person December 2, 2022, then December 5, December 12 and December 19 — plus a call on December 27 about the Women and Infants referral and a call with Patrick Clancy the same day.
Four meetings between late November and early December 2022.
The last encounter was a virtual visit on December 9 in one entry and December 19 in another, in the same live blog.
The intake was on December 2, 2023.
The referral to Women and Infants was made on December 20 and the program declined after interviewing her.
The referral was made on December 12 and the interview at Women and Infants was on December 20.
Recorded by the August 12 backfill of August 21, 2026. The December 2 to December 19 sequence is carried by East Idaho News in full and is consistent with the Boston Globe's and CBS Boston's account of four visits and a December 19 last visit; the 2023 intake year and the December 9 last visit are each carried by a single outlet and each conflicts with that outlet's own other entries. Nothing here is treated as settled and no date has been carried into the treatment chronology in the case reference.
The outlet's running Commonwealth witness number is the only continuous count of the prosecution case in any coverage, and this file cites it witness by witness. If it slips by one, every number after August 12 is off, and so is any attempt to say how far through its list the Commonwealth was on a given day.
East Idaho News numbers August 7's four witnesses 57 (Kimberlee Hardy), 58 (Sarah Carney), 59 (Alia Goodheart) and 60 (Jennifer Tufts). CBS Boston independently calls Sarah Carney the 58th prosecution witness, which agrees.
East Idaho News numbers August 12's six witnesses 63 through 68, ending with Dr. Barbara Olson as witness 68.
East Idaho News numbers August 13's three witnesses 68 (Kyle Pavao), 69 (Timothy Chiappini) and 70 (Joshua McKelligan).
CBS Boston reported at the end of August 13 that seventy witnesses had testified so far, which fits 68-69-70 for this day and not 69-70-71.
East Idaho News numbers Ian Whiffin, the Commonwealth's last witness on August 17, as its 71st.
If August 13 begins at 68 and August 17's Whiffin is 71, then 68, 69, 70, 71 is internally consistent and the August 12 count is one high from some point in that day. Nothing read identifies where. No day's entry has been renumbered; each records the number the outlet gave on the day. AUGUST 7, 2026 BACKFILL, AUGUST 21, 2026. A second outlet corroborates the running count on August 7: CBS Boston independently numbers Sarah Carney 58, matching East Idaho News. The slip of one is therefore somewhere between August 7 and the end of August 12, and not before.
The note is the defendant's own account of her state of mind and the most quoted piece of evidence from August 13. October 2022 puts it before the psychiatric treatment chronology gets under way; late December 2022 or January 2023 puts it in the middle of the medication changes the defense says caused the deterioration. The date changes what the note is evidence of.
The note was created on October 25, 2022.
The note was written in October 2022, without a day.
The note was created in December 2022 and modified in January 2023.
The note was last updated on December 26, 2022.
CNN describes two notes: one containing the parenting passages and the affirmations, last modified in early November 2022, and a second created in late December 2022 and last modified on January 23, 2023 about prescription medication.
The likeliest explanation is that more than one note was read and that some outlets merged them, with the December-into-January dates belonging to the medication note rather than the parenting note. Nothing read states that, and it is not recorded here as resolved.
Every disputed January 24 time and every disputed search date rests on an extraction of the defendant's iPhone. If two extractions of the same device disagree, that is a reason the reported times and dates disagree, and it goes to the weight of the whole digital case.
Reddington put to Chiappini that his own extraction was an Advanced Logical extraction performed on January 30, that a Trooper Rabbit performed a Full File Extraction of the same phone, and that the two did not match. East Idaho News does not record Chiappini's answer.
No other outlet read for August 13 carries the exchange at all.
The case reference lists a Lt. Joseph Rabbitt among the people it cannot place on a confirmed date. He is not recorded as having testified.
These are the searches the defense relies on to show she recognized what was happening to her, and the Commonwealth relies on to show she knew what psychosis was. The difference between January 15, 19, 20 and 23 is the difference between a week before and the night before.
