Trial day 18 of 28 · Friday · Commonwealth rests; defense opens

August 21, 2026

The defense's psychiatric expert, testifying by video after a thirty-five minute connection failure, told the jury Clancy was psychotic on the day she killed her children, that she heard a voice commanding the killings and felt her body taken over by an external force, and — in an opinion three outlets carry — that she was unable to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law. On cross-examination the Commonwealth put his own writing on faked symptoms to him and contrasted Clancy with Andrea Yates. The defense rested at about 11:52. The Commonwealth's rebuttal case opened minutes later with a psychiatrist of its own, Dr. Avram Mack, who held the stand through the afternoon and gave the jury the mirror image of the defense case: a major depressive episode rather than bipolar disorder, no mania, no psychotic symptoms, an onset outside the DSM's postpartum window, and conduct on January 24 he called methodical and goal-directed. At about 14:44 he gave the opinion the Commonwealth called him for — that Clancy retained the capacity for criminal responsibility — and outlets now carry him on both limbs of the McHoul standard. Kevin Reddington's cross-examination began at about 14:50 and went at the finding that there was never any mania, and at Mack's reliance on an account he took from Clancy herself in a psychiatric hospital. Late in the afternoon the cross reached how the Commonwealth came to retain him — through a firm called Park Dietz and Associates — and the prosecution's objection to that line was sustained; by 15:28 Reddington had turned to whether a psychiatrist whose work has been in child and adolescent mental health and addiction is qualified to speak to postpartum conditions at all. His evidence was still running at the latest reporting.

Coverage: reported. Multiple outlets described this day's proceedings. This is a summary of press reporting, not a transcript and not a record of what anyone said. All trial days · This day at clancytrial.org

