Trial day 19 of 28 · Monday · Rebuttal

August 24, 2026

Reddington's cross of the Commonwealth's rebuttal expert ended some time between 10:43 and 10:47 — NBC News's national live blog is the only outlet to describe how it closed, on a last question about whether Clancy's thyroid should have been checked by blood work while her doctors were prescribing her a number of psychiatric medications; Mack agreed in general terms but resisted the framing, and Reddington answered "I don't care" and told the judge he was done. It came after Dr. Avram Mack said he found no evidence of psychosis in Clancy's record and that he takes no position on the care she was given. On redirect the Commonwealth had him say he is paid whatever opinion he reaches, and offered the videotape of his two interviews with Clancy at Tewksbury Hospital into evidence; Judge Sullivan took counsel to sidebar and no ruling is reported. After the sidebar the Globe reports him acknowledging that a Florida court had struck his opinion in a separate case, where earlier in the morning he said he did not believe it was. NBC News adds that the Commonwealth spent its last minutes with him seeking to reaffirm that Clancy had been diagnosed with postpartum depression and not postpartum psychosis, and that Reddington interjected over Mack's evidence that he had had a difficult time seeing Clancy while she was hospitalized. He stepped down at about 11:08, on the same major-depressive-episode diagnosis he arrived with. NBC News also carries a morning the other outlets only partly recorded: the judge telling Mack to listen to the question and answer it after Reddington pressed him on his annual earnings, and directing him again during the exchange in which Reddington told him postpartum is not a disease; the Commonwealth objecting that he had answered a question repeatedly; and the name of the instrument behind the sharpest exchange of the morning, the K Scale. The jury came back from the morning recess at about 11:51 and the Commonwealth called Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, the forensic psychologist who ran the psychological testing at Tewksbury and diagnosed the bipolar II that Mack declined to adopt. Jennifer Sprague took his direct, which by 12:15 had covered his publications, some 330 appearances as a witness mostly for the defense, the retention and confirmation biases he says he works to guard against, and the three days he spent with Clancy at Tewksbury in April over 180 hours of work on the case. Asked about working with Mack, he said the two of them interviewed her at the same time but wrote separate reports and did not agree on the diagnosis. At 12:13 he set out the evaluation itself — about ten hours with Clancy, interviews with her former husband and former mother-in-law, and a documentary record he has been reading since January 2025 — and the Patriot Ledger, summarizing the direct at 12:28, gives both time figures together as about 180 hours on the case including about 10.5 hours of interviews. By 12:22 he had reached her history: a fairly limited mental health record before September 2022, anxiety tied to achievement and to leaving her children, no childhood abuse or trauma reported, and then an autumn in which she became very anxious about going back to the night shift while her youngest would not take a bottle, was prescribed Zoloft in October 2022, and, in his words, found things getting very difficult from that point. From there the direct followed the record forward: her former husband's account that her anxiety worsened on Zoloft, a text to her mother-in-law from an emergency room in November 2022, and her own belief that the medications were causing the reactions; a December of numbness, weight loss, hopelessness and what she called horrible intrusive thoughts about harming herself and at times her children, which Heilbrun said she described as her own thoughts rather than a voice from outside her head — an important distinction, he told the jury at 12:31, because an external voice would likely be a psychotic symptom. At 12:34 he said a Rhode Island postpartum program found in late December that she did not meet its criteria, and that she admitted herself to McLean Hospital on January 1, 2023 on suicidal thinking; Boston 25 has her leaving McLean with no psychosis and no suicidal or homicidal thinking, and the suicidal thoughts back a week later. By 12:38 he had put the McLean admission at five days, with insomnia her primary complaint, her mood numb, and her telling staff that her children and her mother were the reason she would not kill herself. At 12:37 the Globe has him aiming the intrusive-thought distinction squarely at the defense case, contrasting what she reported before the killings with the auditory hallucinations the defense says she experienced while she strangled the children. At 12:43 he said she told her providers the medications were making her worse, and listed the diagnoses