Schizophrenia searched on January 15, 2023; psychosis as both a keyword and a Google search on January 20; intrusive thoughts on January 23.
Schizophrenia searched on January 19, 2023, with psychosis the following day.
Reddington asked about the term intrusive on January 20, 2023, and the Boston Globe headlines the hallucinations search as five days before the killings, which is January 19.
Hallucinations searched on January 19, 2023; bipolar disorder on December 29, 2022 and January 13, 2023.
On redirect the Commonwealth established that the January 19, 2023 search was specifically for psychosis symptoms; the case reference records January 19 searches for symptoms of postpartum psychosis and for psychosis symptoms from the Whiffin report.
The Commonwealth's account of that morning is a chain of clicks ending at a page about suicide methods and then at a page about a bridge people jumped from. If the timestamps do not run in the order the chain requires, the chain as described cannot be read off the timestamps alone.
Facebook at 9:40 a.m., Spotify shortly after, a Google search for Tom Hall at 9:44 a.m., his Wikipedia page, the suicide methods page, then a click to the Grafton Bridge page at 9:48 a.m.
Facebook at 9:40 a.m., a Spotify search for Tom Hall at 9:44 a.m., a Google search, the Wikipedia death section, then the suicide methods page accessed at 9:54 a.m., with the Grafton Bridge hyperlink clicked after that.
On redirect Sprague fixed the Grafton Bridge visit at 9:48 a.m.; Boston 25 records the last activity on the machine that morning at 9:48 a.m. and Reddington putting the whole sequence between 9:40 and 10 a.m.
A DATE VARIANT FROM THE JULY 29, 2026 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF PATRICK CLANCY. Reddington put the Tom Hall sequence to him that day and Boston 25 dated the search August 22, 2022, one day before the August 23, 2022 date the forensic evidence of August 13, 2026 gives. The Boston Globe's account of the same cross says only August 2022. The device also differs within that day: a shared tablet to the Boston Globe, his laptop to Boston 25, against the Microsoft Surface Pro identified on August 13.
East Idaho News's 9:54 a.m. for the suicide methods page sits after the 9:48 a.m. Grafton Bridge click it is supposed to have produced. One of the two figures is likely a live-blogging slip, but nothing read says which.
The defense's answer to the suicide-methods browsing is that the defendant was out of the house taking a child to the doctor while it happened. Whether the appointment was at 9:45 or 10:15 decides whether she could have been at home for a sequence that ran from 9:40 to 9:48 or 9:54.
Reddington put the appointment at 10:15 a.m., saying the two-year-old was examined then for ear pain.
The calendar entry itself, made on August 14, 2022, was a 9:45 a.m. ear check for Dawson and a 10 a.m. vaccination for Callan.
Boston 25 records the two sides disputing whether the appointment was at 10 or 10:15, and Sprague establishing on redirect that the drive from the house to the doctor's office in Kingston takes about four minutes.
Whether the defense has had at the Commonwealth's only named rebuttal expert decides whether his opinion has been tested in front of the jury, and it bears on whether the evidence can close in time for closing arguments on Monday.
A contentious cross-examination of Dr. Avram Mack by Kevin Reddington followed his direct testimony. No time, question, answer or length is given.
Were still reporting the Commonwealth's direct examination of Mack at their latest entries when this was first recorded — the Boston Globe at 14:43 and Boston 25 at 14:50 — with no cross-examination mentioned. East Idaho News labeled the questioning after the lunch recess cross-examination at 14:20 while describing the Commonwealth as the questioner, which did not fit its own account, since Mack is the Commonwealth's witness.
RESOLVED the same afternoon. The Boston Globe reached the cross-examination at 14:50 and East Idaho News at 14:52, both reporting Reddington questioning Mack on his compensation and on his reliance on Clancy's own account; the Boston Globe adds his road-race question on mania at 14:59. CBS Boston was ahead of the other blogs, not at odds with them, which is the pattern these live blogs have shown against each other all day. Boston 25 had not reached the cross at 14:50, its latest entry. Nothing here was wrong; one outlet was simply first.