What mattered

Key points 37

COURT BROKE FOR THE WEEKEND, THE EVIDENCE DID NOT FINISH, AND THE COMMONWEALTH'S EXPERT IS STILL UNDER CROSS-EXAMINATION. Four outlets now carry the adjournment. Boston 25's Bob Ward reports from the courtroom at 15:56 that the trial is breaking for the weekend and back Monday morning; the Boston Globe at 16:00 reports Judge Sullivan excusing the jurors, warning them off media and research over the weekend, telling them to keep an open mind and noting that closing arguments and the applicable law were still to come; boston.com reports him ending the session at about four o'clock with Dr. Avram Mack being cross-examined by Kevin Reddington; and East Idaho News, reachable again after most of an afternoon of refused fetches, times it 15:56 and alone gives the return time — the jury dismissed until nine o'clock Monday morning — and alone reports Judge Sullivan telling the jurors the trial remained well on schedule. boston.com's detail is what closes the day's largest open question: Mack was still under cross when the session ended, so his evidence is unfinished and the Commonwealth has not rested its rebuttal case. What no outlet reports is Judge Sullivan restating the conditional closing-argument schedule he set on 08-20, or the outcome of the 15:54 sidebar on scheduling; his remark that the trial was on schedule is a general one and is not recorded here as fixing a day. CBS Boston, NBC Boston, the Associated Press and WBUR each describe closing arguments as expected next week or early next week, and this page carries that as their expectation rather than as a date given from the bench. The third rebuttal witness is still unnamed.
THE CROSS GOES AT THE MANUAL, AND GETS HIS TIMING RULE OUT OF HIM. The Boston Globe carries the detail of the last half-hour, and the ground it covers is now corroborated twice over: CBS Boston reports the day ending on a long back-and-forth about how postpartum conditions are classified in the DSM, and East Idaho News independently places the cross on the DSM-5's treatment of postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder at 15:45 and on the diagnostic criteria and the revision of the manual at 15:54. Only the Globe reports what was actually said. At 15:48 Reddington held up the DSM and put to Mack how little of it addresses conditions largely specific to women, postpartum disorders among them — Mack answering that he had not written it — then took him to a passage on the raised risk of mood episodes in pregnancy for women with bipolar disorder, the diagnosis his own opinion rules out. At 15:52 the same questioning produced the reasoning beneath his direct evidence: that postpartum psychosis is tied to the physiologic changes of birth, that nearness to the birth is an important factor, and that it begins almost at once. That is why he placed Clancy's onset outside the window, and it reached the jury through the defense's questions rather than the Commonwealth's. The Globe reports the exchange also touching on whether the condition should be added to the next edition of the manual, a question it describes as under debate in the profession, and East Idaho News now carries that ground too: it reports Mack confirming that postpartum psychosis does not appear in the DSM-5 at all, saying he did not know whether it would go into the next edition, finding at page 173 a bipolar II specifier the manual calls peripartum rather than postpartum, and saying a panel proposing changes for the next edition wants that word changed. East Idaho News alone also has Reddington reading the manual's own statements that women report hypomania more often than men and that childbirth may trigger hypomania in about a quarter of women — the DSM put to work against the no-hypomania finding the rebuttal case rests on.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S EXPERT HAS GIVEN THE OPPOSITE OPINION, AND IT IS CORROBORATED ON BOTH PRONGS. At about 14:44 Dr. Avram Mack told the jury that Lindsay Clancy retained the capacity for criminal responsibility for her actions. Boston 25's live blog timestamps it 14:44; CBS Boston reports him giving it as his opinion that she retained the capacity required for criminal responsibility for these actions, and Fox News Digital, which reached the day late, reports the same words as a quotation — a third outlet. It answers, point for point, the opinion Dr. Resnick gave the same jury about three hours earlier, and each expert has now told this jury the opposite thing about the only live issue in the case. The two limbs of the McHoul standard are no longer thinly sourced: Boston 25 at 14:46 has him on the conform prong, saying she always had the capacity to control her behavior and conform her conduct; the Boston Globe has him reasoning to the wrongfulness prong, that waking in the hospital horrified showed she had understood the wrongfulness of what she did; and East Idaho News at 14:40 carries both limbs in a single entry, grounded in the appropriate way she dealt with people through the day and her keeping to the traffic laws. Each limb now has two outlets behind it. Read this as expert testimony in progress, not as a finding — the jury has heard neither closing arguments nor the judge's instructions.
THE DIAGNOSTIC DISPUTE, NOW JOINED. Mack's afternoon was a direct attack on the diagnosis the defense case rests on, and each element of it is multiply sourced. He diagnosed a major depressive episode running from late 2022 into January 2023 (Boston Globe, Boston 25, East Idaho News, CBS Boston). He found no evidence Clancy was bipolar at the time of the deaths and no mania or hypomania, and no reason to diagnose bipolar disorder without manic episodes — five outlets carry that, and it is the load-bearing finding. He told the jury she did not present psychotic symptoms, treating her fears about medication damage and losing her children as worries that matched things she had actually experienced rather than as delusions (Boston 25, Boston Globe, East Idaho News, CBS Boston). He said the onset of her symptoms fell well outside the postpartum period as the DSM describes it, the Globe giving that limit as largely four weeks after birth (Boston 25, Boston Globe). And he made the argument that survives even if the jury accepts the defense diagnosis: East Idaho News at 12:46 and Boston 25 at 12:49 both report him saying there is no reason psychosis in itself stops a person from knowing right from wrong. Note what he did NOT dispute — that Clancy reported hearing a commanding voice. He relayed her description of it to the jury himself.
THE DEFENSE'S CROSS GOES AT MANIA, AND AT WHERE HIS FACTS CAME FROM. Reddington's cross-examination of the Commonwealth's expert attacks the rebuttal case at its load-bearing point. The finding that there was never any mania or hypomania is what removes bipolar disorder, and with it the diagnosis both defense experts built their opinions on. The Boston Globe at 14:59 reports Reddington putting the road race Clancy ran weeks after giving birth to Mack as possible manic behavior and Mack answering that it was not, and answering as to other exercise and decluttering that such things would not in and of themselves indicate mania. That road race is the defense's own example, used since the cross-examination of the perinatal nurse practitioner on August 11 and put to the jury by a defense expert as bearing on an undiagnosed manic onset. The second line is where Mack's facts came from: East Idaho News and CBS Boston both report him accepting that his narrative of the day the children died came from Clancy herself, interviewed in a psychiatric hospital while medicated and under a suicide watch, with Reddington pressing whether he took that account as the truth. Both outlets also report Reddington drawing out that the district attorney's office pays him. A third line opened at about 15:02, and it is where the Commonwealth's own lawyers stopped it: Reddington asked how Mack came to be retained. East Idaho News has him answering that the prosecution first made contact in late 2024 through a retention firm, Park Dietz & Associates; the Boston Globe places the retention in early 2025 and reports prosecutors asking for a sidebar the moment the subject was raised. When Reddington pressed on the name behind the firm the prosecution objected and Judge Sullivan sustained it, so the jury did not get the answer the question was reaching for. The Boston Globe reached more of that passage at 15:22: Mack accepted that the Plymouth district attorney's office had come to him through the retention firm, agreed he knows Dietz, and was asked whether Dietz had once cited an episode of Law & Order while testifying — a question two outlets now place in the courtroom, though only East Idaho News reports the objection that stopped the line and no outlet reports Mack's answer to it. A FOURTH LINE OPENED AT 15:28: Reddington read from a record of Mack's professional experience and publications and put to him that his work has been in child and adolescent mental health, addiction and other fields. Mack called himself a generalist with a couple of areas of focus. Reddington asked him to show where in that record he had ever come within breathing distance of a pregnant woman. That goes at his standing to give any opinion on a postpartum condition, and the Boston Globe alone reports it. The four lines together — who pays him, where his facts came from, who brought him in, and whether he is qualified to be here — are an attack on the witness rather than on the diagnosis, run alongside the mania questions that go at the diagnosis itself.
A SECOND REBUTTAL WITNESS IS NAMED FOR THE FIRST TIME, BY ONE OUTLET. East Idaho News at 15:09 reports Reddington raising the name of Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, of the retention firm Park Dietz & Associates, and Mack saying the two of them conducted a joint evaluation of Clancy at Tewksbury. Reddington's question described Heilbrun as testifying Monday. Until now no outlet had named any rebuttal witness but Mack, though CBS Boston has reported all day that three were named. The courtroom exchange rests on a single live blog, but Heilbrun himself no longer does: the Boston Globe's pre-trial witness preview of July 27, by Shelley Murphy and Nick Stoico, already listed him among the prosecution's mental health experts and placed him at Park Dietz & Associates alongside Mack. That corroborates who he is and which firm he comes from, and nothing more — the joint evaluation at Tewksbury and the description of him as testifying Monday are still East Idaho News's alone. So is the suggestion that the rebuttal case runs into Monday — no outlet reports Judge Sullivan altering the schedule he gave on 08-20, under which closing arguments fall on Monday if the evidence finishes today and Tuesday if it does not.
THE CROSS ATTACKS HIS STANDING TO OPINE, AND HIS ANSWER IS BETTER THAN THE QUESTION SUGGESTS. Reddington read from Mack's professional record to put to him that his career has been in child and adolescent mental health and addiction, and asked where in it he had ever come within breathing distance of a pregnant woman. Three outlets now carry the challenge — the Boston Globe at 15:28, East Idaho News at 15:15 and CBS Boston — and the single-outlet caution this page carried at the last compilation is superseded. East Idaho News alone reports what Mack said in reply: a labor and delivery unit during his years at Georgetown, leadership of the group serving the high-risk maternity unit at CHOP, and roughly ten women with postpartum psychosis treated since 2001. The outlets that carry only the question read as a cleaner hit than the one that carries the answer.
AND AT WHETHER HIS FACTS CAME FROM HER AT ALL. Mack told the jury Clancy had a longstanding resistance to psychiatric medication; Reddington put it to him that she never told him that, CBS Boston reporting him asking whether the witness was making it up, and pointing out that she did take a number of psychiatric medications in the months before the killings (Boston Globe). Mack's answer was that the finding rests on his evaluation and on her description to him. East Idaho News adds that Mack did not think Clancy had ever been diagnosed with postpartum depression and did not know whether she had ever been given the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, against Reddington's assertion that her records put her off the charts on it. Three outlets: Boston Globe 15:39, East Idaho News 15:30, CBS Boston.
THE DEFENSE HAS RESTED. At about 11:52 Kevin Reddington told the court that Lindsay Clancy rests her case, ending a defense case that had run since the afternoon of August 17, when the Commonwealth rested and the defense began calling witnesses the same day. (Two earlier compilations of this page dated the start of the defense case to August 18; that was this page's own error, contradicted by its witness roster for August 17, and it is corrected here.) The Boston Globe timestamps the moment 11:53 and gives his words as "Your honor, Lindsay Clancy rests"; Boston 25's live blog timestamps it 11:52 and renders it as Clancy resting her case. CBS Boston also reports the defense resting but attaches no time to it, and ABC7's day-18 page reports the defense resting after calling one final witness on postpartum psychosis. Four outlets, so this is recorded as fact rather than as any one outlet's account. Dr. Phillip Resnick was the last defense witness; no outlet reports a redirect examination after the Commonwealth's cross. HOW MANY WITNESSES THE DEFENSE CALLED IS REPORTED BY ONE OUTLET ONLY, AND THE NUMBER DOES NOT MATCH THIS PAGE'S OWN ROSTER. WBUR's day-18 report by Deborah Becker gives the figure as ten witnesses called by Kevin Reddington to speak to Clancy's mental state before the killings. WBUR is alone in giving a count at all: the Associated Press describes several days of testimony without one, ABC7 gives none, and no outlet reports a tally from the bench. This page's own witness roster names eleven defense witnesses across the four sitting days from August 17 to August 21 — Margaret Hamp, Allison Ozga, Paula Musgrove and Michael Vulfovich on the 17th; Susan Clancy, Dr. Donald Condie, Dr. Elizabeth Laposata and Dr. Paul Zeizel on the 18th; Zeizel again and Emily Thorndike on the 19th; Sheila Cavanaugh on the 20th; and Dr. Phillip Resnick on the 21st. The difference of one is not resolved here. WBUR's sentence counts witnesses who spoke to Clancy's mental state, which need not be the same set as every witness the defense put on, and this page does not know which witness, if any, WBUR leaves out.
THE REBUTTAL CASE, AND THE DEFENSE'S ANSWER TO IT. Dr. Avram Mack, a psychiatrist the Boston Globe places practicing and teaching in Philadelphia with an expertise in forensic psychiatry, was called at about 11:55 and examined by ADA Jennifer Sprague. He interviewed Clancy twice in April — April 10 to 12, 2026, per Boston 25 — and described her as friendly, cooperative and largely unremarkable on examination. He told the jury she takes olanzapine at a small dose along with other psychiatric medication (Boston Globe; East Idaho News names Wellbutrin, trazodone and an anti-anxiety drug), and that she was not convinced she had bipolar disorder. After the lunch recess he moved to January 24, called the sequence methodical, organized and goal-directed, and listed inconsistencies in what she had told him, including her denial that she locked the bedroom door. KEVIN REDDINGTON THEN CROSS-EXAMINED HIM, and three outlets now carry it where CBS Boston was alone one compilation ago. The reported lines of attack are his compensation by the district attorney's office; his reliance on Clancy's own account of the day, taken from her while she was hospitalized, medicated and on a suicide watch, which he accepted was his source; and whether her running a road race weeks after giving birth indicated mania, which he rejected. East Idaho News reports Judge Sullivan instructing him to answer yes or no and calling a sidebar. WHAT IS STILL NOT KNOWN: whether his evidence has finished, whether the Commonwealth has rested its rebuttal, and who the other two rebuttal witnesses are.
THE CROSS-EXAMINATION, AND WHAT RESNICK CONCEDED AND DID NOT. Jennifer Sprague's cross ran from about 11:33 to about 11:51 — Boston 25 characterizes it as rapid fire. Three outlets now carry substance, and they carry different parts of it. The Boston Globe at 11:42 reports Sprague pressing whether Clancy should have been able to resist the voice commanding her to harm the children, and Resnick allowing that patients vary — some resist and some do not; the Globe also records a prosecution question being struck from the record after a defense objection, without reporting what the question was. CBS Boston reports three further lines of attack: Sprague drew a contrast with Andrea Yates, who had committed herself to hospitals five times and attempted suicide twice before killing her children; she put to Resnick that Clancy heard the voice and acted on it at once, and he answered that she did not, that Clancy had impulses to harm her children and resisted them until the command hallucination overwhelmed her; and she disputed that the records showed Clancy crying daily, pointing to Clancy's expressed hope of becoming a postpartum advocate and of taking part in a wheelchair marathon. East Idaho News now corroborates that last line, reporting at about 11:45 that the prosecutor put to Resnick inconsistencies between his testimony and the hospital documentation of Clancy's emotional state and her crying; East Idaho News also reports, at about 11:33, the prosecution questioning his teaching methods and challenging aspects of his filicide research, which no other outlet carries. The Associated Press, in the story boston.com carries, adds a fourth account and fills the Globe's blank: the question Judge Sullivan struck was Sprague asking whether it was better to kill the children than to have them taken away. The same account reports Resnick accepting that Clancy did not disclose thoughts of harming her children to the providers who asked her, and answering that this is very common because such patients fear their children will be taken from them — which puts on the record, from a second outlet and as a concession on cross, what the Boston Globe had reported him volunteering in the last of the direct. The Globe's account of variability among patients and CBS's account of Clancy herself having resisted are answers to different questions and are recorded as such, not treated as a conflict.
WHEN THE JURY WILL HEAR CLOSINGS. CBS Boston's day-18 page reports Judge Sullivan's condition on the schedule: if all the testimony finishes today, closing arguments could begin Monday; if it runs into Monday, closings would likely fall on Tuesday. That is a sharper version of the Monday-or-Tuesday framing he gave counsel on Thursday, and it turns on how long the Commonwealth's rebuttal case takes. ABC7 puts it as closings possibly as early as Monday. The ABC News account of the day, filed at 13:45, likewise has closing arguments possibly as early as Monday and jurors beginning deliberations early next week. Note what the day did to the condition CBS reported: the evidence did NOT finish today -- Mack was still under cross-examination when court broke and the Commonwealth has not rested -- so the branch of Judge Sullivan's condition that produced Monday no longer applies on its own terms. This page does not convert that into Tuesday. No outlet reports him restating the condition from the bench, the outcome of the 15:54 scheduling sidebar is unreported, and the ABC News and ABC7 expectations were both filed before the sitting ended. Nothing has been scheduled. LATE ADDITION, AFTER THE SITTING: Fox News Digital reports Kevin Reddington telling reporters as he left the courthouse, at about 17:36, that closing arguments are expected Tuesday once the Commonwealth finishes its rebuttal case next week. That is the first time today a named speaker has given the day — and it agrees with the fallback limb of Judge Sullivan's 08-20 condition, whose antecedent failed when the evidence did not finish. It is still defense counsel's expectation given outside the courtroom, on one outlet, and this page does not record Tuesday as set.