she was given between the fall of 2022 and January 2023 as generalized anxiety, sleep deprivation, postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis — the last of them a diagnosis Mack said this morning he found no evidence of anywhere in her record. The Patriot Ledger, posting at 12:46, names South Shore Hospital as the emergency room she went to in mid-November, dates her doubts about the medications to mid-October, and runs the intrusive thoughts through December and into January. Then, at about 12:49, he gave the jury his diagnosis: bipolar II, reached, he said, only after long consideration, because he could not find a manic episode in her history before the killings and would not call the cleaning out of a garage mania. What settled it, on the Globe's 12:54 account, was that Clancy is now being treated for bipolar disorder at Tewksbury Hospital and that taking her off a mood stabilizer had produced a response in her straight away; the Patriot Ledger has him calling bipolar disorder the diagnosis of record there and writing that he declined bipolar 1 because he saw no clear example of manic behavior until January 24, 2023. He said the disorder typically emerges in a person's twenties or thirties, that he was focused on evaluating criminal responsibility, and at 12:57 that he had run psychological testing looking at her response style and checking for hallucinations, delusions and a lack of focus. The Patriot Ledger, filing at 1:28 p.m. after the court had risen, names the instruments — the MMPI, screening her response style for exaggeration, minimization or fabrication of symptoms, and a second test measuring tangential speech and cognitive disorganization — and has him going on to review her symptoms around January 24, 2023, including depression and suicidal thinking, before the recess was called. That is the first report of his direct reaching the day of the killings; no outlet reports what the testing showed, or what he concluded about that day. It is a diagnosis the Commonwealth's first expert declined to make. He has not yet been asked what he concluded about her mental state on January 24. Judge Sullivan sent the jury out for lunch just before 1 p.m., with testimony to resume at 2 p.m. NBC News's own account of the diagnosis, posted at 12:57, is the fullest reported statement of his reasoning: bipolar II is a classification not associated with mania, and the diagnosis was difficult because Clancy had depressive episodes but described nothing that seemed to him like mania — the periods when she was higher in energy looked to him like her simply feeling good, feeling close to her husband and her children and getting back into exercise. NBC News also carries a stretch of the autumn the other outlets did not: racing thoughts, lost appetite and difficulty sleeping through the fall of 2022, a fear that she had become addicted to or dependent on benzodiazepines, and her sense by late fall that she had reached what she herself called the end of her rope. It dates the intrusive thoughts about harming herself to late November and those about the children to January, where the Globe puts both in December and the Patriot Ledger dates the onset to early December; CBS Boston, whose account of Heilbrun's evidence appeared later in the day, gives a fourth version, late November and early December, with the thoughts about the children undated. The conflict is logged unresolved. CBS Boston also carries his history evidence in terms close to the Globe's, dates the Zoloft to mid-October, and describes his roughly 330 appearances as cases about competency to stand trial where the Globe puts the same number on cases dealing with mental health issues in adults and juveniles. Two outlets read for the first time in this compilation, Hearst Connecticut's News-Times and Fox News Digital, add to his direct examination that he does contract work for Park Dietz Associates — the firm through which the Commonwealth engaged Mack — that Clancy had about six months of treatment for anxiety in nursing school, that she got the Zoloft prescription from Dr. Jennifer Tufts and did not begin it until October, and that he settled on bipolar II because it was the diagnosis of the hospital holding her. Hearst Connecticut states flatly that the lunch recess came before he gave any conclusion on criminal responsibility. Court resumed at about 2:15 and the direct examination is still running. The first evidence filed from the afternoon is the result of that psychological testing: the Boston Globe has him saying it showed a slight tendency to underreport symptoms, calling Clancy a bright woman, and saying it showed she was and remains at risk for suicide, and Boston 25 has him putting her one-to-one suicide watch at Tewksbury State Hospital at three years and continuing. Shortly after half past two he reached the day itself. He told the jury the ordinary motives for killing did not fit Clancy, that acute