A planned half day, and the end of the Commonwealth's forensic case. Five witnesses in under three hours - the physician assistant who stitched the defendant's wrists, the crime lab analyst who screened her blood, the outside toxicologist who measured what was in it, the DNA analyst who worked the exercise bands, and the family's former part-time nanny - and the jury was gone by about ten past noon. Judge William Sullivan had told the panel to expect a half day when it came in, and the bench had signaled it the afternoon before. Nothing in the reporting read for this pass supports the earlier note in this file that court rose early because the judge had other matters to take up, and that line has been removed.
THE WRISTS. Eitan Negri, a physician assistant at Brigham and Women's Hospital in January 2023 and since gone from the hospital, examined and treated the defendant there on January 25, the day after the killings, and repaired the lacerations on her wrists. ADA Shanan Buckingham took him through it. He found multiple injuries; the cuts to her neck were superficial and he did not repair them. Nothing was actively bleeding by the time he saw her, the wrists having been dressed and covered already. On the right wrist there were several cuts, one of them deep enough to need suturing - about three centimeters, closed with three stitches - and the rest cleaned, dressed or taped. The left wrist had a single similar but shorter linear cut, about two centimeters, closed with one stitch. The Boston Globe records him telling the jury that no cut on either wrist went through into the subcutaneous fat. THAT DOES NOT SIT WITH WHAT THE SURGEON SAID THE DAY BEFORE: Dr. Cristina Carpio of South Shore Hospital told this jury on August 4 that the report she reviewed described cuts going through skin into exposed fat, and that they needed no treatment. See the wrist-cut-depth entry in the evidence file. ON CROSS THE WITNESS WENT THE DEFENSE'S WAY. Reddington put it to him that he was not suggesting for a moment that the defendant could have got up and walked out of the hospital after his stitches; Negri said no, sir. Asked whether she was critically ill when he saw her, he said yes, sir. He agreed with another clinician's notation putting the right wrist wound at three and a half centimeters rather than three. He had no part in the massive transfusion or the breathing tube. On redirect he explained that deep in the medical notes describes direction - down into the skin rather than across the surface - and is an objective measure rather than a judgment about severity; boston.com attributes the drawing out of that same point to ADA Buckingham.
THE SCREEN. Nicholas Roberts, formerly of the toxicology unit at the State Police crime lab, had the blood, plasma and urine drawn from the defendant screened in his unit. No alcohol, and on boston.com's account no marijuana either. Benzodiazepines were present in both blood and urine: the Boston Globe records him saying at least four or five and naming each, and Boston 25 lists five - diazepam, nordiazepam, oxazepam, temazepam and lorazepam. Boston 25 also records the limit of what the screen could do, which is that it could not say whether those five came from one prescription or from several. He listed the other prescription drugs detected and told the jury that benzodiazepines tend to be central nervous system depressants and that one of the substances found is typically used for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. On cross Reddington called it a large amount of drugs; Roberts said he had seen more, but agreed there were quite a few.
THE QUANTIFICATION, AND IT IS THE COMMONWEALTH'S ANSWER TO OVER-MEDICATION. Dr. Justin Brower of NMS Laboratories, the private Pennsylvania laboratory the crime lab sends samples to, was asked to measure four psychiatric medications in the defendant's blood. boston.com is the only outlet read that published the numbers: lamotrigine 6.1 micrograms per milliliter, mirtazapine 200 nanograms per milliliter, quetiapine 1,800 nanograms per milliliter and trazodone 0.44 micrograms per milliliter. Only the quetiapine was above range, and only slightly - elevated, he said, about double what one might expect, but not a toxic and not a lethal level. Asked by ADA Buckingham about toxic or suicidal concentrations, he put suicidal quetiapine concentrations in the region of ten thousand nanograms per milliliter; ABC News renders the same point as the level found being about ten times less than the level considered toxic. The other three were therapeutic. The benzodiazepines were at or below expectation - boston.com has diazepam sub-therapeutic and lorazepam therapeutic or slightly lower, Boston 25 has both lower than expected. His summary was that people trying to take their own life usually swallow handfuls of pills, and that this was not consistent with that. Asked whether the concentrations gave him a sense that the person could have stopped breathing, he said not necessarily, adding that he would want to know more about her overall condition. AND THE NARCAN POINT. None of the drugs found acts on opioid receptors, so the naloxone the Pembroke firefighter-paramedic gave her after seeing constricted pupils would have had nothing to work on.