How long the Commonwealth has had its rebuttal psychiatrist bears on the defense's suggestion that the opinion was bought, which is the line Kevin Reddington opened at the end of the cross-examination before the prosecution objected. The two dates sit close together and may well describe two different events, but no outlet says so.
Mack's first communication with the prosecution came in late 2024, through a retention firm, Park Dietz & Associates.
Mack was retained by the government in early 2025. The same outlet reported at 15:22 that Mack acknowledged the Plymouth district attorney's office had contacted him through a retention firm called Park Dietz and Associates, corroborating the firm but attaching no date to that contact.
Both accounts come from the same passage of the cross-examination, minutes apart on blogs that have run a few minutes out of step with each other all day. A first approach and a formal retention are not the same event, so the two reports may both be right; neither outlet gives both dates, and neither date is corroborated, so this is recorded rather than resolved. What is corroborated is the route: the Boston Globe at 15:22 has Mack acknowledging that the Plymouth district attorney's office reached him through Park Dietz and Associates, which is the firm East Idaho News named, so the retention firm is no longer a single outlet's account. The dates remain in conflict.
The weight of her account of a reported command hallucination turns partly on how close and how sustained the contact was, and the same number is reported as two different things.
Fourteen visits at Brigham and Women's Hospital, further visits at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and about 200 at Tewksbury State Hospital.
More than 200 visits in total since the killings, across all of the facilities, with visits continuing at the state hospital.
About 200 meetings over roughly three years.
The day-summary for 08-20 records both readings. Neither is treated as the figure.
Whether the jury was told to disregard the chaplain's description of continuing grief bears on what the defense actually got in through this witness.
The Commonwealth objected to the characterization and Judge Sullivan ruled that it be stricken from the record.
Prosecutors objected, Judge Sullivan sustained the objection and directed Reddington to move on.
Prosecutors objected to the characterization but the judge permitted it.
Two outlets have the objection succeeding and one has it failing. No outlet reports the ground stated for the objection or any response from the defense.
The case reference records the charges as three counts of murder and nothing else, which is what the trial judge told the jurors on the first day. Two outlets add a second set of three counts on top of that and they do not name the same offense.
Three counts of murder under Mass. G.L. c. 265 s.1, with no other counts recorded. Judge Sullivan told the jurors on 07-27 that Clancy faced three counts of murder.
Three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of assault and battery.
Three murder counts and three strangulation counts, the latter carrying up to five years each.
Recorded because it is a conflict with data/case-reference.json, not resolved here. Neither extra set of counts is reported as having been put to the jury, and the verdict slip was still being argued over on 08-20.
Whether the Commonwealth got a redirect examination, and what it covered, decides whether the defense's concessions on the medication diary and on the days he was away stood unanswered when the Commonwealth's first witness left the stand.
Reddington concluded his cross-examination at about 3:45 p.m.; ADA Jennifer Sprague began a redirect at about 3:49 p.m., in which the Commonwealth suggested the defendant was the more likely source of the clicks that reached the suicide-methods page; the defense finished its questioning at 3:59 p.m.; the testimony ended at 4:15 p.m. and the judge dismissed the jurors at 4:17 p.m.
Redirect examination by the prosecutor began at 3:48 p.m. and included putting the drop from the bedroom window to the ground at twelve feet rather than the twenty the witness had given the 911 dispatcher. The witness finished at 4:12 p.m. and the court day ended at 4:13 p.m.
The blog marks no end to the cross-examination and no redirect at all, and runs the afternoon's questioning through to the witness stepping down at 4:19 p.m.
Raised by the July 29, 2026 backfill of August 21, 2026. Two outlets have a redirect and one does not distinguish it; CBS Boston's 3:59 p.m. entry implies a recross that no outlet describes. The three end times span seven minutes and are not reconciled here.