THE OPINION HAS BEEN GIVEN AND IS NOW CORROBORATED, AND THE DIRECT HAS ENDED. At about 11:16 Resnick told the jury that Clancy was psychotic on the day she killed her children and described the condition as postpartum psychosis; the Boston Globe, Boston 25 and CBS Boston all carry that. He went on to the criminal responsibility opinion the defense case is built toward, and it is now carried by three outlets rather than one: Boston 25 at 11:23 and East Idaho News at 11:25 report him saying that because of her mental disease she was unable to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law, and the Boston Globe at 11:28 reports him saying it is his opinion that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible under Massachusetts law. His evidence also filled in what he says she experienced and believed: a voice commanding the killings that she felt bound to obey, and a belief that she was doing her children a favor by taking them to heaven with her, which the Globe and East Idaho News report him placing in the category he calls altruistic filicide. The direct ended at about 11:33 and the Commonwealth's cross-examination began. Read this entry as an account of expert testimony in progress, not as a finding.
HOW THE CROSS OPENED. The cross-examination is now COMPLETE; this records how it began. The Boston Globe reports at about 11:33 that Reddington finished his questioning and prosecutors then began theirs; Boston 25's live blog marks the same moment. CBS Boston names the prosecutor as Jennifer Sprague and is so far the only outlet to report any of the substance: that Sprague put 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. That goes at the heart of the evidence he had just given, and it is the Commonwealth's answer to the command hallucination thread it has attacked all trial. Recorded as CBS Boston's report alone; no other outlet has yet described the cross. No outlet reports how Resnick answered.
NO EVIDENCE OF FAKING, PER THE TESTING. At about 11:02 Reddington asked Resnick whether Clancy had been feigning her symptoms and Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar; Resnick's answer, carried by the Boston Globe and Boston 25 at about 11:06, was that the testing showed no evidence of faked psychiatric symptoms. The Globe adds that the results showed her tending to understate rather than overstate what she was experiencing. Boston 25 names the instrument as the MMPI; the Globe describes it only as psychological testing. Two independent outlets, so recorded as reported. Fox News Digital adds two things neither of them had: that the MMPI was administered for the government rather than for the defense, and that Resnick told the jury the test speaks more to symptoms than to whether a person is lying. If the first is right it matters — it makes the finding one produced by the Commonwealth's own testing — and it answers a gap this page had recorded, that no outlet said who administered the test. Fox News Digital alone on both points. This goes to whether her account of her own symptoms can be relied on, not yet to criminal responsibility.
PSYCHOTIC ON THE DAY, WITH A QUALIFICATION. Resnick did not describe Clancy as continuously psychotic. Per the Boston Globe he told the jury she was not psychotic every moment and had functioned normally earlier that day, before the command hallucination began. Outlets differ on the wording and on the diagnosis behind the opinion: the Globe reports him calling her frankly psychotic on a diagnosis of bipolar disorder with major depression, Boston 25 and CBS Boston report clearly psychotic, and CBS gives the diagnosis as severe depression, mild mania and bipolar disorder leading up to the killings. The psychosis opinion is common to all three; the surrounding detail is not.
A DELUSION OF INFLUENCE, AND THEN THE COMMAND ITSELF. At about 11:19 Resnick described Clancy believing her body had been taken over by an external force, as though she were a puppet whose strings someone else was pulling, and named it a delusion of influence. Boston 25 adds a dream state with no control over her body. At about 11:31 he put the command in front of the jury directly: 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. Two outlets, so recorded as reported. This is the most explicit account of a command hallucination given in the defense case. No outlet reports him citing a contemporaneous clinical record for it, and their absence has been the Commonwealth's answer to this thread all trial — see the command-hallucination entry in the evidence file.
WHAT HE SAYS SHE BELIEVED SHE WAS DOING, AND THE NAME HE GAVE IT. At about 11:26 Resnick told the jury that Clancy believed she would be doing her children a favor by having them go to heaven with her rather than leaving them on earth without her to mother them. Boston 25 puts it as her believing suicide would benefit her children; CBS Boston quotes him in near-identical terms. He then gave that reasoning a clinical name: the Boston Globe reports him describing the killings as meeting his definition of altruistic filicide, which it quotes him defining as a murder committed out of love rather than hostility, and East Idaho News reports him setting out five categories of parents who kill their children and placing Clancy in the altruistic one. Two outlets, so the label is recorded as reported — an earlier compilation of this page noted that no outlet had reported him naming the category, and that is no longer the case. The Boston Globe's entry also has him saying she did what she believed was morally right. That bears on the wrongfulness question, but no outlet reports him being asked the wrongfulness prong as such, so it is recorded here as what he said and not as an opinion on that prong.
THE CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OPINION IS NOW CORROBORATED — EARLIER CAVEAT RESOLVED. For two earlier compilations of this page the opinion rested on Boston 25's live blog alone and was recorded as that outlet's report rather than as established fact. Two further outlets have now reached the same moment. East Idaho News reports at 11:25 that Resnick testified Clancy could not conform her conduct to the law because she was hearing commanding voices and felt externally controlled. The Boston Globe reports at 11:28 that Resnick said it is his opinion that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for her actions under Massachusetts law — a broader framing than the conform-prong wording the other two use, and checked on a second fetch to confirm it reports the witness's own opinion rather than the reporter explaining the legal standard. The three timestamps differ by about five minutes, consistent with the offset these blogs have shown against each other all morning. The caveat is therefore lifted. What has NOT changed: no outlet reports Resnick being asked about the other McHoul prong, whether Clancy could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct. A WIRE PARAPHRASE THAT LOOKS LIKE THE MISSING PRONG, AND IS NOT. The ABC News account of the day, by Peter Charalambous and Mason Leib and stamped 13:45, paraphrases Resnick's opinion as Clancy being unable to tell the difference between right and wrong and lacking control at the time. Read past the paraphrase and the same story quotes his testimony in the conform-prong words the other outlets carry -- that because of her mental disease she was unable to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law on the day she took the lives of her children -- and ABC7's own account describes his evidence as going to her delusional beliefs rather than to her capacity to tell right from wrong. This page therefore does not record Resnick as having given an opinion on the wrongfulness prong. A reporter's shorthand for the insanity defense is not testimony, and the gap stays open.
Resnick's evidence resumed after the break and ran through his credentials and his examination of Clancy: about three hours with her roughly four months after the deaths, plus an interview of her parents. He described her as muted, blunted and matter-of-fact while medicated, with nurses reporting daily crying over her children. In the last of the direct the Boston Globe reports him telling the jury she was a more sophisticated patient than most but had not been fully revealing about her impulses to harm her children, because she feared losing them if she reported the full extent of her symptoms. Recorded in full in the witness detail below.
At about 10:02 the defense called Dr. Phillip Resnick, who appeared by video link. Reported by the Boston Globe, East Idaho News and CBS Boston.
Resnick told the jury that recent surgery prevented him from flying to Massachusetts, per CBS Boston. East Idaho News gives the reason as recent illness and surgery with doctor's orders restricting travel.
The video connection then gave trouble — the Boston Globe cites both volume and internet problems. Judge Sullivan called a sidebar and then a short break for court IT staff. East Idaho News describes the court as recessed; CBS Boston reports the judge announcing a short break.
Kevin Reddington is conducting the direct examination, per the Boston Globe's 10:06 entry, which places the sidebar shortly after he began questioning Resnick.
The break ran on. The Boston Globe reports the jurors taken out of the courtroom at about 10:15, with the fault appearing to be at Resnick's end, and at 10:20 has the courtroom locked and press and public waiting in the hallway, court officers warning that seats were not being held. Its 10:36 entry still has everyone waiting, thirty minutes into what the judge had called a short recess. The break then ended: at about 10:41 the Boston Globe reports the internet issue resolved and people being let back into the courtroom, and Boston 25's live blog at the same time has Resnick on the monitor and the judge, jury and Clancy waiting for him to start. Testimony resumed at about 10:49 by the Globe's clock and about 10:46 by East Idaho News's, roughly forty minutes of the sitting lost to the connection.
THE BLOGS READ THE MOMENT DIFFERENTLY: the Boston Globe has questioning under way before the interruption — its 10:03 entry describes Resnick as having begun testifying and its 10:06 entry puts the sidebar shortly after Reddington started — while East Idaho News and CBS Boston describe the connection failing before testimony got under way. Both may be accounts of the same few minutes, and the point is now largely moot: whatever was or was not said before the break, the substantive direct began after it, at about 10:46 to 10:49. Left recorded rather than resolved either way.
Earlier search summaries claiming Resnick had already testified were preview text in the future tense and were not recorded at the time. His evidence has since genuinely begun, and what appears here is taken from live-blog entries timestamped 10:46 onward rather than from those previews.
OUTLETS GIVE DIFFERENT FILICIDE FIGURES: the Boston Globe reports Resnick putting the number of filicides in the United States at between 400 and 500 a year; East Idaho News reports the figure as roughly a couple of hundred a year. Both are accounts of the same passage of his evidence and neither is a rounding of the other. Recorded as reported rather than reconciled, and neither figure should be quoted from this page as the number he gave.
OUTLETS LIST HIS PAST CASES DIFFERENTLY: the Boston Globe names Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski, Susan Smith and Casey Anthony; East Idaho News names Dahmer, Kaczynski, Casey Anthony and Andrea Yates. The lists overlap but neither is a subset of the other, and it is not clear from either whether the list is what Resnick told the jury or the outlet's own background. Recorded as reported, not merged into a single roster.
Resnick would be the defense's criminal-responsibility expert on the McHoul question. He was a defense expert in the 2006 Andrea Yates trial, which ended in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
OUTLETS DIFFER ON HIS CREDENTIAL, AND SO DOES THE SAME OUTLET WITH ITSELF: the Boston Globe's entries (which place him at Case Western Reserve University), CBS Boston and ABC7 call Resnick a forensic psychiatrist, but the Globe's own day-18 headline calls him a forensic psychologist. Boston 25's Friday morning preview calls him a psychologist while Boston 25's live blog of the same day calls him a psychiatrist. This file records him as a psychiatrist.
If the defense rests, the burden framing does not shift: the Commonwealth still has to prove criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt.
Three Commonwealth rebuttal experts were flagged by ADA Sprague on 08-17; East Idaho News previews up to four witnesses in total today.
Counsel were to receive a draft of the jury charge today. Whether involuntary manslaughter goes on the verdict slip, and whether the jury hears an involuntary intoxication instruction, was argued on 08-20 and is still undecided.
NOW TWO OUTLETS, AND BOTH PUT THE COUNT IN THE DEFENSE'S MOUTH RATHER THAN THE COMMONWEALTH'S. Fox News Digital's day-18 live blog reports Kevin Reddington saying the Commonwealth would call three rebuttal witnesses and dismissing them as entertainment; Fox's entry carries only a relative timestamp, and it is not clear from it whether the remark was made in court or to reporters outside it. CBS Boston, on a page restamped at about 17:03, now reports that defense attorney Kevin Reddington said the prosecution will call three rebuttal witnesses. An earlier compilation of this page recorded the number as Fox's alone, and that caveat is lifted -- but what the two outlets corroborate is that Reddington said it, not that the Commonwealth has committed to three or that the number came from the bench. WBUR separately describes three medical experts expected in rebuttal, and the ABC News account of the day reports prosecutors calling three additional witnesses; neither names them or says where the figure comes from. Two of the three have been named in this week's courtroom reporting: Dr. Avram Mack, who testified today, and Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, whom East Idaho News alone places in the courtroom. NO OUTLET HAS REPORTED THE REBUTTAL ROSTER ITSELF, so the third witness is not established. But the name that has circulated for it, Dr. Gregory Saathoff, is not the unsourced guess that five earlier compilations of this page took it for, and the correction belongs here rather than in a footnote. The Boston Globe has published that name twice. Its pre-trial witness preview of July 27, by Shelley Murphy and Nick Stoico, gives the prosecution's mental health experts as Heilbrun and Mack of Park Dietz & Associates, Saathoff, a forensic psychiatrist it ties to the University of Virginia and the FBI, and Dr. Margarita Abi Zeid Daou, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. And its live blog of August 19, at 12:05, reports Reddington beginning a question about why the district attorney's office took so long to retain three doctors of its own and names them — in the Globe's own hedged wording, presumably — as Heilbrun, Mack and Saathoff. THAT STILL DOES NOT SETTLE WHO THE THIRD WITNESS IS. The pre-trial list carries four names for three rebuttal seats, so even taking the Globe at its word the third could be Saathoff or Abi Zeid Daou, and this page does not choose between them. The August 19 question was cut off by an objection before it was finished, the Globe qualified the three names itself, and East Idaho News describes that blocked question as something else entirely — a conflict this page carries unresolved. What changes here is the provenance, not the fact: the third rebuttal witness is still unreported, and Saathoff is a candidate the Boston Globe named rather than a name a search engine supplied. A THIRD REMARK FROM THE SAME MOUTH, AFTER COURT. Fox News Digital reports Reddington telling reporters outside the courthouse at about 17:36 that only two rebuttal witnesses are left to come. With Mack having testified first, that is consistent with the count of three, approached from the other end. It is not independent corroboration — it is the same speaker again — and because Mack's cross-examination is unfinished it is possible he is counting only witnesses not yet called. Either way the Commonwealth itself has still not been reported committing to a number, and the third name is still not reported.
NOT EVIDENCE — AN OUTLET'S OWN EXPLAINER. The Boston Globe's live blog carries an entry at about 14:39 explaining bipolar II for readers: that it involves major depressive episodes and hypomanic episodes without full mania, that psychotic symptoms occur in roughly 15 percent of cases, and quoting Dr. Suzan Song saying psychosis can occur during the depressive phase. Dr. Song is not a witness in this trial and this is not testimony. It is recorded here only so that a later reading of the blog does not mistake it for something the jury heard.
AFTER COURT, THE DEFENSE PUTS A DAY ON CLOSING ARGUMENTS — ONE OUTLET, AND NOT FROM THE BENCH. Fox News Digital posted at about 17:36, well after the sitting had ended, an account of Kevin Reddington speaking to reporters as he left the courthouse. He said closing arguments are expected Tuesday, after the Commonwealth finishes its rebuttal case next week; that he is done with his experts and has finished calling his witnesses; and that only two rebuttal witnesses are left to come. He described Lindsay Clancy as surprised and emotional at the crowds that have gathered in support of her, and said the jury had been very, very focused. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME TODAY A NAMED SPEAKER HAS ATTACHED TUESDAY TO CLOSING ARGUMENTS, and what matters about it is who the speaker is: defense counsel, on the sidewalk, giving his expectation. It is not Judge Sullivan fixing a date on the record. No outlet reports the judge doing that, the outcome of the 15:54 scheduling sidebar is still unreported, and Fox News Digital is so far alone on these remarks — checked on a second fetch of the same page for the wording and for where he was standing when he made them. WHAT THE REMARKS LINE UP WITH. Tuesday is the fallback limb of the conditional CBS Boston reported from the bench on 08-20 — closings Monday if all the evidence finished Friday, Tuesday if it ran into Monday — and that antecedent failed today when Mack's cross-examination did not finish. Reddington's count also sits alongside the figure of three rebuttal witnesses he was reported giving earlier today: if Mack was the first and two are left, the two accounts are the same number seen from opposite ends. Fox does not say so in terms, and with Mack's cross still unfinished his phrase could as easily be counting only the witnesses not yet called, so this page records the agreement and does not push the reading further. Tuesday is still not scheduled here.