psychosis with command hallucinations was one possible explanation, and that people also sometimes kill their children when they are about to end their own lives believing they are sparing them further suffering — and he placed Clancy in the second category, even though she had told him a voice told her to kill her children and herself. Boston 25 files the same answer as a belief that she killed the children as part of a serious suicide attempt, wanting them with her so they would not suffer when she was gone, and NBC News quotes him giving both explanations in one answer. From about 2:35 p.m. he turned to why he does not accept the command hallucination. Four outlets have him telling the jury that Clancy heard the voice only across the 18 minutes or so the killings took, never before that night and never since, a pattern he called very, very unusual to put it mildly; that she gave different people different versions of what it said, and that the more inconsistency there is the harder it becomes to credit any one account; and — the Boston Globe alone — that genuine psychotic hallucinations can be intermittent where hers was constant, and that she never reported trying to stop it or distract herself from it as people in the throes of psychosis often do. NBC News and the Patriot Ledger have him saying he treats with caution a symptom said to have appeared only while an offense was being committed, since that timing conveniently reduces the blame. NBC News also has him allowing that if she truly heard the voice as described, that would be a command hallucination and a symptom of psychosis. He told the jury he had weighed a second motive, that she feared the children would be taken from her and knew as a mandated reporter that saying so could cost her them, and no outlet reports what he made of it. From about 2:55 p.m. he stopped listing reasons to doubt the command hallucination and gave the jury something in its place. The Boston Globe reports him saying his assessment suggested Clancy was describing exaggerated or fabricated hallucinations, and NBC News reports the count behind it — about three points on which her account more closely resembled an exaggerated or fabricated hallucination, one on which it looked more genuine, and one mixed. The point in her favor was that she described the voice as external rather than as something inside her own mind; against it, on his evidence, were the absence of any accompanying delusion, which he put at about 88 percent of command hallucinations and which the Patriot Ledger also carries, the brevity of the episode, and her failure to report any attempt to stop it, which the Ledger reports him illustrating with praying or listening to music. What he offered instead was an unwelcome intrusive thought of the kind she had been reporting for months, an explanation four outlets carry, and he used her own answer to her husband as a test of it: asked what she had done, she said she had tried to kill herself, where he said someone acting on a command hallucination would more likely have been vague. The Boston Globe also has him doubting that her conditions were connected to a birth eight months earlier at all, and calling the postpartum psychosis explanation appealing and a convenient way of lessening culpability. At 2:58 p.m. he told the jury that months of thoughts and impulses preceded a serious suicide attempt, that she was in pain, suffering and even desperate, that she was convinced her children would suffer without her, and that she said “Go to God, baby” to each child expecting to be reunited with them in heaven; the Patriot Ledger states the conclusion flatly as a suicide attempt rather than a psychotic episode. The same post carries the first line in his evidence to touch the legal test — that Clancy told him the wrongfulness of what she was doing had not been in her mind at all — and it is her statement, not his opinion. The lawyers were then called to a sidebar. At the time of this compilation, about 15:09, that is as far as his evidence has been reported: an opinion on why she did it, his reasons for rejecting the explanation the defense relies on, and nothing yet on whether she could appreciate that it was wrong or conform her conduct to the law. In the minutes after that, two outlets diverged on the central point. The Boston Globe at 3:00 p.m. has him naming the killings “suicide combined with altruistic filicide,” or killing your kids out of love, describing a highly lethal suicide attempt preceded by months of thoughts and impulses about harming herself, in which the decision to kill the children was likely an attempt to keep them from suffering without her. NBC News at 3:07 p.m. has him saying that her first words to her husband — that she had tried to kill herself, with no mention of the voice or of the children — lead him to think this was not altruistic filicide but an extreme suicide attempt. The site records both and resolves neither. Boston 