WHAT THE DEFENSE TOOK FROM THE SAME WITNESS. Reddington had Brower agree that the numbers alone do not tell the tale of what happened to a particular person - correct, they do not tell the entire story. He had him agree that the lamotrigine sat right in the middle of the therapeutic range and that the mirtazapine and trazodone readings were consistent with the drugs being taken as prescribed, and that the elevated antipsychotic was high to him but not necessarily toxic or lethal depending on the dose. And boston.com alone records Reddington raising context: that whoever ran the testing could have been told the blood came from a woman who had jumped from a window and cut herself. Brower allowed that it was possible and that it does happen, rarely, in high-profile cases. He left the stand asking the judge whether he was released.
AN UNEXPLAINED BREAK. CBS Boston records Judge Sullivan abruptly calling a break at about 10:12, in the middle of Brower's testimony, and lasting about twenty minutes, and says it is not clear what prompted it. No other outlet read explains it; the Boston Globe simply notes a morning recess and the live blogs pick up again between 10:30 and 10:35.
THE DNA THAT CAME IN BY AGREEMENT. With Brower down and before the analyst was called, the parties' DNA stipulations were put before the jury; East Idaho News records Judge Sullivan reading the agreement aloud. Two things came in that way, on Boston 25's account: a red-brown stain on the basement floor was Cora's, and the blue exercise band carried DNA from every member of the family with Callan the major contributor in its middle section. No exhibit number was reported for it. This is the August 4 stipulation doing its work - the Commonwealth needed one DNA witness where it had listed many.
THE DNA THAT DID NOT. Katarina Stashyn, formerly of the crime lab's DNA unit, was taken through the rest by ADA Jennifer Sprague. The swabs from the ends of the yellow band gave a mixture including male DNA, with Dawson one contributor and two unknown individuals. THE MIDDLE OF THE YELLOW BAND IS REPORTED TWO WAYS. The Boston Globe has Dawson appearing to contribute with Callan and Patrick Clancy also included, and then the qualification that under the stated assumptions those individuals cannot be present in the mixture together, because relatives share a great deal of DNA. Boston 25 and CBS Boston report the same evidence as a clean match of the middle of each band to one child - Dawson to yellow, Cora to black, Callan to blue - with Boston 25 adding the defense point that the whole family had handled the bands. Both are recorded; see the band-dna-yellow entry in the evidence file. The black band was a complex mixture of three contributors with strong support for Cora. Stashyn also reviewed the samples from the shingles on the outside of the house below the bedroom window: the defendant appeared to be the sole contributor, which bears on the unresolved question from the day before about whether the June 2023 shingle samples were blood at all.
DNA GOBBLEDYGOOK. As Sprague asked the witness to explain what a nonillion is and to estimate the number of people on earth, Reddington objected that this was typical DNA gobbledygook, and pointed out that both sides had already agreed the children's DNA and the defendant's DNA were on the bands. Sprague objected to the objection and called it ridiculous. Judge Sullivan overruled Reddington and called the lawyers to sidebar, and the witness went on.
THE NANNY, WHO WAS THE COMMONWEALTH'S 45TH WITNESS. Elaine Rossi of Kingston, a nanny of fifteen years, answered a Facebook post the defendant put up in July 2022 looking for part-time help. She started in September, three days a week from half past eight to half past one, and the arrangement was that she would take over the care of eight-month-old Callan when his mother went back to nursing in November; she also did food preparation, light housekeeping and laundry, and the older children were usually at school. She and the defendant communicated by text and through a notebook left in the kitchen with the day's instructions - sleep, feeding, schedule - and Rossi agreed with ADA Buckingham that the defendant was very particular about the baby's routine. The children called her Lainey.