The recording is the Commonwealth's most powerful exhibit and cannot be released publicly, so its length is one of the few checkable facts about it on the public record.
About six minutes.
Seven minutes.
Recorded by the July 29, 2026 backfill. Nothing read reconciles the two figures, and the recording is under a court order barring reproduction, so neither can be checked against the exhibit.
The neck wound is one of the two injuries the Commonwealth calls superficial and the defense calls a genuine suicide attempt, and it was photographed at South Shore Hospital. Two officers who saw the same untreated wound within minutes of each other put it on opposite sides.
Cuts to both wrists and to the LEFT side of her neck.
Cuts to the wrist and to the RIGHT side of her neck, bleeding but not profusely.
Superficial cuts on the neck around the collar, side unspecified.
No outlet remarks on the difference and neither officer was cross-examined. Later evidence describes a cut running the full width of the neck (Det. Maffeo, July 31, 2026), which may make the point moot, but the two July 30 accounts are recorded as given.
The defense told the court, in open session, that the prosecutors trying a murder case had mocked the defendant as she was wheeled out of the courtroom sobbing. The district attorney's office denies the words and has given two different accounts of who spoke them. The judge made no finding either way and issued a general warning instead, so nothing on the record settles it.
Prosecutors were picked up on a hot microphone saying shut her up, referring to the defendant, during Thursday's autopsy testimony as she was wheeled sobbing from the courtroom.
The office reviewed the courtroom video. What was said was shut it off, meaning the screen displaying the autopsy photographs, not shut her up.
The district attorney's office first attributed the remark to one of its own prosecutors and then corrected that. boston.com describes the correction as attributing it to an unidentified person in the courtroom; CBS Boston describes it as an unknown court employee rather than a prosecutor.
Attribution of the Handmaid's Tale remark differs. The Boston Globe attributes to Judge Sullivan the statement that this is not The Handmaid's Tale where you tape her mouth shut and that he is not doing that at all. CBS Boston attributes the same image to Reddington, as an argument that the defendant's mouth cannot be taped shut.
The recording itself has not been reported as played in court, produced, or made an exhibit. Judge Sullivan's response was an admonition to the whole courtroom — no inappropriate or disruptive comments, microphones everywhere, immediate ejection and a bar for the rest of the trial, no warnings and no yellow cards — and no outlet read reports him finding that anything was or was not said. Recorded as two accounts, unresolved.
Hardy is one of the last people outside the family reported as seeing Cora and Dawson before January 24, and her account of them as their usual selves is part of the Commonwealth's picture of an ordinary household in the final week.
The children were dropped off at the club on January 13 and January 17, 2023, and were their usual selves, playing with dolls and coloring.
The last club visit was January 19, with Hardy describing Cora drawing pictures before pickup.
No outlet remarks on the difference and the point was not contested on cross-examination. Both accounts are recorded as given.
This is the appointment at which the defendant, on Remeron, reported intrusive thoughts described as a feeling that she was going to die, said she was close to suicidal and felt very hopeless, and told Tufts she kept reaching out to different people and then not sticking with the plan. It is also the appointment at which Tufts raised bipolar disorder and set it aside. Where it sits in December changes how fast the deterioration ran in the three weeks before the McLean admission.
December 1, 2022.
December 21, 2022.
On cross-examination the same witness was taken through the December 1, 2022 appointment and agreed that the defendant reported depression, numbness and intrusive thoughts including the feeling that she was going to die, denied being suicidal but said she was close to it, and used the word hopeless. Every outlet read on the August 10 cross places this material on December 1.
All three outlets place the Massachusetts General emergency room visit at a separate appointment on December 16, 2022, which sits between the two candidate dates. Whether Tufts described two December appointments or one is not clear from any account read. Not resolved. NARROWED BY THE AUGUST 10 BACKFILL, AUGUST 21, 2026. The Boston Globe's account of the August 10 cross-examination places the going-to-die evidence squarely on December 1, 2022, alongside the hopelessness and the close-to-suicidal answer, and no outlet's account of that cross puts it in late December. That leaves the Globe's own August 7 report of December 21 as the outlier. Left open rather than resolved: no outlet has reconciled the two dates, and the possibility of two December appointments described in similar terms has not been excluded.