25’s courtroom posts corroborated the pain and suffering testimony, the exchange with Patrick Clancy and the “Go to God” evidence, and added one thing no other outlet has: that he told the jury he had asked Clancy, a devout Catholic, whether that was a mortal sin, and that an objection and a sidebar followed. At 3:04 p.m., after a sidebar, Judge Sullivan sent the jury out for a brief recess. The direct examination was unfinished when he did, cross-examination has not begun, and Heilbrun has still not been reported being asked whether Clancy could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or conform it to the law. The afternoon did not end with the evidence. At about 3:04 p.m. the judge sent the jury out after a sidebar without giving a reason, and what followed, out of the jury’s hearing, was a defense motion for a mistrial — the first this compilation has recorded in the trial. The subject was the defendant’s religion. Boston 25 had reported at 2:54 p.m. that Heilbrun told the jury he had asked Clancy, a devout Catholic, whether that was a mortal sin, and that an objection and a sidebar followed; NBC News reports him describing her statements about the children going to God as contrary to the belief of her Catholic religion, offered as part of his evaluation of her view of moral wrong; the Boston Globe, reporting the argument, describes the question as concerning her faith’s doctrine against suicide. Reddington called it intentional misconduct by prosecutors. Sprague said her question had nothing to do with religion and that Clancy had told Heilbrun she “had knowledge” of Catholicism treating suicide as a sin, and that this went to whether she knew the killings to be morally wrong; prosecutors said the witness had not intended to be inflammatory and asked for a curative instruction rather than a mistrial. That is what the judge gave. He refused to declare a mistrial, told the Commonwealth to tell its witness he could not go into that, said he would try to minimize the damage, and instructed the jury in emphatic terms that the religion the defendant was raised with is an absolutely inappropriate area of testimony, that it is to be stricken and cannot be considered, and that Heilbrun’s understanding of Catholic teaching is irrelevant and immaterial. The jury was then sent home for the day. Heilbrun returns Tuesday with his direct examination unfinished; he has still not been reported answering the criminal responsibility question, and no cross-examination has begun. The accounts filed in the half hour after the adjournment fill in the argument and the refusal. The Patriot Ledger and CBS Boston quote Reddington saying the testimony was “just over the top” and “the same thing again — talking about religion, talking about heaven”, and report that religion had come into the trial once before, when Sprague mentioned mortal sin while questioning Patrick Clancy’s mother; Reddington objected then and did not move for a mistrial, and CBS Boston reports that earlier question struck. Sprague answered that she had asked no question about religion and that there was no intentional misconduct, and told the court she did not think the witness meant to do any harm. Judge Sullivan, on the Ledger’s account, said the witness had testified that Clancy was raised Catholic and had then given an opinion on the Catholic conception of heaven, asked “How is any of that proper?”, refused the mistrial and told the prosecutors to make clear to the witness that he could not go into it. CBS Boston published the passage itself, which contains both her expectation of being reunited with the children in heaven and his question about whether suicide is a mortal sin. After the jury had been instructed and sent home the Boston Globe reports Sullivan saying the Commonwealth has one more witness after Heilbrun, that testimony resumes Tuesday, and that closing arguments are expected Wednesday — the first date for closings this compilation has attributed to the bench — before calling the lawyers back to a sidebar with the jury gone. After the courtroom emptied the Associated Press filed the wire account of the day, which in the version filed at about 2:36 p.m. leads on the diagnosis rather than the mistrial motion and quotes Heilbrun in his own words on why bipolar II was a hard conclusion to reach and on the manic episode he could not find. NBC News published the passage of testimony that caused the motion, matching CBS Boston, and put the earlier religion incident on the record as the prosecution’s cross-examination of Clancy’s former mother-in-law last week — the exchange recorded here on August 18, in which the question was whether she was aware that murder is considered a mortal sin. Which prosecutor asked that question is now itself in dispute between outlets. Fox News Digital, filing at about 4:10 p.m., reported the judge calling the testimony “problematic”, a word no other outlet attributes to him. By