On the stand

Witnesses 2

Dr. Phillip Resnick

Defense

Role: Forensic psychiatrist, placed at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland by the Boston Globe, which gives his specialty as violence risk assessment; known for work on postpartum mental disorders and filicide, and a defense expert in the 2006 Andrea Yates trial. Boston 25 describes him instead as a forensic psychologist, as does the Boston Globe's own day-18 headline, though the Globe's entries call him a psychiatrist.
Direct: Reddington
Cross: Sprague

Testimony, as reported:

TESTIMONY COMPLETE. Direct and cross-examination both finished; the defense rested immediately afterward, at about 11:52, making Resnick its final witness. No outlet reports a redirect examination. Called by the defense at about 10:02 on 08-21 and appeared by video link rather than in the courtroom. After the technical break his evidence ran through his qualifications, the mechanics of his May 2023 evaluation and his testing for feigned symptoms; at about 11:16 it reached his opinion that Clancy was psychotic on the day of the killings, and by about 11:23 to 11:28 his opinion on criminal responsibility, which three outlets now carry. The Boston Globe reports the direct ending at about 11:33, with Reddington finishing his questioning and prosecutors beginning theirs. CBS Boston names the cross-examiner as Jennifer Sprague. The cross ran to about 11:51 and the defense rested at about 11:52.
Qualifications. He has taught forensic psychiatry since the late 1970s (East Idaho News) and holds a professorship at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, with a specialty in assessing violence risk (Boston Globe).
Prior consultations, as listed by the outlets — which do not list the same set. The Boston Globe names Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski, Susan Smith and Casey Anthony; East Idaho News names Dahmer, Kaczynski, Casey Anthony and Andrea Yates. He testified for the defense in the Yates case, which ended in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Filicide. He described it for the jury as a parent killing a child and as relatively rare. The outlets do not agree on the national figure he gave: the Boston Globe reports him putting filicide at between 400 and 500 a year in the United States, East Idaho News at roughly a couple of hundred a year. Both are recorded; neither is treated here as the figure. Boston 25 reports him saying he has been involved in about 80 filicide cases.
His evaluation of Clancy. He examined her about four months after the killings (East Idaho News, CBS Boston), which the Boston Globe and Boston 25 date to May 2023; Boston 25 places it at Tewksbury State Hospital. He spent roughly three hours with Clancy and also interviewed her parents, which East Idaho News puts at about an hour and a half.
How she presented to him. He described her affect as blunted (Boston Globe), somewhat matter-of-fact and muted (CBS Boston), flat while medicated (East Idaho News); Boston 25 has him calling her matter of fact, cooperative and medicated, and giving him a detailed account of the day. The Boston Globe reports him telling the jury her emotions were not what would be expected. East Idaho News, CBS Boston and Boston 25 all attribute to nursing staff the report that she was crying daily over her children's deaths.
Timing of the competing examinations. Boston 25 reports him drawing a contrast between his own evaluation four months after the killings and the Commonwealth's, which it puts at three years later. East Idaho News describes the same passage as concerning government psychological evaluations conducted two years after the killings. The two outlets do not agree on the interval and neither is a rounding of the other; both are recorded and neither should be quoted from this page as the figure he gave. No outlet reports what he said the difference in timing meant for the weight of either opinion.
Testing for feigned symptoms. At about 11:02 Reddington asked him whether Clancy had been faking her symptoms and Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar. Resnick's answer, reported by both the Boston Globe and Boston 25 at about 11:06, was that the testing produced no evidence of faked psychiatric symptoms. The Globe adds that the results showed her tending to minimize rather than exaggerate what she was experiencing. Boston 25 identifies the test as the MMPI; the Globe describes it only as psychological testing and does not name it. Fox News Digital reports that the MMPI was administered for the government, and that Resnick told the jury the test speaks more to symptoms than to whether a person is lying. Both points are Fox News Digital's alone; if the first is right, the finding of no faking came out of the Commonwealth's own testing rather than the defense's. No outlet reports when the testing was done.
Her mental state on the day of the killings. At about 11:16 Resnick told the jury Clancy was psychotic on the day she killed her children, and described the condition as postpartum psychosis. The outlets render the adverb differently: the Boston Globe has him calling her frankly psychotic, Boston 25 and CBS Boston clearly psychotic. He qualified it — per the Globe she was not psychotic every moment, and had functioned normally earlier that day before the command hallucination began. The reported diagnosis is not identical across outlets: the Globe gives bipolar disorder with major depression, noting she displayed severe depression and mild mania; CBS Boston gives severe depression, mild mania and bipolar disorder in the period leading up to the killings; East Idaho News gives bipolar 2 with severe depression; and Boston 25 gives the onset as postpartum without a fuller diagnosis. Four outlets, four renderings that overlap without matching. The psychosis opinion itself is common to all of them, so that much is recorded as reported; the diagnostic wording is not treated here as settled.
A delusion of influence. At about 11:19 he described Clancy believing her body had been taken over by an external force, as though she were a puppet with someone else pulling the strings — which he named for the jury as a delusion of influence. Boston 25 timestamps the same passage 11:18 and adds that she described being in a dream state with no control over her body. CBS Boston reports the same external-force description and links it to a command hallucination. This is the first time in his evidence that a command hallucination has been reported.
Criminal responsibility — NOW REPORTED BY THREE OUTLETS. Boston 25's live blog reports at 11:23 that he gave his opinion that, because of her mental disease, Clancy was unable to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law on the day she took her children's lives. East Idaho News reports the same evidence at 11:25, giving his reasons as the commanding voices she was hearing and her feeling of being externally controlled. The Boston Globe reports at 11:28 that Resnick said it is his opinion that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for her actions under Massachusetts law. That is the second prong of the McHoul standard and the conclusion the defense case is built toward. It was a single outlet's account for two earlier compilations of this page and is now corroborated; the Globe's wording is broader than the conform-prong phrasing the other two use, and all three are recorded rather than merged. No outlet reports him addressing the other prong — whether Clancy could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct.
What he says she believed she was doing for the children, and the category he placed it in. At about 11:26 he told the jury Clancy believed she would be doing her children a favor by having them go to heaven with her rather than have them remain on earth without her to mother them. Boston 25 reports the same evidence as her believing suicide would benefit her children, and CBS Boston renders it in close to the same words. He then named the category: the Boston Globe reports him describing the killings as meeting his definition of altruistic filicide, quoting that definition as a murder committed out of love rather than hostility, and East Idaho News reports him giving the jury five categories of parents who kill their children and placing Clancy in the altruistic one. The Globe's entry also carries him saying she did what she believed was morally right. The Associated Press account carried by boston.com adds two things. It reports him describing a delusional belief that if social services took the children, or if she killed herself and left them, they would suffer without her, and believing they would be better off dying with her and going to heaven. And on the categories it does not have him placing her in the altruistic one alone: it reports him describing several categories of filicide, including killings involving abuse, and finding Clancy's case to involve both the psychotic and the altruistic category while finding no evidence of abuse. East Idaho News has him placing her in the altruistic category; the AP account has two categories. Both are recorded. Recorded as reported; no outlet reports him being asked, in those terms, whether she could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct.
The command itself. At about 11:31 Boston 25 reports him telling the jury that Clancy heard a voice commanding her to engage in the killing behavior and felt she had to obey the instructions. CBS Boston carries him saying that 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 — the same passage, tying the command to the delusion of influence he had described a few minutes earlier. Two outlets, so recorded as reported. This is his most explicit account of the command hallucination. No outlet reports him citing a contemporaneous clinical record for it; the Commonwealth's position throughout the trial has been that none documents one.
Told the jury that recent surgery prevented him from traveling to Massachusetts for the trial (CBS Boston; East Idaho News adds recent illness and doctor's orders restricting travel). The Boston Globe describes the reason as an unexpected medical issue and says he appeared while recovering from an unexpected hospitalization, without saying he told the jury so.
The video connection failed and the sitting broke off for court IT staff before any reported testimony. The jury was taken out at about 10:15, the courtroom was locked by about 10:20, and at 10:36 the Boston Globe still had the recess going, with the fault appearing to be at Resnick's end. At about 10:41 the Globe and Boston 25 both report the connection restored and the courtroom reopening. The Globe has his evidence resuming at about 10:49, with Judge Sullivan telling the jury they would give it another go; East Idaho News timestamps the resumption at 10:46.
Kevin Reddington conducted the direct examination. The Boston Globe's 10:06 entry places the opening sidebar shortly after Reddington began questioning him, and its 11:33 entry reports him finishing.
What he says she held back, and why. In the closing stretch of the direct the Boston Globe reports him telling the jury that Clancy was a more sophisticated patient than most but had not been fully revealing about her impulses to harm her children, because she was afraid of losing them if she reported the full extent of her symptoms. Reported by the Boston Globe on the direct. The Associated Press account carried by boston.com puts substantially the same point on the cross-examination: Resnick accepted that Clancy did not disclose thoughts of harming her children to the medical providers who asked her, and answered that this is very common because such patients fear their children will be taken away. Two outlets on the substance, though they place it at different points in his evidence and neither reports it twice. It goes to why the contemporaneous clinical records the Commonwealth relies on may not contain what the defense case describes, but no outlet reports him putting it that way, and it is recorded here as what he said rather than as an argument.
Why she is still alive. Boston 25's live blog reports him saying Clancy has not taken her own life because she is under constant suicide watch at Tewksbury State Hospital. The same 11:33 entry carries Boston 25's note that the cross-examination was then beginning, so it is not clear from the entry whether this answer came at the very end of the direct or at the start of the cross. Reported by Boston 25 alone. Separately, East Idaho News reports him telling the jury at about 11:25 that the severity of her own suicide attempt that day showed she wanted to die; that is a point about January 24 rather than about her custody since, and no other outlet reports it.
CROSS-EXAMINATION, by Jennifer Sprague for the Commonwealth. CBS Boston reports that Sprague opened on Resnick's own published work, putting to him an article he wrote called "Faking It" in which he said command hallucinations are easy to fabricate and that people often ignore such commands when they are dangerous — an attack aimed squarely at the command hallucination he had described minutes earlier. CBS Boston is so far the only outlet to report any of the substance of the cross; the Boston Globe and Boston 25 report only that it had begun. The cross ran to about 11:51 and Boston 25 describes it as rapid fire. No outlet has reported how Resnick answered the "Faking It" line specifically.
CROSS — whether she could have resisted the command. The Boston Globe reports at about 11:42 that Sprague pressed Resnick on whether Clancy should have been able to resist the voice telling her to harm the children, and that he answered that patients vary, some acting on such commands and some not. Reported by the Boston Globe.
CROSS — the Andrea Yates comparison, turned against the defense. CBS Boston reports Sprague contrasting Clancy's history with that of Andrea Yates, in whose 2006 trial Resnick was also a defense expert: Yates had committed herself to hospitals five times and had attempted suicide twice before she killed her children. CBS Boston alone.
CROSS — whether she acted on the voice at once. CBS Boston reports Sprague putting to Resnick that Clancy heard the voice and immediately acted, and Resnick rejecting that: he answered that Clancy had impulses to harm her children and did resist them, until the command hallucination overwhelmed her. CBS Boston alone. This is his fullest reported answer on cross and it does not concede the point put to him.
CROSS — the record of her distress, and her stated plans. CBS Boston reports Sprague disputing that the records showed Clancy crying daily, and pointing to hopes Clancy had expressed of becoming a postpartum advocate and of taking part in a wheelchair marathon. East Idaho News reports the same line of attack at about 11:45, putting it as inconsistencies between his testimony and the hospital documentation of Clancy's emotional state and her crying, so the crying dispute is carried by two outlets; the postpartum advocate and wheelchair marathon detail remains CBS Boston's alone. No outlet reports Resnick's answer.
A prosecution question was struck from the record at about 11:42 after a defense objection. The Boston Globe reports the ruling but not the question or the grounds. The Associated Press account carried by boston.com supplies the question: it came straight after his answer about patients not disclosing such thoughts for fear of losing their children, and Sprague asked whether it was better to kill them than to have them taken away. The AP account has the judge striking it without mentioning an objection; the Globe has it struck on a defense objection.
STILL ABSENT: no outlet, across the direct or the cross, reports Resnick being asked whether Clancy could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct — the other prong of the McHoul standard. His reported opinion goes to her capacity to conform her conduct to the law.
CROSS — his teaching and his research. East Idaho News reports at about 11:33 that the prosecution questioned Resnick about his teaching methods and challenged aspects of his filicide research. East Idaho News alone; it does not report what was put to him in terms, or how he answered.