It fixes the start of the South Shore perinatal treatment, and therefore how long the defendant was under two prescribers at once. The fluoxetine start date and the November 25 medication switch are both counted from it.
A screening telephone call in November 2022 with the intake appointment booked for the following day, November 21, 2022. The Boston Globe's live blog reports the call and the next-day intake; East Idaho News gives the intake as beginning November 21; and the prescription record has fluoxetine 10mg started on November 21.
An initial screening on November 22, 2022.
This file's August 10, 2026 entry previously carried the November 22 date. November 22, 2022 is separately and independently the date of an appointment with Dr. Jennifer Tufts at which the defendant told Tufts she was being seen at the South Shore perinatal clinic, which is a possible source of the conflation. Not resolved; the entry now records the screening call and the next-day intake and flags Boston 25's date.
Only that the record should not attribute an examination to the wrong advocate. The Commonwealth divides witnesses between two prosecutors, and the same two outlets disagree the same way on the following day.
ADA Jennifer Sprague conducted the redirect examination of Dr. Jennifer Tufts on August 10, 2026.
ADA Shanan Buckingham conducted it, and put the sertraline suicide warning to the witness as applying really to adolescents.
The Boston Globe says only that it was the prosecution's redirect. The identical disagreement between the same outlets recurs on August 11, 2026 over who conducted Rebecca Jollotta's direct examination, where the Boston Globe and the Patriot Ledger name Buckingham and CBS Boston names Sprague. See also laposata-cross-examiner. Not resolved.
Three defense witnesses turn on it, including the forensic pathologist who testified on August 18. Whether the judge admitted them outright, or admitted two and reserved a competency determination on the third, and whether he reserved a voir dire on the two, changes what was still open going into the defense case.
Judge Sullivan allowed the defense to add three doctors to its witness list. He allowed the two who would describe the injuries the defendant suffered jumping from a second-story window, Dr. Elizabeth Laposata and Dr. Michael Vulfovich, but said he would hear their testimony first before deciding what the jury would be exposed to; Reddington may also call a third doctor, Dr. Donald Condie. The ruling runs three pages and finds the late addition was not an attempt to ambush the prosecutors and shows no bad faith.
The judge allowed two of the three. The third would be questioned by the judge at the end of Monday or on Tuesday to determine his competency as a witness.
The two accounts agree on the three names and on the finding of no bad faith, and disagree on which witnesses the reserved determination attached to. All three doctors did eventually testify for the defense: Dr. Vulfovich on August 17, 2026, and Dr. Condie and Dr. Laposata on August 18, 2026. Not resolved.
Only that an examination should not be attributed to the wrong advocate. The same two prosecutors are swapped by the same outlets on other days.
ADA Shanan Buckingham conducted the direct examination of Lt. Joseph Rabbitt and put the bottles in front of him one at a time.
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague began running through the various bottles with Rabbitt identifying the counts.
The identical disagreement between the same outlets recurs on August 10, 2026 (Dr. Tufts's redirect) and August 11, 2026 (Rebecca Jollotta's direct). See tufts-redirect-prosecutor. Not resolved.
The stains on the shingles below the bedroom window are the physical basis for the competing accounts of how the defendant left the window - a jump, or a lowered descent. Whether the re-collected samples were blood at all bears on what the DNA result the following day was drawn from.
Maureen Hartnett returned to the Duxbury house on June 15, 2023 to collect samples from the red-brown stains on the shingles at the exterior back of the house, below the window. Those samples tested negative for blood, and she acknowledged the stains would have degraded over five months of weather.
Hartnett identified three shingles removed from the Clancy home that contained blood stains, taken for further analysis.