then the Boston Globe and NBC Boston had both closed their live blogs and turned their pages into accounts of the day, and no outlet had added anything further to what Heilbrun told the jury. The last post of all, from NBC News at about 4:20 p.m., describes the room instead of the evidence: Reddington throwing down his pen as the witness began on mortal sin and Clancy’s Catholicism, Clancy and her parents not visibly reacting, and the gallery whispering through the argument until a court officer quieted it. Later still, at about 4:34 p.m., NBC News reported the first words from counsel outside the courtroom. Reddington told reporters he believes the jurors will follow the judge’s instruction to put the religion testimony out of their minds, said it had been a good trial and that the evidence had come out, and would not say whether the episode might give a ground for appeal — an appeal, as NBC News notes, that could only follow a conviction. Asked about his client he said she does not have a mindset at the moment and that she sits and listens. No other outlet carries any of it, and nothing filed since the adjournment has added a word to Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s evidence. THE WIRE WAS REWRITTEN AT ABOUT 4:54 P.M., AND IT IS THE FIRST FILING SINCE THE ADJOURNMENT TO ADD TO THE EVIDENCE. The Associated Press replaced Michael Casey’s earlier story with a longer one that leads on the conclusion rather than the diagnosis — Clancy was not acutely psychotic when she killed the three children, and that she took their lives so they would not “suffer” once she had taken her own — and that carries the mistrial motion, the refusal and the instruction, none of which the earlier version had. It gives the reason he ruled out acute psychosis with command hallucinations: he did not credit her account of a voice telling her to “kill the children so you can kill yourself”, which is the wire’s direct quotation of the version NBC News reported at 2:47 p.m. It carries the eighteen-minute answer in full and the “Go to God, baby. Go to God” quotation, both already on this page from other outlets, and it reports the jury being told to disregard the reference to “the religion that the defendant was raised with”, which the judge called “an absolutely inappropriate area of testimony”. Two minutes before the wire moved, Hearst Connecticut turned its day-19 file into a recap. It quotes the instruction at greater length, is the first outlet to name the prosecutor the judge told to speak to his witness — Sprague, who had been conducting the direct examination — and sets out the August 18 mortal sin exchange word for word, with Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham asking it. That is a second account against the Patriot Ledger’s, which named Sprague, and the conflict is logged in the evidence file rather than resolved. Neither filing adds anything to where Heilbrun’s direct examination stopped. An eleventh outlet filed on the sitting after five o’clock. ABC News had carried nothing of day 19 until this evening; its live file, updated at about 5:02 p.m. under the bylines of Peter Charalambous, Mason Leib and Katie Kindelan, is a further account of the mistrial motion and adds three things to the record here. It is the first to report Kevin Reddington explaining why the August 18 mortal sin question did not draw a motion at the time: he told the court that not moving then had been a “tactical decision”, and that this second instance was too much. It is the first to give Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague’s answer whole — that there was no intentional conduct by the Commonwealth, that the questioning was not where she had intended to go, and that she did not think the witness intended to do any harm either but was explaining his rationale — where the Patriot Ledger and Hearst Connecticut had each carried part of it. And it is the first to give the time the sitting resumes, 9 a.m. Tuesday with Dr. Kirk Heilbrun still on the stand. Its account of the direct examination adds his evidence that the brief January 2023 inpatient stay left Clancy with “a small shred of hope” before she worsened again, and his own explanation of why the diagnosis was hard, that a lot of providers had offered a lot of diagnoses between mid-October 2022 and late January 2023 with a lot of complicating considerations. Its account of the morning quotes a passage of the cross-examination of Dr. Avram Mack that no other outlet has published, in which Mack said he saw no signs of psychosis or delusions in the records and Reddington told him he was being asked about the young lady sitting in the courtroom whom he was testifying against. That post is stamped 12:37 p.m. and has the redirect examination still running, where the outlets compiled here have Mack stepping down at about 11:08; it is treated as a late filing and the times on this page are unchanged. Nothing in the ABC News file bears