Dr. Avram Mack

Commonwealth (rebuttal)

Role: Psychiatrist, called by the Commonwealth as its first rebuttal witness. The Boston Globe describes him as currently practicing and teaching in Philadelphia and gives his expertise as forensic psychiatry; Boston 25, Fox News Digital and boston.com name him as a psychiatrist without further detail.
Direct: Sprague
Cross: Reddington

Testimony, as reported:

CALLED AT ABOUT 11:55 AND NOW CORROBORATED. Boston 25's live blog timestamps the Commonwealth calling him 11:55 and the Boston Globe 11:57; Fox News Digital's day-18 live blog and boston.com, on a page stamped 11:58, also name him as the first rebuttal witness. An earlier compilation of this page recorded the name as Boston 25's account alone, and that caveat is lifted. ABC7 and WBUR continue to report only that the Commonwealth is expected to call three rebuttal witnesses, and CBS Boston now attributes that number to Kevin Reddington — WBUR describes them as three medical experts — naming none of them.
Examined for the Commonwealth by ADA Jennifer Sprague, who had finished cross-examining the defense expert minutes earlier. Reported by the Boston Globe alone; no other outlet names the examiner. His direct examination ran from about 11:55 to at least 14:50, broken by the lunch recess.
His examination of Clancy. The Boston Globe reports him telling the jury he interviewed her twice in April; Boston 25 gives the dates as April 10 to 12, 2026, and Fox News Digital gives them as April 10 and 12, 2026, which fits the Globe's two interviews and corroborates Boston 25. No outlet reports how long they ran, whether he interviewed anyone else, or who instructed him; the Globe's day topper places the meetings at Tewksbury Hospital.
How she presented to him. The Boston Globe and Boston 25 both report him describing her as generally friendly and cooperative. The Globe adds that she held eye contact, that there were not many abnormalities in her presentation — her pattern of speech, her thought process and the content of her thoughts — and that at points she appeared distressed, becoming tearful on one occasion. Fox News Digital reports the same and gives his summing up of the mental status examination as nothing remarkable.
He opened by explaining to the jury how a psychiatrist approaches the criminal responsibility question in Massachusetts. Reported by the Boston Globe and East Idaho News; East Idaho News names the standard McNaughton, which is not the Massachusetts test — the state applies McHoul. Recorded as that outlet's error, not as evidence.
What Clancy told him about herself. She described being depressed, spending most of her time at Tewksbury in bed or alone, called the depression situational, and said she felt miserable and did not want to be alive (Boston Globe 12:20, Boston 25 12:25). She was not convinced she had bipolar disorder (Boston Globe 12:27, Boston 25 12:28). She denied a head injury (Boston 25). On the stressors the outlets do not render him the same way, and one of them records him correcting the point himself: Boston 25 gives them as remorse, estrangement from her husband and physical injury, while Fox News Digital gives them as sadness about the case, estrangement from her then-husband, isolation and physical injury, and reports Mack saying explicitly that remorse was his own summary of the conversation and not a word Clancy used. Where the two differ this page follows the outlet that reports the witness qualifying his own evidence, and remorse should not be read from this page as Clancy's word. Separately, East Idaho News reports him describing her as groomed and able to manage her wheelchair herself, and CBS Boston as dissatisfied with hospital conditions and disengaged from physical therapy.
Her current medication. The Boston Globe reports her taking olanzapine, an antipsychotic, at a relatively small dose since the Tewksbury admission, along with other psychiatric medication; East Idaho News names Wellbutrin, trazodone and an anti-anxiety medication alongside it. Two outlets. This is the first time either drug has been named on this page.
HIS DIAGNOSIS: a major depressive episode, running from late 2022 into January 2023. Reported by the Boston Globe (12:43, 12:59), Boston 25 (12:39), East Idaho News and CBS Boston, which renders it as a major depressive episode and anxiety and hedges it as probable. Fox News Digital gives the fullest version — a major depressive episode over the 2022 to 2023 period, likely part of a major depressive disorder, and possibly generalized anxiety disorder as well — which is where CBS Boston's anxiety comes from, and the Associated Press account carried by boston.com reports him agreeing that Clancy suffered a major depressive episode. Six outlets.
NO BIPOLAR DISORDER AND NO MANIA — the load-bearing finding of the rebuttal case. He told the jury he found no evidence Clancy was bipolar at the time of the deaths and no mania or hypomania, and no reason to diagnose bipolar disorder in the absence of manic episodes. Reported by Boston 25 (12:50), the Boston Globe (12:43, 12:59), East Idaho News, CBS Boston, Fox News Digital — which renders it as never any indication of any element of mania or hypomania across that period — and the Associated Press account carried by boston.com, which has him finding no evidence of mania or hypomania to support a bipolar diagnosis, or of psychosis, leading up to the killings. Six outlets. It is the direct answer to the diagnosis the defense's two experts gave.
NO PSYCHOTIC SYMPTOMS. Boston 25 at 12:57 reports him saying Clancy did not present psychotic symptoms. He treated the fears she described — that medication had damaged her, that she would lose her children, that people would take her children if they knew her thoughts — as worries that lined up with things she had actually experienced rather than as fixed false beliefs meeting the definition of a delusion. Boston Globe, East Idaho News and CBS Boston.
THE POSTPARTUM WINDOW. The onset of her symptoms fell well outside the postpartum period as the DSM describes it (Boston 25, 12:55); the Boston Globe at 12:59 gives the DSM-5 limit as largely four weeks after birth. Two outlets. This attacks the postpartum label specifically, separately from the psychosis question.
PSYCHOSIS DOES NOT BY ITSELF DEFEAT KNOWING RIGHT FROM WRONG. East Idaho News at 12:46 and Boston 25 at 12:49 both report him telling the jury there is no reason psychosis in itself stops a person from telling right from wrong. The Associated Press account carried by boston.com reports the same sentence. Three outlets. It is the argument that would survive even if the jury accepted the defense diagnosis.
What he said about the suicidality. Boston 25 at 12:59 reports him saying it told him she was suffering and was part of a major depressive episode; East Idaho News at 13:00 reports him saying she named her mother and her children as what had held her back from acting on such thoughts. Each carried by one outlet.
JANUARY 24 AS SHE DESCRIBED IT TO HIM. She described the early part of the day as a good one — fun and productive, per the Boston Globe — and her then-husband had told authorities it was one of her best days in a long time. Mack told the jury an improvement in mood before a suicide attempt is not inconsistent with depression, East Idaho News adding that such an upturn can supply the energy to act. Boston Globe (about 14:30) and East Idaho News (14:24).
Her account of the killings, relayed to the jury through him. Boston 25 at 14:31 reports him describing her taking the eldest child to the basement first, putting an exercise band around his neck and saying the words go to God as she strangled him, then doing the same with the other two in turn; CBS Boston independently reports him saying she said those words aloud while it was happening. Two outlets.
THE VOICE, IN HIS ACCOUNT OF WHAT SHE TOLD HIM. Boston 25 at 14:47 reports her describing it as male and laughing, saying she should kill the children and that it was her last chance so she could kill herself; CBS Boston reports the same content, calling 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. Mack does not dispute that she reported a voice; his evidence goes to what it signifies.
HIS READING OF THE CONDUCT. Boston 25 at 14:43 reports him characterizing the killings as methodical, done one by one, organized and directed at a goal, and the suicide attempt as using as many methods as possible. The Boston Globe at 14:43 reports him saying her thinking was normal despite the depression, that she retained the ability to think ahead and navigate the world, and citing the pediatrician visit, playing with the children, normal conversation and her keeping to the rules of the road as evidence of organized functioning. Two outlets.
INCONSISTENCIES HE IDENTIFIED IN HER ACCOUNT. East Idaho News at 14:35 reports him listing discrepancies in what Clancy told him: she denied locking the bedroom door, which on that outlet's account the records contradict; she was uncertain about the cutting of the window screen; and her accounts of whether she had fed the children did not agree. East Idaho News alone on the set of them, though Boston 25 at 14:50 separately reports her denying the locked door to him. Both the door and the screen are contested elsewhere in the evidence on this site.
HIS READING OF THE WORDS GO TO GOD. East Idaho News at 14:45 reports him telling the jury that in saying them she marked the children out as innocent while treating what she herself was doing as wrong. East Idaho News alone. It is reasoning toward the wrongfulness prong rather than a separate opinion.
THE OPINION. At about 14:44 he told the jury Clancy retained the capacity for criminal responsibility for her actions. Boston 25 timestamps it 14:44 and CBS Boston reports him giving it as his opinion that she retained the capacity required for criminal responsibility for these actions. Fox News Digital, catching up on the day at about 15:22, carries the same words as a quotation and adds that he described her as in control of her actions the day the children died. The Boston Globe reports the opinion in the wrongfulness form — that his assessment led him to conclude she was able to understand her actions were wrong — and spells out for readers that this would mean she should be held criminally responsible. Four outlets, so recorded as reported. It is the direct answer to Dr. Resnick's opinion of three hours earlier and it is what the Commonwealth called this witness to obtain.
BOTH PRONGS, EACH NOW CORROBORATED. Boston 25 at 14:46 reports him on the conform prong — that her mental capacity was a continuation of what she had had for months and that she always had the capacity to control her behavior and conform her conduct. The Boston Globe, inside its 14:43 entry, reports him reasoning to the wrongfulness prong: that waking in the hospital horrified indicated she had understood the wrongfulness of what she did. East Idaho News at 14:40 carries both limbs in one entry, reporting that he believed she retained the capacity to know her actions were wrong and retained the ability to conform her conduct to the law, and grounding it in the appropriate way she dealt with people through the day and her keeping to the traffic laws. Each limb now has two outlets; earlier compilations of this page recorded each as resting on one, and that is superseded.
CROSS-EXAMINATION, by Kevin Reddington for the defense — NOW CORROBORATED. CBS Boston was for one compilation the only outlet reporting a cross-examination of Mack at all, and called it contentious. The Boston Globe (first cross entry 14:50) and East Idaho News (14:52) have now both reached it. No outlet reports when the direct examination ended or how long the cross ran, and at the latest entries checked it was still running. What Reddington is reported putting to him: that he is paid by the district attorney's office (Boston Globe; East Idaho News returns to his compensation at 14:52 and 14:57); that the account of the day the children died came from Clancy herself, East Idaho News reporting Mack accepting this and Reddington pressing whether he took her account as the truth when she was hospitalized, medicated and under a suicide watch, with CBS Boston reporting the same exchange in terms of his taking the history from a woman in a mental institution, on medication, held there because she was suicidal and under round-the-clock watch, and Mack agreeing that he had; and that running a road race weeks after giving birth might indicate mania, which Mack rejected, answering as to other exercise and decluttering that such things would not in and of themselves indicate mania (Boston Globe, 14:59). The Globe also reports him answering in this passage that Clancy very much wanted children and called that a lifelong interest, and that she was concerned about returning to work and about the well-being and nurturance of her children.
HOW HE CAME INTO THE CASE, AND AN OBJECTION SUSTAINED. Late in the cross-examination Reddington turned to how the Commonwealth found this witness. East Idaho News at 15:05 reports Mack saying his first communication with the prosecution was in late 2024 and came through a retention firm, Park Dietz & Associates. The Boston Globe at 15:02 instead places his retention by the government in early 2025, and reports prosecutors asking for a sidebar as soon as the line of questioning opened. The Boston Globe reached the same line at 15:22 and corroborates the firm: it reports Mack acknowledging that the Plymouth district attorney's office contacted him through Park Dietz and Associates, acknowledging that he knows Dietz, and being asked whether Dietz had testified in many cases and whether he had once cited an episode of Law & Order while testifying. East Idaho News reports the prosecution objecting when Reddington pressed on the name and the objection being sustained; the Globe reports neither the objection nor any answer from Mack to the Law & Order question. The exchange is set out in the day's rulings, and the difference between the two dates is recorded as an open discrepancy rather than resolved here. East Idaho News fills in what Reddington was drawing out about the name: that Dietz testified in the Andrea Yates trial and said there that Yates had taken the idea of killing her children from an episode of Law & Order, and that the claim was later debunked because no such episode existed. That is the statement the prosecution objected to and the objection was sustained. The Boston Globe's account of the same passage supplies the Yates outcome — conviction, reversal on appeal, and a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity at the retrial — as background for its readers rather than as anything reported said in court. The two outlets also describe Dietz differently: the Boston Globe calls him a forensic psychiatrist, East Idaho News an attorney. Nothing in the case turns on it and it is noted rather than resolved.
CROSS — WHETHER HE IS QUALIFIED TO SPEAK TO A POSTPARTUM CONDITION, NOW CARRIED BY THREE OUTLETS. Kevin Reddington read from a record of Mack's professional experience and research publications and put to him that his work has run to child and adolescent mental health, addiction and other fields. Mack answered that he sees himself as a generalist who happens to have a couple of areas of focus, and Reddington asked him where in that record it shows he had ever come within breathing distance of a pregnant woman. The Boston Globe times the passage 15:28 and East Idaho News 15:15 — the same exchange on two clocks about a quarter of an hour apart, which is the widest the two blogs have drifted today. CBS Boston, whose day-18 page was updated at 15:33, reports the same line more briefly, saying Reddington questioned Mack about his resume at length and put it to him that his experience appears to run more to child and adolescent psychiatry than to pregnant women. This page recorded the line as single-outlet at the previous compilation; that is superseded. WHAT MACK ANSWERED is reported by East Idaho News alone, and it materially qualifies the challenge: he said he has worked in pediatrics, up to age 24, since 2011, that his earlier work at Georgetown was all with adults and included a labor and delivery unit, that he leads the group attending to the psychiatric needs of patients on the high-risk maternity unit at CHOP, and that he has treated roughly ten women with postpartum psychosis since 2001. East Idaho News also has Reddington putting to him that his focus is on adolescents who drink and smoke marijuana, which Mack rejected. It is the fifth distinct line of the cross-examination and the one that goes at whether he should be giving an opinion in this case at all.
CROSS — A SECOND REBUTTAL WITNESS IS NAMED, AND A JOINT EXAMINATION DISCLOSED. ONE OUTLET ONLY: East Idaho News at 15:09, and nothing in the Boston Globe, Boston 25, CBS Boston, Fox News Digital, boston.com or NBC Boston mentions it. Reddington raised the name of Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, of the same retention firm, Park Dietz & Associates. Mack said he first met Heilbrun when the two of them conducted a joint evaluation of Clancy at Tewksbury. Reddington put it to him that he was working under the Park Dietz umbrella, said that Heilbrun would be testifying on Monday, and asked whether interviewing Clancy jointly was appropriate; Mack said it was. Mack further said he has communicated with Heilbrun since, though not about the interview or the testimony, that he has read Heilbrun's report of the joint interview, and that he does not know whether Heilbrun has read his. This is the first time any outlet has named a rebuttal witness other than Mack — CBS Boston has reported all day that three were named without naming them — and it is also the first report that any part of the Commonwealth's rebuttal is expected to run into Monday. Both points rest on a single blog and neither is treated here as settled. Note too that the statement about Monday is reported as part of Reddington's question rather than as anything the court said, and no outlet reports Judge Sullivan revising the schedule he gave on 08-20.
CROSS — WHETHER SHE EVER TOLD HIM SHE REFUSED MEDICATION. The sharpest exchange of the cross-examination so far, and three outlets reach it: East Idaho News at 15:30, the Boston Globe at 15:39 and CBS Boston on a page updated at 15:33. Mack had told the jury that Clancy had a longstanding, even lifelong resistance to taking psychiatric medication — that there are people in the world who do not want to take medication and that she described herself as one of them — and offered as an example an antidepressant prescribed after Callan's birth that she did not take. Reddington challenged whether Clancy had ever said any such thing to him. East Idaho News has Mack answering that the finding rests on his evaluation and on her description to him, and Reddington telling him flatly that she did not tell him that; CBS Boston reports Reddington asking whether he was making it up and saying she had not told him. The Boston Globe reports Mack acknowledging that Clancy had been concerned about medication passing into her breast milk, and Reddington answering that she did in fact take a number of psychiatric medications in the months before the killings. East Idaho News carries the rest of the passage alone: Reddington asked whether Clancy had ever been diagnosed with postpartum depression, and Mack said he did not think so; asked whether she had ever been given the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, and Mack said he did not know; and put to him that her records showed her off the charts on that scale. Mack placed her visit to Dr. Tufts in September 2022 and the prescription of Zoloft in October 2022. The same East Idaho News entry has Mack telling the jury that the traditional teaching is that postpartum psychosis is a form of bipolar disorder — which sits against his own finding of no bipolar disorder, though no outlet reports Reddington putting that to him.
CROSS — THE DIAGNOSTIC MANUAL, AND WHAT IT LEAVES OUT. The Boston Globe at 15:48, and the ground is now corroborated: East Idaho News at 15:45 records the cross working through the DSM-5 on postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder, and CBS Boston reports the day closing on a long back-and-forth about how the manual classifies postpartum conditions. The Globe alone reports the exchange itself. Holding a copy of the DSM, Reddington drew attention to how little space it gives conditions largely specific to women, postpartum disorders among them; Mack replied that he had not written it and was not there to represent it. Reddington then directed him to a passage recording that women with bipolar disorder run an increased risk of mood episodes during pregnancy. East Idaho News, at the same stretch, reports different material and reports it alone: Mack confirmed that postpartum psychosis does not appear in the DSM-5 at all, said he did not know whether it would be added to the next edition, and agreed that the manual states women are more likely than men to report hypomania and that childbirth may be a trigger for hypomania in about a quarter of women. That last is the manual turned against the no-mania-or-hypomania finding at t8, which is what removes bipolar disorder from his diagnosis.
CROSS — POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS AND THE CLOCK. The Boston Globe at 15:52, with East Idaho News at 15:54 independently placing the questioning on the diagnostic criteria for postpartum psychosis and the revision of the manual. The Globe alone reports what he said. Mack told the jury the condition is particularly related to the physiologic changes that happen at the time of birth, that closeness in time to the birth is an important factor, and that it is a disorder which occurs almost right away. This is the premise beneath his direct-examination evidence that Clancy's symptoms began outside the DSM's postpartum window, drawn out of him by the defense. The Globe reports the testimony also reaching a debate within psychiatry over whether postpartum psychosis should be added to the next edition of the manual, and reports Reddington still pressing on his standing to speak to the subject. East Idaho News now carries that next-edition ground too, and adds detail no other outlet has: Mack located the material at page 173 of the DSM-5, in a section on bipolar II disorder carrying a specifier the manual words as peripartum onset rather than postpartum, and said a panel proposing changes for the next edition wants peripartum changed to postpartum. The specifier is the window he placed Clancy's onset outside of, so the terminology he was taken to is the terminology his own opinion turns on.
WHERE HIS EVIDENCE STANDS AT THE ADJOURNMENT — UNFINISHED, AND REPORTED AS SUCH. boston.com reports Judge Sullivan ending Friday's session at about four o'clock with Mack being cross-examined by Kevin Reddington, which places him on the stand and under cross at the moment the day ended. Boston 25 timestamps the break 15:56 and the Boston Globe 16:00, the Globe reporting testimony as set to resume Monday morning. So his evidence is incomplete: no outlet reports the cross-examination concluding, none reports a redirect examination, and none reports the Commonwealth resting its rebuttal case. The last substantive testimony any outlet timestamps is the Boston Globe's 15:52 entry on the timing of postpartum psychosis, followed by its 15:54 entry placing counsel at sidebar on scheduling with no reported outcome. He is expected back on the stand Monday, though no outlet reports that in terms. East Idaho News, back in reach at the end of the day, timestamps the adjournment 15:56 and is the only outlet to give the return time: the jury was dismissed until nine o'clock Monday morning. Whether Reddington resumes his cross-examination of Mack then is not reported by anyone, though Mack was under cross when the session ended and no outlet reports him being excused.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WRAP, WHICH CORROBORATES THE CORE OF HIS EVIDENCE AND ADDS NOTHING NEW. The AP's own day-18 story, by Leah Willingham and Michael Casey and carried here from PBS NewsHour, reports Mack agreeing that Clancy suffered a major depressive episode but finding no evidence of mania or hypomania to support a bipolar diagnosis, and none of psychosis, in the period leading up to the killings; it reports him saying she was experiencing severe mental illness when she killed her children but that it was a continuation of the depression she had had for months, through which she was able to control her impulses and tell right from wrong; and it reports him saying that psychosis in and of itself does not necessarily stop a person distinguishing right from wrong. That is independent wire corroboration of t7, t8, t9, t11 and the conform limb at t20. The AP wrap does not name Mack's examiner, does not report his cross-examination, does not give an adjournment time, does not say when closing arguments will be heard, and names no rebuttal witness other than Mack.