WHAT SHE KNEW, AND WHAT SHE DID NOT. The defendant told her she was suffering from postpartum, that she was seeing doctors, and that she was going to stop nursing Callan because she was about to start a new medication. Rossi saw prescription bottles about the house; the Boston Globe places the medications in a kitchen cabinet. She saw the defendant losing a lot of weight and said so to her. She knew about the trouble sleeping and knew she had moved down to sleep in the basement. Beyond that she saw nothing: no change in the defendant's demeanor or presentation, nothing that worried her about the children. WJAR records her telling the jury she did not really know much about postpartum illness but always asked how she was doing. She did not know about the emergency room visits or about the suicidal thinking. She did not recall seeing the defendant exercising in the basement, and she was not aware that the return-to-work date had moved from October to November.
THE ANSWERS THE COMMONWEALTH WANTED. Asked by Buckingham whether she had any concerns about the defendant's interactions with the children, she said none at all, she was a wonderful mom; asked whether she ever had any concern that the children were not safe, she said no; and asked whether the defendant had ever spoken to her about intrusive thoughts or about harming herself, she said no. Boston 25 and East Idaho News place that last exchange on redirect after the cross-examination; the Boston Globe groups the same denial with Reddington's questioning.
THE ANSWERS THE DEFENSE WANTED. Reddington asked whether she had found the detailed instructions overbearing, or an attempt to exert control over her - not at all, twice, and she rejected the same suggestion about the way vegetables were to be cut. Both Boston 25's filed story and WJAR describe the Commonwealth's direct examination as having put the instructions forward as evidence of a controlling and manipulative woman. He then took her to what she told the State Police when they interviewed her on March 1, 2023: that she observed a wonderful mom who loved her kids, who was very concerned about their safety and about Callan's eating and sleeping. Asked whether she remembered telling the troopers she loved her Lindsay, she asked back whether she loved Lindsay, and then said she did. She said she left on wonderful terms, that she stayed in touch afterward and exchanged holiday greetings, and that she kept sending videos of the children, for which the defendant was always grateful.
THE CHILDREN, AND THE VIDEO. Cora was sweet and loved arts and crafts - a girly-girl, in the Associated Press's rendering. Dawson was full of energy, rambunctious, funny, silly. Callan was the happiest, sweetest, easiest baby, and just a love. Prosecutors played a short cellphone video Rossi had sent the defendant on September 9, 2022, of Callan drinking a bottle. Reddington objected to it and Judge Sullivan called a sidebar; three minutes later the video went up on the courtroom monitor, so it was not kept out, though no outlet read reports the ruling in terms. The defendant, in her wheelchair, covered her face with both hands and wept as it played, and kept her head in her hands through the rest of the testimony, her shoulders shaking; the Boston Globe records that she did not look up when Rossi left the stand.
HOW THE JOB ENDED, WHICH IS REPORTED FOUR WAYS AND DOES NOT QUITE LINE UP. boston.com has Rossi arriving after Thanksgiving expecting the defendant to be resting after a labor and delivery shift at Massachusetts General Hospital, finding her in the kitchen instead, and being told she would not be going back to work. East Idaho News has Patrick and Lindsay Clancy coming in from a walk together and telling her they were letting her go because Lindsay was not returning to work and would be home with the children. The Boston Globe has the defendant saying after Thanksgiving that she would not return, and both parents telling Rossi shortly afterward that they would provide the childcare themselves. The Associated Press records Rossi saying she was not told why the defendant chose to stay home. CBS Boston and the Boston Globe end the employment in early December 2022; Boston 25's filed story describes the period as September through Thanksgiving. Rossi never had a safety concern in any of it.
THE ROOM, AND THE CLOCK. The Boston Globe records the jurors listening intently and Boston 25 that they were fully engaged during Rossi's evidence. East Idaho News stamps the jury excused until Thursday at nine at 12:05 and the proceedings ending at 12:07, with the defendant weeping at the defense table; Boston 25 has adjournment at 12:06 and the Boston Globe has Judge Sullivan dismissing the jurors shortly after noon. Boston 25's filed story says the medical examiner evidence about the children's deaths was expected the next day; that is the outlet's expectation and not a schedule set from the bench in any account read.