on where Heilbrun’s direct examination stopped. Late in the evening boston.com rewrote its page into a recap of the whole sitting and became the fullest single account of the afternoon. It supplies the question Heilbrun was answering when he said Clancy had not been thinking about the wrongfulness of what she was doing — he had asked her whether she was aware at the time that it was illegal or immoral — and quotes her answer as he reported it: “No thoughts, no decisions, none of that. It was just all action.” It quotes him choosing between his two explanations in his own words, gives the psychological testing in fuller form, sets out the mistrial argument at greater length on both sides, and quotes the judge saying he did not want the jury leaving with the last thing they heard being this witness's understanding of Catholic teaching. None of it changes what is still missing: his direct examination is unfinished, the criminal responsibility question has not been put to him, and cross-examination has not begun. CNN filed a written story at about 4:35 p.m., under the bylines of Eric Levenson and Nicki Brown, and it is the twelfth outlet on the day. It adds little to the narrative the live blogs have already built, but it goes to both of the conflicts left open at the adjournment. On the first, it reports Heilbrun describing the killings as altruistic filicide, which it glosses as killing one's children out of love — and it draws that description from the very evidence NBC News reported him using to reject the term, that the first thing Clancy said to her husband was that she had tried to kill herself. Two outlets now take that evidence one way and one the other; nothing here settles it. On the second, it reports the judge saying the Commonwealth's remaining witnesses are likely to finish Tuesday and that closing arguments are expected Wednesday, and it is the only account to add that he cautioned the timeline is subject to change. It also gives Heilbrun's meeting figure in a form that fits both of the figures already on this page, and it is the only outlet to describe what the jurors did while the judge was striking the evidence. Two further filings came in after six o’clock, both from outside the pages this compilation tracks. WHDH’s 7News, the thirteenth outlet on the day, filed a story by Jonathan Hall at about 5:27 p.m., and Boston 25 filed a standalone article by Bob Ward at about 5:42 p.m. alongside the live blog it had run since the morning. Neither adds to the evidence the jury heard, and both are shorter than the recaps already on this page, but between them they touch two of the conflicts left open at the adjournment. WHDH gives the words the witness was speaking when Reddington objected — a fragment no other outlet carries, and one in which Heilbrun is reporting what he told Clancy rather than what he asked her. Boston 25, whose live blog had put the Catholic doctrine at issue on murder where every other account put it on suicide, now describes it in its own filed story as suicide. And both name Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham as the prosecutor who asked the struck question on August 18, WHDH quoting the exchange in full, which leaves the Patriot Ledger’s account of the mistrial argument alone in naming Jennifer Sprague. Nothing here is resolved on this page; the positions are recorded as the outlets filed them. WHDH is also the first outlet to describe Tuesday as the expected last day of testimony, and a third to give Wednesday for closing arguments, although it does not say the judge set the day. A sixth filing came in after six o’clock, and unlike the two before it, it came from a page this compilation already tracks. Fox News Digital added a post to its day-19 live blog, its first since 4:10 p.m., and it is a second outlet on the remarks Kevin Reddington made after the mistrial motion was refused. It has him saying he expected the refusal — which no earlier account carries — and it quotes him on the jury in stronger terms than NBC News used, as having no doubt the jurors will be able to overlook the testimony about Clancy’s Catholic faith. Nothing in it touches the evidence the jury heard, and no outlet has added anything to Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s unfinished direct examination since the wire account. He returns Tuesday with the criminal responsibility question still unasked and cross-examination not begun.

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 140

A SECOND OUTLET IS NOW FILING FROM THE COURTROOM. For the first hour and a half of the sitting the Boston Globe's live blog was alone; the Patriot Ledger's day-19 file has since posted from inside the room and corroborates the Globe on the crowd, the video link, the fees, the Florida case and the diagnosis. It also names people the Globe left unnamed. The day is still only partly reported — this is a mid-morning compilation, not an account of the sitting.