From the bench

Rulings 1

15:02AN OBJECTION SUSTAINED ON THE DEFENSE'S QUESTIONING OF HOW THE COMMONWEALTH FOUND ITS EXPERT. Three live-blog entries reach the same passage of Kevin Reddington's cross-examination over about twenty minutes, and this page treats it as one exchange rather than three. The Boston Globe at 15:02 reports prosecutors asking for a sidebar once Reddington began asking how Mack came to be involved in the case, and places his retention by the government in early 2025. East Idaho News at 15:05 reports Mack saying his first contact with the prosecution came in late 2024, through a retention firm called Park Dietz & Associates, and reports Reddington then opening up the question of who Park Dietz is; the prosecution objected and Judge Sullivan sustained the objection. The Boston Globe at 15:22 carries the fullest account of the same line: Mack acknowledged on cross-examination that the Plymouth district attorney's office had contacted him through Park Dietz and Associates, acknowledged that he knows Dietz, was asked whether Dietz had testified in many cases and heard Reddington call him rather famous, and was asked whether Dietz had once cited an episode of Law & Order while testifying. The Globe attaches to that its own background on the Andrea Yates case — that Yates was convicted, that the conviction was overturned on appeal and that she was found not guilty by reason of insanity at her retrial — which is the newspaper explaining a name to its readers rather than anything reported as said in court. An earlier compilation of this page treated the whole Park Dietz description as East Idaho News's own gloss; two outlets now place the questioning itself in the courtroom, and that caution is superseded. What remains unreported is how, or whether, Mack answered the Law & Order question — the Globe does not report an answer and does not report the objection, and East Idaho News reports the objection sustained without the question in terms. The two accounts also date the Commonwealth's approach to its expert differently — late 2024 for the first contact, early 2025 for the retention — and this page records both without choosing between them; the conflict is entered in evidence.json. Nor is it reported whether the Globe's sidebar and the sustained objection are the same moment or two, or whether either is the sidebar East Idaho News placed at 14:57. East Idaho News's fuller account of the same entry supplies what the objected-to statement was: Reddington was putting to the jury who Park Dietz is — that Dietz testified in the Andrea Yates trial and said there that Yates had got the idea of killing her children from an episode of Law & Order, and that the claim was later debunked because no such episode existed. The prosecution objected to that statement and Judge Sullivan sustained the objection. The Boston Globe, which reaches the passage at 15:22, reports neither the objection nor any answer from Mack, and supplies the Yates outcome as its own background for readers. The two outlets also describe Dietz differently, the Globe as a forensic psychiatrist and East Idaho News as an attorney; that is noted, not resolved. The conflict over the date of Mack's retention stays open.

