A full day and eleven witnesses, numbered 46 through 56 in East Idaho News's Commonwealth count. It began behind a lengthy sidebar and with Dr. Kimberly Springer of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, who had performed the autopsy on eight-month-old Callan on January 29, 2023. She described the therapeutic apparatus still in place, abrasions to the left and front of the neck and to the forehead, petechial hemorrhages on the face and eyelids and fresh scabbing on the head, found the death consistent with ligature strangulation and gave the cause of death as complications of mechanical asphyxia — complications because the child had a heartbeat from January 24 until January 27. Judge Sullivan warned the jury about the photographs before they went up, and the Boston Globe reports him telling jurors they cannot decide the case on emotion; the photographs went to the jurors' individual screens with the public monitor switched off, and were admitted over a defense objection. There was no cross-examination. The defendant sobbed audibly, two jurors wiped tears, and the judge called an unscheduled recess. The rest of the day belonged to the people around the family. Dr. Lindsay Rosshirt, the children's lead pediatrician since 2019, had seen Cora that same morning for a five-year well-child visit, called it a very normal visit, described the mother as appropriate with no tears and no flat affect, and recommended MiraLAX for constipation with a follow-up in two weeks — which accounts for the MiraLAX search that afternoon. On cross she said she had always thought the defendant a good mom, and agreed she had not known the defendant was seeing a psychiatrist or taking prescribed medication. Three Learning Sprouts teachers followed: Susan Fraone on Dawson's harder drop-offs from mid-October 2022 and a conversation around Thanksgiving in which the defendant seemed fine; Susan Bertolo on Cora's repeated bathroom trips the day before the killings, the defendant's answer that there was a doctor's appointment the next day, and Cora telling her she missed her mother while her mother was in hospital; and Stephanie Williams, who lifted an unwell Cora off her cot into the defendant's arms the day before and described a loving mother. Andrea Hennigan, a labor and delivery nurse who worked beside her at Massachusetts General for seven years, described a June 2022 visit at which she seemed very good, a November lunch at which she reported insomnia, brain fog, anxiety and that she was in a difficult mental state and could not go back to work, a January 2 message saying she was in an intense program, and a January 23 reply saying she was out of the program, still working with a psychiatrist and having a bad reaction to some medication — hopeful throughout. Bethany DeCollibus, a marriage and family therapist and weekly friend, traced tiredness after Callan's birth into sleep trouble that did not improve, a November dinner at which the defendant was engaged and hopeful but anxious, and Cora's January birthday party, where the defendant said she felt like a zombie; DeCollibus said she did not look like one, and had never heard of suicidal thoughts, thoughts of harming anyone, voices or intrusive thoughts. Amy Bevins, a friend of twenty-nine years, recounted a text a few days before the killings about a medication that had caused dark thoughts and was being tapered, in a tone she called hopeful, and a March 2023 visit in rehabilitation where they played Uno, the defendant never mentioned her children, and her affect was neutral. Christopher Clancy, the father-in-law, said she was very mothering and protective, quiet at Thanksgiving with a blank stare at times, all right on Christmas Eve, and that he had offered to take the children overnight and been declined; on cross he agreed she was a very good mother in an all-American family, that he knew of her sleeplessness and an emergency-room visit, that his wife had referred her to someone, and that his son was very concerned and confided in him. Kyle Carney, Patrick's college friend, had them over on January 22 and found her quieter than normal but otherwise ordinary. Det. Sgt. Andrew Chiachio of the State Police closed the day: CVS Kingston surveillance putting Patrick in the store from 17:32 to 17:38 on January 24, ThreeV surveillance the Boston Globe puts at 5:54 p.m., the route mapped on his own phone, a June 2023 warrant for blood-stained shingles, a DNA sample taken at the state hospital on May 15, 2024, and Exhibit 217 — a May 2021 post in the Facebook group Parenting for Littles in which the defendant, writing about a nineteen-month-old Dawson, said everything with him was a battle. On cross he agreed he had found nothing suggesting she had ever been abusive toward her children. The jury was excused at about 2:43 and the court came back at three o'clock for the defense motion to call three medical experts, which Judge Sullivan did not decide that day.