Blood recovered from the house shingles and from the ground below the bedroom window matched the defendant.
boston.com reports only that Hartnett went back because investigators requested additional testing of the shingle stains, and does not say what the testing showed. The three accounts may be reconcilable - a presumptive screen and a DNA analysis are different tests, and stains collected on the night of the killings are not the stains collected in June - but no source read says so, and nothing here is resolved.
Whether the cuts to the wrists were a serious attempt on her own life or a gesture is one of the Commonwealth's routes to arguing that the suicide was staged. The two medical witnesses the Commonwealth called on consecutive days described the same wounds in terms that do not sit together, and neither was asked about the other.
The report she reviewed described cuts that went through skin into exposed fat but did not reach muscle, artery or tendon. She saw no deep cuts on the wrists, and once the defendant's body temperature was brought up the lacerations needed no further treatment.
No cut on either wrist penetrated into the subcutaneous fatty tissue. One laceration on the right wrist, about three centimeters, was deep enough to require three sutures, and one on the left, about two centimeters, required a single suture; the rest were cleaned, dressed or taped.
Only one laceration, on the right wrist, required sutures, and it was about three centimeters deep.
On cross-examination Negri agreed with another clinician's notation putting the right wrist wound at three and a half centimeters rather than three.
The two clinicians saw her at different hospitals on different days - Carpio at South Shore on the night of January 24, 2023, Negri at Brigham and Women's on January 25 - and a wound described as needing no treatment on one night can be sutured the next day without either account being false. But the descriptions of depth are opposite in terms, and no outlet read reports either witness being asked about the other's account. Nothing here is resolved.
Which child's DNA was on which band is the sort of fact a reader carries away as settled. One outlet's account of the same testimony carries a qualification that the others drop, and the qualification is the difference between an identification and an inclusion.
Dawson appeared to contribute to the DNA profile taken from the middle of the yellow band, with Callan and Patrick Clancy also appearing as inclusions - but under the stated assumptions those individuals cannot be present in the mixture together, because relatives share a great deal of DNA. The black band was a complex mixture of three contributors with strong support for Cora.
Stashyn matched the DNA from the middle of each band to one child: Dawson to the yellow band, Cora to the black band, Callan to the blue band.
The blue band carried DNA from every member of the family, with Callan the major contributor in its middle section. This came in by the parties' stipulation rather than by testimony.
Not necessarily a conflict about what the witness said - a one-line summary of a mixture interpretation will lose the assumptions - but the two renderings support different degrees of certainty and both are recorded. Separately, a photograph identified on July 30, 2026 shows a yellow exercise band beside Dawson's body, which is physical placement rather than DNA identification.
This is the only account read of the defendant describing a medication side effect in her own words to a friend, and the defense theory is prescribed-medication-induced psychosis. Whether she said it days before the killings or two months afterwards in a rehabilitation hospital is the difference between contemporaneous evidence of drug effect and a retrospective remark.
The defendant texted her a few days before the children were killed to say a medication had caused dark thoughts, that she was being weaned off it and trying new ones, and that the tone was hopeful. On cross-examination Bevins placed the exchange toward the end of January.
Bevins stated the defendant mentioned the medication causing dark thoughts during a March 2023 visit at a rehabilitation hospital.
Bevins described both a text before the killings and a March 2023 visit at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in the same testimony, and turnto10's single paragraph may simply have merged them. Four outlets place the remark in the text. Nothing is resolved here; the day account records both.
Cora telling her teacher that her mother was in the hospital and that she missed her is the only account read of how the McLean admission looked to the children. The date fixes which admission it was.
Cora made the remark at the end of December or the beginning of January, and the defendant was admitted to McLean Hospital in early January 2023.
Cora reported that her mother was hospitalized at McLean Hospital in December 2022.
Cora told her that her mother was in the hospital and that she missed her; no date given.
This project's treatment chronology places the McLean inpatient admission in the first days of January 2023, discharged January 5. CBS Boston's December 2022 date is not corroborated by any other outlet read for that day. Recorded, not resolved.