In sequence

Procedural 61

09:00Scheduled resumption. Judge indicated a longer day for jurors.
09:42Court in session. Judge Sullivan greeted Clancy, who answered quietly, and immediately called counsel to sidebar. Reported by the Boston Globe and East Idaho News; the two blogs timestamp the opening at 09:42 and 09:49 respectively.
09:52Jury brought in. The judge asked the jurors whether they remained in compliance with the orders they had been given, and told them the morning's delay had been the Zoom setup for the defense witness. The Globe noted at the same time that more than 80 witnesses have testified since late July.
09:59Judge Sullivan put the question to jurors individually, asking whether anything had affected their ability to serve. All indicated they were ready to proceed. Boston Globe.
10:01The Globe reported more than 50,000 people watching the Associated Press livestream of the trial on YouTube before 10am.
10:02Defense called Dr. Phillip Resnick, appearing by video. The connection gave trouble; Judge Sullivan called a sidebar and then a short break for court IT staff to work on it. East Idaho News timestamps the call at 10:02 and the Boston Globe at 10:03; Boston 25's live blog timestamps his introduction as the next defense witness at 09:54 and the technical break at 10:01, several minutes earlier than the other two. The Globe's entry describes him as having begun testifying; East Idaho News, CBS Boston and Boston 25 describe the break coming before testimony got under way.
10:06Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar and then announced a short recess for the technical problem, saying he hoped the break would be brief and would let the jury hear and take in the evidence more easily. The Boston Globe places this shortly after defense counsel Kevin Reddington had begun questioning Resnick, and describes volume and internet trouble at the start of the testimony.
10:15Jurors were taken out of the courtroom while the connection was worked on. The Boston Globe reports the trouble appeared to be at Resnick's end, with court staff trying to resolve it.
10:20The break continued with the courtroom locked and everyone, press included, waiting in the hallway. The Boston Globe describes a line of women supporting Clancy hoping to get in, and court officers warning that seating is not reserved, so people who had a seat before the break were not assured of getting back in. As of this entry the Globe does not report the jury returning or Resnick resuming.
10:36The recess was still running. The Boston Globe's entry at this time describes viewers of the Associated Press livestream posting comments while waiting for the testimony to begin, several of them expressing support for Clancy or discussing psychosis and mental health. Those are members of the public watching online, not evidence. Thirty minutes after the break was called the Globe still does not report the jury returning, the connection being restored, or Resnick resuming.
10:41The technical problem was resolved and the break ended, about thirty-five minutes after it was called. The Boston Globe reports the internet issue fixed and people being let back into the courtroom, with testimony expected to resume shortly. Boston 25's live blog at the same time has Resnick still on the monitor and the judge, the jury and Clancy waiting for the testimony to begin.
10:49Testimony resumed. The Boston Globe reports Judge Sullivan telling the jury they were going to give it another go, and Resnick then setting out his experience, including his position at Case Western Reserve University. East Idaho News timestamps the resumption at 10:46 and his credentials at 10:55; the two blogs run a few minutes apart on the same events, as they have all morning.
10:54Direct examination continued through Resnick's qualifications and the mechanics of his examination of Clancy: his filicide experience, the May 2023 evaluation, the time spent with Clancy and with her parents, and how she presented to him. Recorded in the witness detail rather than here. Boston 25's live blog carries entries at 10:54, 10:55, 10:57 and 11:00; East Idaho News at 10:55 and 11:01.
11:02Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar. The Boston Globe places the sidebar immediately after Reddington asked Resnick whether Clancy had been faking her symptoms and Resnick answered that the testing showed no evidence of it. The Globe does not report what the sidebar was about or how it was resolved, and no other outlet has reported the sidebar at all.
11:06Both the Boston Globe and Boston 25's live blog carry Resnick's evidence that psychological testing gave no evidence that Clancy had faked her psychiatric symptoms; the Globe adds that the testing showed her tending to minimize rather than exaggerate, and Boston 25 names the instrument as the MMPI. Recorded in the witness detail. This was the latest entry on either blog when this entry was compiled, and as of it Resnick had not been reported giving an opinion on Clancy's mental state at the time of the killings or on criminal responsibility.
11:16Resnick gave his opinion on Clancy's mental state on the day of the killings — the first point in his evidence to reach the contested issue. The Boston Globe reports him telling the jury she was frankly psychotic that day, describing the condition as postpartum psychosis on a diagnosis of bipolar disorder with major depression, and noting she was not psychotic every moment: she had functioned normally earlier in the day, before the command hallucination began. Boston 25's live blog carries the same opinion at 11:17, rendering the phrase as clearly psychotic and giving the onset as postpartum. CBS Boston's page, updated at about 11:24, also has her clearly psychotic that day and gives the diagnosis as severe depression, mild mania and bipolar disorder in the period leading up to the killings.
11:19Resnick described what he called a delusion of influence: Clancy felt her body had been taken over by an external force, as though she were a puppet and someone else were pulling the strings. The Boston Globe timestamps this 11:19 and Boston 25's live blog 11:18; Boston 25 adds that she described being in a dream state with no control over her body. CBS Boston reports the same external-force description.
11:23Resnick gave his opinion on criminal responsibility, now carried by three outlets. Boston 25's live blog reports at this time that because of her mental disease Clancy was unable to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law on the day she took her children's lives. East Idaho News reports the same evidence at 11:25, giving his reasons as the commanding voices and her feeling of being externally controlled, and the Boston Globe at 11:28 reports him saying it is his opinion that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible under Massachusetts law. The three timestamps span about five minutes, in line with the offset these blogs have run against each other all morning. This was recorded as a single outlet's account on two earlier compilations of this page; it is now corroborated. Separately, East Idaho News reports a sidebar at 11:23 on its own clock about the admissibility of psychiatric evaluations as they bear on premeditation and intent; no other outlet reports that sidebar.
11:26Resnick described what Clancy believed she was doing for the children: that she would be doing them a favor by having them go to heaven with her rather than leaving them on earth without her to mother them. Boston 25 timestamps this 11:26 and renders it as her believing suicide would benefit her children; CBS Boston carries the same evidence in near-identical words on a page stamped 11:31.
11:28The Boston Globe reports Resnick naming the category he places the killings in and giving the jury his conclusion. Its entry has him describing the deaths as meeting his definition of altruistic filicide — quoted as a murder committed out of love rather than hostility — and saying it is his opinion that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for her actions under Massachusetts law. The Globe's headline on the entry has him saying she did what she believed was morally right. East Idaho News reports at 11:29 that he set out five categories of parents who kill their children and placed Clancy in the altruistic one.
11:31Resnick gave the jury his most explicit account of the command hallucination. Boston 25 reports him saying Clancy heard a voice commanding her to engage in the killing behavior and felt she had to obey the instructions; 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.
11:33The direct examination ended and the Commonwealth's cross-examination began. The Boston Globe reports that Kevin Reddington finished his questioning of Resnick and that prosecutors then started theirs; Boston 25's live blog marks the same moment. CBS Boston, on a page stamped 11:44, names the prosecutor as Jennifer Sprague and reports her opening on an article Resnick wrote called "Faking It", in which she noted he had written that command hallucinations are easy to fabricate and that people often ignore the commands when they are dangerous. In the last of the direct the Globe reports him telling the jury Clancy was a more sophisticated patient than most but was not fully revealing about her impulses to harm her children, fearing she would lose them if she disclosed the full extent of her symptoms; Boston 25's entry at the same time has him saying she has not taken her own life because she is under constant suicide watch at Tewksbury State Hospital. The cross-examination was still running at the latest reporting on any outlet, and the defense had not rested.
11:42Cross-examination continued. The Boston Globe reports ADA Jennifer Sprague pressing Resnick on whether Clancy should have been able to resist the voice commanding her to harm the children, and Resnick answering that patients vary in whether they act on such commands — some do and some do not. The same entry reports that a question from the prosecution was struck from the record following a defense objection, without reporting the question or the grounds. The Associated Press account carried by boston.com supplies the question: after Resnick said patients commonly do not disclose thoughts of harming their children because they fear the children will be taken away, Sprague asked whether it was better to kill them than to have them taken away, and the judge struck the question. The AP account does not mention the defense objection the Globe reports, and the Globe does not give the question; the two are recorded together as one ruling rather than as two.
11:45Cross-examination continued. East Idaho News reports the prosecutor putting to Resnick inconsistencies between his testimony and the hospital documentation of Clancy's emotional state and her crying. That is the same line of attack CBS Boston reports on the daily-crying evidence, from a second outlet; East Idaho News does not carry the postpartum advocate and wheelchair marathon detail, and neither outlet reports how Resnick answered.
11:51Resnick's testimony concluded. Boston 25's live blog reports the cross-examination as rapid fire and marks the end of his evidence. No outlet reports a redirect examination by the defense afterward.
11:52THE DEFENSE RESTED. Kevin Reddington told the court that Lindsay Clancy rests her case. Boston 25's live blog timestamps this 11:52; the Boston Globe timestamps it 11:53 and gives the words as "Your honor, Lindsay Clancy rests". CBS Boston reports the defense resting without a time, and ABC7's day-18 page reports it after the final postpartum psychosis witness. East Idaho News, whose live blog has now caught up to this point, adds that Judge Sullivan then held a sidebar to establish whether the Commonwealth had rebuttal witnesses. Dr. Phillip Resnick was the last defense witness.
11:55The Commonwealth began its rebuttal case, calling Dr. Avram Mack, a psychiatrist, as its first rebuttal witness. NOW CORROBORATED: Boston 25's live blog timestamps this 11:55 and the Boston Globe 11:57, and Fox News Digital's day-18 live blog and boston.com's page, stamped 11:58, also name him. The Globe describes him as currently practicing and teaching in Philadelphia, with an expertise in forensic psychiatry, and reports ADA Jennifer Sprague conducting the examination. An earlier compilation of this page recorded the name as Boston 25's account alone; that caveat is lifted. CBS Boston and ABC7 still report only that three rebuttal witnesses are expected and name none of them.
12:04The Boston Globe reports that with the defense case concluded the trial has moved into its third and final stage, in which the Commonwealth may call expert witnesses to counter the defense case. Boston Globe alone.
12:05Mack began by setting out for the jury how a psychiatrist approaches the criminal responsibility question in Massachusetts. The Boston Globe reports him outlining the state's legal standard; East Idaho News, at 12:02, reports the same and describes the test as requiring a mental disorder and an inability to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct, but names the standard McNaughton. Massachusetts applies McHoul, not M'Naghten — see the legal standard page. Recorded here as an error in East Idaho News's account rather than as anything the witness is reported to have said.
12:15The first of Dr. Mack's evidence was reported. Boston 25's live blog at 12:12 and the Boston Globe at 12:15 both have him telling the jury he interviewed Clancy in April and found her generally friendly and cooperative. Boston 25 gives the dates as April 10 to 12, 2026; the Globe says he interviewed her twice in April. The Globe adds that she held eye contact, that there were not many abnormalities in her presentation — her pattern of speech, her thought process and the content of her thoughts — and that she appeared distressed at points and became tearful once. This was the latest entry on any outlet when this entry was compiled, and as of it Mack had not been reported giving any opinion on Clancy's mental state at the time of the killings or on criminal responsibility.
12:20What Clancy told him about her own condition. The Boston Globe at 12:20 and Boston 25 at 12:25 report Mack telling the jury she described herself as depressed, spending most of her time at Tewksbury in bed or alone, called the depression situational, and said she felt miserable and did not want to be alive. Boston 25 adds that she denied having had a head injury.
12:28Her medication, and her own doubt about the diagnosis. The Boston Globe at 12:27 and Boston 25 at 12:28 both report Mack saying Clancy was not convinced she had bipolar disorder. The Globe reports that since the Tewksbury admission she has taken olanzapine, an antipsychotic, at a relatively small dose, along with other psychiatric medication; East Idaho News names the others as Wellbutrin, trazodone and an anti-anxiety medication, and reports Mack describing her as groomed and able to manage her wheelchair herself. Boston 25 gives the stressors Mack identified as remorse, estrangement from her husband, and physical injury.
12:39MACK'S DIAGNOSIS. He told the jury Clancy suffered a major depressive episode. The Boston Globe puts the period as late 2022 into early 2023, East Idaho News as fall 2022 through January 2023, and Boston 25 as 2022 to 2023. CBS Boston renders it as a major depressive episode and anxiety, and hedges it as probable. Four outlets.
12:46The distinction the Commonwealth needs from him. East Idaho News at 12:46 and Boston 25 at 12:49 both report Mack telling the jury there is no reason that psychosis, in itself, stops a person from knowing the difference between right and wrong. East Idaho News reports him having just defined psychosis as involving disorganization and an inability to reality-test. Two outlets.
12:50NO BIPOLAR DISORDER AND NO MANIA. Boston 25 at 12:50 reports him finding no evidence Clancy was bipolar at the time of the deaths and no mania or hypomania. The Boston Globe at 12:43 and 12:59 reports him seeing no signs of mania or hypomania and no reason to diagnose bipolar disorder in their absence; East Idaho News reports him rejecting a bipolar diagnosis on the same ground; CBS Boston reports him finding no evidence she was ever bipolar in a manic state; Fox News Digital renders it as never any indication of mania or hypomania. Five outlets. This is the direct answer to the defense's diagnosis and it is the load-bearing part of the rebuttal case.
12:55The postpartum window. Boston 25 at 12:55 reports Mack saying the onset of Clancy's symptoms fell well outside the postpartum period as the DSM describes it; the Boston Globe at 12:59 gives the DSM-5 limit as largely four weeks after birth. Two outlets. This goes to the postpartum psychosis label the defense case rests on rather than to psychosis as such.
12:57NO PSYCHOTIC SYMPTOMS. Boston 25 at 12:57 reports him telling the jury Clancy did not present psychotic symptoms. The Boston Globe at 12:59 reports him treating her fears — that medication had damaged her, that she would lose her children — as lining up with things she had actually experienced rather than as psychosis. East Idaho News at 12:55 reports him saying of her belief that people would take her children if they knew her thoughts that he does not know that that is psychotic, and characterizing her fears as worries rather than fixed false beliefs meeting the definition of a delusion; CBS Boston carries a similar answer about the medication side effects she experienced. Three outlets.
12:59Boston 25 at 12:59 reports him telling the jury that Clancy's suicidality told him she was suffering, and that it was part of a major depressive episode. Boston 25 alone.
13:00East Idaho News reports Mack telling the jury Clancy identified what had held her back from acting on suicidal thoughts: her mother and her children, whom she did not want to hurt. East Idaho News alone.
13:01LUNCH RECESS. The Boston Globe, Boston 25 and East Idaho News all timestamp it 13:01. The Globe reports Judge Sullivan warning the jurors against researching the case or consuming coverage of it over the break. Boston 25 and East Idaho News give the return as about 2pm. This is the first recess any outlet has reported today.
14:24JANUARY 24 AS MACK HEARD IT DESCRIBED. East Idaho News at 14:24 and the Boston Globe at about 14:30 report him telling the jury Clancy described the early part of that day as a good one — the Globe renders it as fun and productive — and that her then-husband had told authorities it was one of her best days in a long time. Both report Mack saying an improvement in mood before a suicide attempt is not inconsistent with depression; East Idaho News has him adding that such an upturn can supply the energy to act on suicidal thoughts. Two outlets.
14:27Court resumed with Mack still on the stand and the Commonwealth still questioning him. Boston 25 timestamps the return 14:27, the Boston Globe 14:30, East Idaho News 14:20. East Idaho News labels the resumed questioning cross-examination while describing the Commonwealth as the questioner, which does not fit — Mack is the Commonwealth's own witness — and no other outlet uses that label at this point. Treated here as the direct examination continuing.
14:31Mack relayed Clancy's own account of the killings. Boston 25 at 14:31 reports him describing her taking the eldest child to the basement first, putting an exercise band around his neck and saying the words go to God as she strangled him, then doing the same with the other two children in turn. CBS Boston independently reports him saying that she said those words aloud while it was happening. Two outlets. This is an account she gave an examiner more than three years afterward, not a contemporaneous record.
14:35INCONSISTENCIES MACK PUT BEFORE THE JURY. East Idaho News at 14:35 reports him identifying discrepancies in the account Clancy gave him: she denied locking the bedroom door, which on East Idaho News's account the records contradict; she was uncertain about the cutting of the window screen; and her accounts of whether she had fed the children did not agree. East Idaho News alone on the discrepancies as a set, though Boston 25 at 14:50 independently reports her denying to him that she locked the door. Both the locked door and the window screen are contested elsewhere in the evidence on this site.
14:43MACK'S READING OF THE CONDUCT. Boston 25 at 14:43 reports him characterizing the killings as methodical, done one by one, organized and directed at a goal, and the suicide attempt as using as many methods as possible. The Boston Globe at 14:43 reports him telling the jury that despite the depression her thinking was normal and she retained the ability to think ahead and navigate the world, and citing the ordinary things she did that day — the pediatrician visit, playing with the children, normal conversation — together with her keeping to the rules of the road as evidence of organized functioning. Two outlets. This is the Commonwealth's answer to the defense account of a woman acting under a command she could not resist.
14:44THE COMMONWEALTH'S CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OPINION. Boston 25 at 14:44 reports Mack telling the jury that Clancy retained the capacity for responsibility for her actions. CBS Boston reports him saying his opinion is that she retained the capacity required for criminal responsibility for these actions. Two independent outlets, so recorded as reported. This is the direct answer to the opinion Dr. Resnick gave the jury three hours earlier.
14:46BOTH PRONGS, AND EACH IS NOW CORROBORATED. Boston 25 at 14:46 reports Mack on the conform prong — that her mental capacity was a continuation of what she had had for months, and that she always had the capacity to control her behavior and conform her conduct. The Boston Globe, within its 14:43 entry, reports him reasoning to the wrongfulness prong: that her being horrified when she woke in the hospital indicated she had understood the wrongfulness of what she did. East Idaho News, at 14:40 on its own clock, now carries both limbs together — that Mack believed Clancy retained the capacity to know her actions were wrong and retained the ability to conform her conduct to the law, resting it on the appropriate way she dealt with people through the day and on her keeping to the traffic laws. Each limb therefore has two outlets behind it, and the caveat two earlier compilations of this page carried — that each rested on a single outlet — is lifted. East Idaho News at 14:45 adds the reading he gave the words go to God: that in saying them she marked the children out as innocent while treating what she herself was doing as wrong. That reasoning goes to the wrongfulness prong and is East Idaho News's alone.
14:47THE VOICE, AS MACK HEARD IT DESCRIBED. Boston 25 at 14:47 reports Clancy describing the voice to him as male and laughing, telling her she should kill the children and that it was her last chance so that she could kill herself. CBS Boston reports the same content and calls it a loud male voice, without the detail of laughter. Two outlets on the substance. Note that this is Mack, the Commonwealth's witness, relaying her account of a commanding voice — he disputes what it signifies, not that she reported it.
14:50Boston 25 at 14:50 reports Mack saying Clancy told him she heard the voice as soon as Patrick Clancy left the house for CVS and the restaurant, that she denied locking the bedroom door, and that after taking pills and cutting herself she said she fell through the bedroom window. Boston 25 alone. The locked door and how she came through the window have both been contested elsewhere in the evidence.
14:50THE CROSS-EXAMINATION OF MACK BEGAN, AND IS NOW CORROBORATED. Kevin Reddington cross-examined the Commonwealth's rebuttal expert. The Boston Globe's first cross-examination entry is timestamped 14:50 and East Idaho News's 14:52; CBS Boston, which had been alone in reporting a cross at all and called it contentious, is now joined by both, and the single-outlet caveat this page carried is lifted. No outlet reports the moment the direct examination ended. Two lines of attack are carried by more than one outlet. The first is what he is paid: the Boston Globe reports Reddington bringing out that Mack is paid by the district attorney's office, and East Idaho News reports him returning to the compensation at 14:52 and again at 14:57. The second is Mack's reliance on Clancy's own account of the day. East Idaho News reports him accepting that the narrative of the day the children died came from Clancy herself, with Reddington pressing whether he took that account as the truth given that she was hospitalized, medicated and under a suicide watch; CBS Boston reports the same exchange, putting Reddington's question as whether he had taken the history from a woman in a mental institution who was on medication, held there because she was suicidal and under round-the-clock watch, and reports Mack agreeing that he had. In the same passage the Globe reports Mack answering that Clancy very much wanted children and described that as a lifelong interest, and that she was concerned about going back to work and about the well-being and nurturance of her children.
14:57The cross-examination grew contentious. East Idaho News reports Judge Sullivan intervening on objections and instructing Mack to answer yes or no, and a sidebar then being called. East Idaho News alone; it does not report how any objection was ruled on or what the sidebar concerned.
14:59MANIA PUT TO THE TEST ON CROSS. The Boston Globe at 14:59 reports 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. Boston Globe alone. This goes at the load-bearing finding of the rebuttal case, that there was never any mania or hypomania. The road race is the defense's own example: Reddington put it to the perinatal nurse practitioner on August 11 as possible manic behavior, and a defense expert put the 5K entered around the delivery of the youngest child to the jury as bearing on an undiagnosed manic onset. The Commonwealth's expert declines to read it that way.
15:09A SECOND REBUTTAL WITNESS NAMED, AND A JOINT EXAMINATION OF THE DEFENDANT DISCLOSED — ONE OUTLET ONLY. East Idaho News reports Reddington raising the name of Dr. Kirk Heilbrun of the retention firm Park Dietz & Associates. Mack said he first met Heilbrun when the two conducted a joint evaluation of Clancy at Tewksbury, agreed it was appropriate to have interviewed her together, said he had communicated with Heilbrun since but not about the interview or the testimony, said he had read Heilbrun's report and did not know whether Heilbrun had read his. Reddington's question described Heilbrun as testifying Monday. No other outlet reports any of this, and no outlet reports the court revising the schedule Judge Sullivan gave on 08-20.
15:28A CHALLENGE TO THE REBUTTAL EXPERT'S QUALIFICATIONS, NOW CARRIED BY THREE OUTLETS. Kevin Reddington read from a record of Dr. Avram Mack's professional experience and research publications, put to him that his work has run to child and adolescent mental health and addiction, and asked where in it he had ever come within breathing distance of a pregnant woman; Mack called himself a generalist with a couple of areas of focus. The Boston Globe times it 15:28, East Idaho News 15:15 and CBS Boston carries it on a page updated at 15:33. East Idaho News alone reports Mack's answers on perinatal work — a labor and delivery unit at Georgetown, leading the group serving the high-risk maternity unit at CHOP, and roughly ten women with postpartum psychosis treated since 2001 — which qualify the challenge considerably. Recorded at the Globe's time because that is the clock this page has used for the rest of the cross-examination.
15:30THE CROSS TURNS ON WHETHER CLANCY EVER TOLD HIM SHE REFUSED MEDICATION. Mack had told the jury she had a longstanding resistance to psychiatric medication and described herself as one of those people who do not want to take it; Reddington challenged whether she had said anything of the kind to him, CBS Boston reporting him asking whether Mack was making it up. Mack answered that the finding rested on his evaluation and on her description to him. The Boston Globe reports Mack accepting that she had been concerned about medication reaching her breast milk and Reddington pointing out that she did take a number of psychiatric medications in the months before the killings. East Idaho News adds the postpartum screening line — whether Clancy was ever diagnosed with postpartum depression (Mack did not think so), whether she was ever given the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (he did not know), and Reddington putting to him that her records showed her off the charts on it — and places her visit to Dr. Tufts in September 2022 and the Zoloft prescription in October 2022. East Idaho News times the passage 15:30 and the Boston Globe 15:39.
15:48THE CROSS TURNS TO THE DIAGNOSTIC MANUAL ITSELF. THE DETAIL IS THE BOSTON GLOBE'S, BUT THE GROUND IS NOW CORROBORATED: East Idaho News at 15:45 independently records the cross-examination working through how the DSM-5 treats postpartum psychosis and the prevalence of bipolar disorder, and CBS Boston reports the day ending on a long back-and-forth about how postpartum conditions are classified in the manual. Only the Globe reports the exchange in detail. Kevin Reddington held up a copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association's handbook, and drew attention to how little of it addresses conditions largely specific to women, postpartum disorders among them. Mack answered that he had not written the manual and was not there to represent it. Reddington then took him to a passage recording that women with bipolar disorder run an increased risk of mood episodes during pregnancy — a passage that cuts at Mack's diagnosis, which excludes bipolar disorder where the defense's includes it. The Globe is alone in reporting that exchange in those terms, but East Idaho News carries substantive ground of its own from the same stretch, and it is not the same material: Reddington asked whether postpartum psychosis appears in the DSM-5 at all and Mack confirmed that it does not; asked whether it would go into the next edition, Mack said he did not know; and Reddington put to him the manual's statements that women are more likely than men to report hypomania and that childbirth may be a trigger for hypomania in about a quarter of women, which Mack agreed the manual says. East Idaho News alone reports that last passage, and it goes at the same finding the road-race questions went at earlier — that there was never any mania or hypomania — this time out of the Commonwealth expert's own diagnostic manual.
15:52MACK ON WHY THE TIMING MATTERS, ELICITED ON CROSS. THE DETAIL IS THE BOSTON GLOBE'S, BUT THE GROUND IS NOW CORROBORATED: East Idaho News at 15:54 independently records the questioning reaching the diagnostic criteria for postpartum psychosis and the revision of the manual. Only the Globe reports what Mack actually said. Mack told the jury that postpartum psychosis is particularly bound up with the physiologic changes that accompany giving birth, that nearness in time to the birth is an important factor, and that it is a disorder which arises almost at once. That is the reasoning underneath the opinion he gave on direct — that the onset of Clancy's symptoms fell well outside the postpartum window as the DSM describes it — and here it came out under the defense's questioning rather than the Commonwealth's. The Globe reports the testimony also touching on a debate within the profession over whether postpartum psychosis should be added to the next edition of the manual, and reports Reddington continuing at the same time to challenge Mack's authority to speak to the subject at all. THE NEXT-EDITION POINT IS NO LONGER THE GLOBE'S ALONE. East Idaho News, at 15:54, reports Mack finding the relevant material at page 173 of the DSM-5 — a section on bipolar II disorder which carries a specifier for onset described in the manual as peripartum rather than postpartum — and reports him saying that a panel proposing changes for the manual's next edition wants the word peripartum changed to postpartum. East Idaho News alone reports the page, the specifier and the proposed change of wording. It matters to the dispute because the window Mack placed Clancy's onset outside of is the window this specifier defines, and because the terminology he was taken to is the terminology the profession is reported to be revising.
15:54SIDEBAR ON SCHEDULING. ONE OUTLET: the Boston Globe, which reports that with Reddington's cross-examination of Mack running toward four o'clock, Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar to discuss scheduling. What was decided there is not reported.
15:56COURT BROKE FOR THE WEEKEND WITH THE CROSS-EXAMINATION STILL RUNNING — NOW FOUR OUTLETS. Boston 25's Bob Ward, posting from the courtroom, reports at 15:56 that the trial is breaking for the weekend and back Monday morning. The Boston Globe posts its own entry at 16:00: Judge Sullivan excused the jurors for the day, gave them his usual warning against any media coverage or research about the case over the weekend, and told them to keep an open mind, noting there was more of the case still to come including closing arguments and the applicable law. The Globe records testimony as set to resume Monday morning. boston.com, updated at 16:00, reports Judge Sullivan ending the session at about four o'clock with Dr. Avram Mack, the Commonwealth's first rebuttal witness, being cross-examined by Kevin Reddington. EAST IDAHO NEWS, reachable again after refusing fetches for most of the afternoon, timestamps the same event 15:56 and supplies two things no other outlet gives: Judge Sullivan dismissed the jury until nine o'clock Monday morning, and told them the trial remained well on schedule. East Idaho News alone on both. The return time sharpens what the Globe records only as Monday morning. The four accounts differ by a few minutes on when the break came — 15:56, 16:00, about 16:00, 15:56 — which is the ordinary drift between these live blogs and not a conflict about what happened. WHAT THIS SETTLES: boston.com puts Mack under cross at the moment the session ended, so the cross-examination did not finish and the Commonwealth has not rested its rebuttal case. Both had been gaps on this page and both now close on a report rather than on inference. WHAT IT DOES NOT SETTLE: no outlet reports who the third rebuttal witness is, and none reports Judge Sullivan restating on the record the conditional schedule he set on 08-20 — closings Monday if all the evidence finished Friday, Tuesday if it ran into Monday, per CBS Boston. His remark to the jury that the trial was well on schedule is a general observation and is NOT recorded here as a restatement of that conditional or as fixing a day for closing arguments. The outcome of the 15:54 scheduling sidebar is still unreported. What the outlets do carry is a looser expectation: CBS Boston, on a page updated at 16:10, has dropped the conditional for closing arguments expected early next week; NBC Boston has them likely early next week; the Associated Press, carried by boston.com, has them expected next week; and WBUR has closing statements expected next week. This page records those as the outlets' expectations and does not convert them into a date from the bench.
-AFTER COURT, OUTSIDE THE COURTHOUSE — NOT A COURTROOM EVENT. ONE OUTLET: Fox News Digital, posting at about 17:36, reports Kevin Reddington speaking to reporters as he left court. He said closing arguments are expected Tuesday, after the Commonwealth finishes its rebuttal case next week; that he is done with his experts and has finished calling his witnesses; and that only two rebuttal witnesses remain. He said Lindsay Clancy had been surprised and emotional at the crowds gathered in support of her, and that the jury had been very, very focused. Recorded here as defense counsel's remarks to the press, which is what they are — not as anything said in the courtroom and not as a schedule set by the court. No other outlet has yet carried them.
-EXPECTED: counsel to receive Judge Sullivan's draft of the jury instructions, per his statement on 08-20. The involuntary manslaughter and involuntary intoxication questions were undecided as of Thursday.

In evidence

Exhibits 0

The archive records no exhibits for this day.

As reported

Account

The defense called its final expert, Dr. Phillip Resnick, at about 10:02, appearing by video rather than in the courtroom. He told the jury that recent surgery prevented him from traveling to Massachusetts. Kevin Reddington began the direct examination, and the remote connection then failed; Judge Sullivan called a sidebar and, at about 10:06, a short break for court IT staff to work on it. The break did not stay short: by about 10:15 the jurors had been taken out of the courtroom, the Boston Globe reporting that the fault appeared to be at Resnick's end, and at about 10:20 the courtroom was locked with press and public waiting in the hallway. At about 10:41 both the Boston Globe and Boston 25's live blog report the problem fixed, and his evidence got under way, the Globe putting the resumption at about 10:49 and East Idaho News at about 10:46 — roughly forty minutes of the sitting lost to the connection. The direct then ran through foundation: his teaching and professorship at Case Western Reserve, his specialty in violence risk assessment, the cases he has consulted on, and his account of filicide as a rare category of killing. He described examining Clancy about four months after the deaths — in May 2023, at Tewksbury State Hospital by Boston 25's account — spending roughly three hours with her and also interviewing her parents, and finding her muted and matter-of-fact while medicated, with nurses reporting that she cried daily over her children. By about 11:02 the direct had reached whether Clancy had been feigning her symptoms: Reddington put the question, Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar, and Resnick told the jury the testing showed no sign of it, the Globe adding that the results showed her tending to understate rather than overstate what she was experiencing and Boston 25 naming the instrument as the MMPI. At about 11:16 the direct reached the contested issue. Resnick told the jury Clancy was psychotic on the day she killed her children and described the condition as postpartum psychosis, the Boston Globe rendering the phrase as frankly psychotic and Boston 25 and CBS Boston as clearly psychotic. He qualified the opinion, telling the jury she was not psychotic every moment and had functioned normally earlier that day until the command hallucination began. At about 11:19 he described a delusion of influence: that she felt her body taken over by an external force, as though she were a puppet with someone else pulling the strings. He then gave the criminal responsibility opinion the defense case has been built toward, and three outlets now carry it. Boston 25's live blog has him at 11:23 saying that because of her mental disease she was unable to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law on the day she took her children's lives; East Idaho News reports the same evidence at 11:25; and the Boston Globe at 11:28 reports him saying it is his opinion that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for her actions under Massachusetts law. That opinion had been a single outlet's account for two earlier runs of this page and is now corroborated. In the same passage the Globe reports him describing the killings as meeting his definition of altruistic filicide, a murder committed out of love rather than hostility, and telling the jury she did what she believed was morally right; East Idaho News has him setting out five categories of parents who kill their children and placing Clancy in the altruistic one. At about 11:26 he had told the jury she believed she would be doing her children a favor by having them go to heaven with her rather than leaving them on earth without her to mother them, and at about 11:31 he described the command itself — a voice commanding her to engage in the killing behavior which she felt she had to obey. The direct ended at about 11:33, the Boston Globe reporting that Reddington finished his questioning and prosecutors then began theirs. CBS Boston names the prosecutor conducting the cross-examination as Jennifer Sprague and reports her opening on Resnick's own writing, an article of his called "Faking It" in which, she noted, he wrote that command hallucinations are easy to fabricate and that people often ignore such commands when they are dangerous. No outlet reports Resnick being asked whether Clancy could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct, which is the other prong of the McHoul standard. Earlier the court opened at about 09:42 with a sidebar, and the jury was seated at about 09:52; the judge told jurors the morning's delay had been the Zoom setup for the defense witness. The cross-examination was still running at the latest reporting. The defense has not yet rested; Clancy is not expected to testify, and the Commonwealth is then expected to call three rebuttal experts. Judge Sullivan told counsel on Thursday they would receive a draft of the jury instructions today. Closing arguments are expected Monday or Tuesday. Jennifer Sprague's cross-examination ran from about 11:33 to about 11:51 and Boston 25 calls it rapid fire. Two outlets carry its substance and each carries different parts: the Boston Globe has Sprague pressing whether Clancy should have been able to resist the commanding voice, with Resnick answering that patients vary, and records a prosecution question struck after a defense objection; CBS Boston has her contrasting Clancy with Andrea Yates, who had hospitalized herself five times and attempted suicide twice before killing her children, putting to Resnick that Clancy heard the voice and acted at once — which he rejected, saying she had impulses to harm her children and resisted until the command hallucination overwhelmed her — and disputing that the records showed daily crying, against Clancy's stated hopes of becoming a postpartum advocate and doing a wheelchair marathon. The defense rested at about 11:52, Reddington telling the court that Lindsay Clancy rests; the Boston Globe, Boston 25, CBS Boston and ABC7 all report it. The Commonwealth then opened its rebuttal case, calling a psychiatrist of its own, Dr. Avram Mack, whom the Boston Globe describes as practicing and teaching in Philadelphia with an expertise in forensic psychiatry. Boston 25's live blog timestamps the call 11:55 and the Globe 11:57, and Fox News Digital and boston.com also name him, so the single-outlet caveat this page carried earlier in the day has been lifted. The Globe reports ADA Jennifer Sprague conducting his examination, and at about 12:04 describes the trial entering its third and final stage. By about 12:12 to 12:15 the first of his evidence had been reported: he interviewed Clancy twice in April — on April 10 to 12, 2026, by Boston 25's account — and found her generally friendly and cooperative and holding eye contact, with few abnormalities in her pattern of speech, her thought process or the content of her thoughts, though she appeared distressed at points and became tearful on one occasion. No outlet has yet reported him giving an opinion on Clancy's mental state at the time of the killings or on criminal responsibility, no cross-examination of him has been reported, and the other two rebuttal witnesses the Commonwealth is expected to call have not been named by anyone. No lunch recess has been reported by any outlet. No outlet, on direct or cross, reports Resnick being asked whether Clancy could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct. THE AFTERNOON. Mack's direct examination ran from about 11:55 until at least 14:50, broken by a lunch recess at 13:01 — the first recess reported today — with the court returning at about 14:20 to 14:30. Before the break he gave his diagnosis and his findings. He told the jury Clancy suffered a major depressive episode from late 2022 into January 2023; that he found no evidence she was bipolar at the time of the deaths and no mania or hypomania, and no reason to diagnose bipolar disorder without manic episodes; that she did not present psychotic symptoms, her fears about medication damage and about losing her children matching things she had actually experienced rather than amounting to delusions; and that the onset of her symptoms fell well outside the postpartum period as the DSM describes it, which the Boston Globe gives as largely four weeks after birth. He also made the argument that would survive the jury accepting the defense diagnosis: that there is no reason psychosis in itself stops a person from telling right from wrong. He described her current medication as olanzapine at a small dose with other psychiatric drugs, and told the jury she was not convinced she had bipolar disorder. After the recess he turned to January 24. She had described the early part of the day to him as a good one, and her then-husband had told authorities it was one of her best days in a long time; Mack said an improvement in mood before a suicide attempt is not inconsistent with depression. He relayed her own account of the killings — the eldest child taken to the basement first, an exercise band around his neck, the words go to God spoken aloud, then the same with the other two — and he relayed her description of the voice, which Boston 25 reports her calling male and laughing, telling her to kill the children and that it was her last chance so she could kill herself. He did not dispute that she reported a voice; he disputed what it signified. He characterized the killings as methodical, organized and directed at a goal and the suicide attempt as using as many methods as possible, and pointed to the pediatrician visit, playing with the children, ordinary conversation and her keeping to the rules of the road as evidence of organized functioning. Then, at about 14:44, he gave the opinion the Commonwealth called him for: that Clancy retained the capacity for criminal responsibility for her actions. Boston 25 and CBS Boston both carry it, so it is recorded as reported. Each side's expert has now told this jury the opposite thing about the only live issue in the case. Both prongs of the McHoul standard are covered and each now has two outlets: Boston 25 reports him on the conform prong, saying she always had the capacity to control her behavior and conform her conduct, the Boston Globe reports him reasoning to the wrongfulness prong, that waking in the hospital horrified showed she understood the wrongfulness of what she did, and East Idaho News at 14:40 carries both limbs in a single entry. Before that opinion he had also listed for the jury inconsistencies in what Clancy told him, East Idaho News reporting 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 DEFENSE THEN CROSS-EXAMINED HIM. Kevin Reddington's cross-examination began at about 14:50 by the Boston Globe's clock and 14:52 by East Idaho News's, and CBS Boston, which had been the only outlet reporting a cross at all and called it contentious, is now joined by both. He drew out that the district attorney's office pays Mack, and he attacked the source of Mack's facts: East Idaho News and CBS Boston both report Mack accepting that his account of the day the children died came from Clancy herself, interviewed in a psychiatric hospital while medicated and under a suicide watch, with Reddington pressing whether he took that account as the truth. At 14:59 the Boston Globe reports him going at the mania finding directly, asking whether the road race Clancy ran weeks after giving birth indicated manic behavior; Mack said it did not, and said other exercise and decluttering would not in and of themselves indicate mania. East Idaho News reports Judge Sullivan intervening on objections at about 14:57, instructing Mack to answer yes or no, and a sidebar being called. The cross-examination was still running at the latest entries checked. At about 15:02 the cross reached how the Commonwealth came to have this witness at all. The Boston Globe reports prosecutors asking for a sidebar as soon as Reddington began on it, and puts Mack's retention by the government in early 2025; East Idaho News at 15:05 reports him saying his first contact with the prosecution was in late 2024, through a retention firm called Park Dietz & Associates. The two dates do not match and this page does not reconcile them. Reddington then went at the name behind the firm, the prosecution objected, and Judge Sullivan sustained the objection. The Boston Globe reached the same passage at 15:22 and carries more of it: Mack accepted on cross-examination that the Plymouth district attorney's office had contacted him through a retention firm called Park Dietz and Associates, agreed that he knows Dietz, and was asked by Reddington — who called Dietz rather famous — whether Dietz had once cited an episode of Law & Order while testifying. That supersedes the caution an earlier compilation of this page carried, that the Park Dietz material was one outlet's own gloss; two outlets now place it in the courtroom. What is still not reported is how, or whether, Mack answered the Law & Order question, and neither outlet reports the objection and the sustaining in the same entry. A FOURTH LINE OF ATTACK OPENED AT 15:28, and it goes at whether this witness should be giving an opinion in this case at all. The Boston Globe reports Reddington reading from a record of Mack's professional experience and publications and putting to him that his work has run to child and adolescent mental health, addiction and other fields; Mack described himself as a generalist with a couple of areas of focus, and Reddington asked him to point to anywhere in the record showing he had ever come within breathing distance of a pregnant woman. That is a challenge to his standing to speak to postpartum psychiatric conditions, and the Boston Globe is so far the only outlet reporting it. TWO NATIONAL ACCOUNTS ALSO CAUGHT UP WITH THE DAY. The Associated Press, in the story boston.com is carrying, supplies the question Judge Sullivan struck during the cross-examination of Dr. Resnick, which the Boston Globe had reported as a ruling without the words: Sprague had put to him whether it was better to kill the children than have them taken away, and the judge struck it. The same account reports Resnick accepting on cross that Clancy did not disclose thoughts of harming her children to the providers who asked her, and answering that this is very common because such patients fear their children will be taken from them. Fox News Digital, stale at 13:33 for most of the afternoon, has now filed on Mack and becomes a third outlet on his criminal responsibility opinion. STILL NOT REPORTED ANYWHERE: whether Mack's evidence has finished, whether the Commonwealth has rested its rebuttal case, who the other two rebuttal witnesses are — CBS Boston says three were named but names none — whether court has adjourned for the day, and any ruling on the involuntary manslaughter or involuntary intoxication questions. The Boston Globe's 15:28 entry has the cross-examination still running, so the Commonwealth has not rested. EAST IDAHO NEWS CAME BACK, AND IT HAD THE MOST OF ANYONE. Blocked to a direct fetch all afternoon and last read at 15:05, its blog now carries the cross-examination through 15:30 and supplies three things no one else has. At 15:09 it names a second rebuttal witness for the first time today: Reddington raised Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, of the same retention firm, and Mack said the two of them had evaluated Clancy jointly at Tewksbury, that he had read Heilbrun's report of it, and that he did not know whether Heilbrun had read his; Reddington's question described Heilbrun as testifying Monday. No other outlet carries any of that, and no outlet reports the court changing the schedule, so it is recorded as one blog's account and not as a settled fact. At 15:15 it reaches the passage the Boston Globe timed 15:28 — the challenge to Mack's qualifications — and, unlike the Globe or CBS Boston, reports his answers: a labor and delivery unit at Georgetown, leadership of the group serving the high-risk maternity unit at CHOP, and roughly ten women with postpartum psychosis treated since 2001. The challenge is now three-outlet and no longer the Globe's alone, but the outlet that carries the answer makes it land more softly than the two that carry only the question. A FIFTH LINE OF CROSS OPENED at about 15:30 by East Idaho News's clock and 15:39 by the Globe's, and it is the sharpest exchange of the day. Mack had told the jury Clancy had a longstanding, even lifelong resistance to psychiatric medication and described herself as one of those people who will not take it. Reddington challenged whether she had ever said anything of the kind to him — CBS Boston reports him asking whether the witness was making it up — and the Boston Globe reports him pointing out that she did take a number of psychiatric medications in the months before the killings, Mack accepting that she had been worried about medication reaching her breast milk. Mack's answer was that the finding rested on his evaluation and on what she described to him. East Idaho News carries the rest alone: that Mack did not think Clancy had ever been diagnosed with postpartum depression and did not know whether she had ever been given the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, against Reddington's assertion that her own records put her off the charts on it, and that Mack placed her visit to Dr. Tufts in September 2022 and the Zoloft prescription in October 2022. East Idaho News also fills in the Park Dietz exchange the court shut down at 15:02: what Reddington was putting was that Dietz had testified in the Andrea Yates trial that Yates took the idea from an episode of Law & Order, and that the claim was later debunked because no such episode existed. That was the statement objected to and struck. The cross-examination then turned to the diagnostic manual itself, on the Boston Globe's account alone. At about 15:48 Reddington held up a copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and drew attention to how little of it deals with conditions largely specific to women, postpartum disorders among them; Mack answered that he had not written it and was not there to represent it, and Reddington took him to a passage recording that women with bipolar disorder run a raised risk of mood episodes during pregnancy. At about 15:52 the same line of questioning produced from Mack the reasoning underneath the opinion he had given on direct: that postpartum psychosis is particularly related to the physiologic changes that happen at the time of birth, that closeness in time to the birth is an important factor, and that it is a disorder which occurs almost right away — which is why he placed the onset of Clancy's symptoms outside the window. The Globe reports the testimony also reaching a debate within psychiatry over whether the condition should be added to the next edition of the manual, and reports Reddington continuing to press on Mack's standing to speak to it at all. At about 15:54, with the cross running toward four o'clock, Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar to discuss scheduling; what was decided is not reported. THE DAY THEN ENDED WITH THE CROSS-EXAMINATION UNFINISHED, AND FOUR OUTLETS NOW CARRY IT. Boston 25's Bob Ward, posting from the courtroom at 15:56, reports the trial breaking for the weekend and returning Monday morning. The Boston Globe at 16:00 reports Judge Sullivan excusing the jurors for the day, giving his usual warning against media coverage and research over the weekend and telling them to keep an open mind, with more of the case still to come including closing arguments and the applicable law; the Globe records testimony as resuming Monday morning. boston.com, updated at 16:00, reports him ending the session at about four o'clock with Dr. Avram Mack being cross-examined by Kevin Reddington — which settles that the cross had not finished and that the Commonwealth had not rested its rebuttal case when the day ended. East Idaho News, which had refused every fetch since 15:05 and is reachable again, times the adjournment 15:56 and alone reports the return time and a remark from the bench: the jury was dismissed until nine o'clock Monday morning, and Judge Sullivan told them the trial remained well on schedule. That remark is recorded as what it is — a general observation to the jury — and not as a restatement of the conditional closing-argument schedule of 08-20 or as fixing a day for closings. East Idaho News also independently reaches the DSM ground the Boston Globe had carried alone, at 15:45 and 15:54, so the single-outlet caution on the last half-hour is now limited to the detail of what was said rather than to whether it happened. STILL NOT REPORTED: who the third rebuttal witness is, the outcome of the 15:54 scheduling sidebar, or any restatement by Judge Sullivan of the conditional schedule he set on 08-20 for closing arguments. CBS Boston, NBC Boston, the Associated Press and WBUR all now describe closing arguments as expected next week or early next week, which this page records as their expectation and not as a date set from the bench; WBUR also reports three medical experts expected in rebuttal without naming them. Nor has any ruling been reported on the defense's requests that involuntary manslaughter go on the verdict slip and that the jury be instructed on involuntary intoxication. Unchanged through this compilation: Fox News Digital (15:49, carrying nothing past the criminal responsibility opinion) and Boston 25, whose last courtroom entry remains the 15:56 adjournment. A LATE CORRECTION TO THIS PAGE'S OWN RECORD, NOT TO ANY OUTLET'S. Five earlier compilations today rejected the name Dr. Gregory Saathoff as the Commonwealth's third rebuttal witness on the ground that no page this site could open carried it. That ground was wrong, and the source was in this site's own files the whole time: the Boston Globe's live blog of August 19 names Heilbrun, Mack and Saathoff as the three doctors the district attorney's office had retained, in the unfinished question the Commonwealth objected to, and this page has recorded that since the August 19 entry was written. The Boston Globe's pre-trial witness preview of July 27, by Shelley Murphy and Nick Stoico, names the same three as prosecution mental health experts and adds a fourth, Dr. Margarita Abi Zeid Daou of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. The name therefore has a published origin, and this page says so. It still does not answer the question this page has been asking all day, because four named experts cannot fill three rebuttal seats and no outlet has reported the rebuttal roster: the third witness stays unreported, and Saathoff stays a candidate rather than a fact. AFTER THE COURTROOM EMPTIED, THE DEFENSE PUT A DAY ON CLOSING ARGUMENTS. Fox News Digital, posting at about 17:36, reports Kevin Reddington speaking to reporters as he left the courthouse: closing arguments are expected Tuesday, once the Commonwealth finishes its rebuttal case next week; he is done with his experts and has finished calling his witnesses; and only two rebuttal witnesses are left to come. He said Lindsay Clancy had been surprised and emotional at the crowds gathered in support of her, and that the jury had been very, very focused. No other outlet has yet carried the remarks. They are the first time today that a named speaker has attached Tuesday to closing arguments, and Tuesday is the fallback limb of the condition Judge Sullivan gave on 08-20 — whose antecedent failed when Mack's cross-examination did not finish. But this is defense counsel's expectation, given on the sidewalk, and this page still does not record a date for closings as set by the court. Reddington's two-left figure is consistent with the count of three he was reported giving earlier today, with Mack as the first; it comes from the same speaker rather than from a second source, and the third rebuttal witness is still unnamed.

Index terms

Topics 65

forensic psychiatry
postpartum psychosis
remote testimony by Zoom
courtroom technology failure
defense expected to rest
Commonwealth rebuttal
closing arguments scheduled
Andrea Yates comparison
draft jury instructions
filicide
expert qualifications
Tewksbury State Hospital
defense expert examination of the defendant
malingering
psychological testing
criminal responsibility opinion
command hallucination
delusion of influence
bipolar disorder
McHoul standard
altruistic filicide
cross-examination of the defense expert
defense rests
Commonwealth rebuttal case begins
Commonwealth rebuttal expert
rebuttal expert examination of the defendant
major depressive episode
DSM-5 postpartum specifier
antipsychotic medication
competing expert diagnoses
wrongfulness prong
conform prong
rebuttal expert criminal responsibility opinion
cross-examination of the rebuttal expert
expert compensation
reliance on the defendant's own account
inconsistencies in the defendant's account
expert retention
objection sustained
challenge to the rebuttal expert's qualifications
perinatal psychiatric expertise
expert retention firm
question struck from the record
generalized anxiety disorder
joint examination of the defendant
second rebuttal witness named
resistance to psychiatric medication
Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
timing of postpartum onset
trial adjourned for the weekend
testimony to resume Monday
cross-examination unfinished at adjournment
jury dismissed until Monday morning
three rebuttal witnesses expected
peripartum onset specifier
proposed revision of the diagnostic manual
childbirth as a trigger for hypomania
defense case witness count
defense case began August 17
prosecution expert roster
pre-trial witness preview
closing arguments expected Tuesday
defense counsel remarks outside court
supporters outside the courthouse

Reporting relied on

Sources 15

Sources: globe-day-18, cbs-day-17, b25-chaplain-visits, b25-day-18, cbs-day-18-resnick, eastidaho-day-18, abc7-day-18, b25-day-18-live, fox-day-18, boston-0821, nbc-day-18, wbur-day-18, ap-day-18, abcnews-day-18, globe-witness-preview

Identifiers are the archive's own source keys; each links to the report it names where the archive gives a web address.

Mirror of the public trial reference at clancytrial.org, reproduced with its cautions intact. Nothing here is a conclusion about guilt or responsibility; the defendant is presumed innocent. Corrections: [email protected].