THE CROSS RESUMED ON MACK'S CREDENTIALS RATHER THAN HIS DIAGNOSIS. Reddington's first questions of the morning went to how rarely Mack has testified on criminal responsibility — one or two times on his own estimate — and to prior cases in which judges questioned his qualifications. It continues the line the Globe, Boston 25 and East Idaho News all recorded at about 15:28 on Friday.
THE CROSS THEN TURNED TO HOW THE EVALUATION WAS DONE. Mack confirmed two days with Clancy at Tewksbury Hospital in April, an initial interview of four or five hours in which she did not ask for a break, psychological testing carried out by a colleague, and his own lodging at a private home in Wellesley. He also said he did not believe his testimony had been struck in an earlier Florida lawsuit over the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S TWO EXPERTS DO NOT AGREE WITH EACH OTHER ON THE DIAGNOSIS. Mack said in terms that he did not conclude bipolar II — he concluded a major depressive episode within a major depressive disorder — and agreed that Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, the colleague who evaluated Clancy with him and who is himself on the Commonwealth's witness list, did diagnose bipolar II. The Patriot Ledger names Heilbrun; the Globe had recorded the bipolar II diagnosis without saying whose it was. What the jury makes of a split inside the Commonwealth's own rebuttal is for the jury; no source reports how it landed.
THE CLINICIANS WHO DIAGNOSED BIPOLAR DISORDER ARE NAMED. On the Patriot Ledger's account Reddington's list was nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta, who raised the possibility, and Dr. Paul Zeizel, Dr. Margaret Spinelli and Dr. Phillip Resnick, all of whom evaluated Clancy and diagnosed bipolar disorder. Mack, told she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at Tewksbury, asked to be shown where.
AFTER HALF PAST TEN HE ACKNOWLEDGED MATERIAL IN THE RECORDS THAT SOUNDS LIKE PSYCHOSIS. Mack said he had come across a period in the records in which Clancy worried that people could hear her thoughts, that she was suffering, and that she at times felt things were not real. He also said she had indicated thoughts of harming herself, that he could not answer whether postpartum depression can be followed by postpartum psychosis, and that hearing voices would be psychosis. Asked whether postpartum psychosis is a legitimate disease, he answered that the presence of psychosis is always concerning and that the guidelines give a time frame for onset; the Globe does not report a yes or a no. He has not withdrawn his opinion.
THE ORDER OF WHAT REMAINS CAME FROM THE BENCH. The Patriot Ledger reports Judge Sullivan telling the jury on Monday morning that the day would open with Reddington's continued cross of Mack by Zoom, that the Commonwealth would continue its rebuttal after Mack finished, and that closing arguments, jury instructions and deliberations would follow. No date for closings was fixed in that account.
WHAT THE FLORIDA CASE WAS ABOUT. The Patriot Ledger reports the substance the Globe left out: Mack had testified for the state of Florida that beneficiaries of state aid should be drug tested. Reddington characterized that testimony as resting on needy people being more inclined to violence, drug use and suicide; Mack said that was not the correct conceptualization. Asked whether his testimony had been stricken, he said he did not believe that it was.
REDDINGTON PUT BIAS TO HIM IN TERMS. He drew out that Mack spoke to the prosecutors by telephone before the evaluation, did not meet Clancy until 2026, and earns several hundred thousand dollars a year from forensic work — then asked him to define confirmation bias and whether he had hoped to help the side that hired him. Mack said no. It is the same attack the defense ran on the Commonwealth's other experts, and no source reports how the jury took it.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S OWN REBUTTAL EXPERT SAID SHE WAS NOT MALINGERING. Asked about it at about 9:49, Mack said a person indicted for murder is not necessarily motivated to fabricate symptoms, and that the psychological testing his colleague administered effectively showed the procedure was valid — that Clancy answered truthfully. Whether that concession costs the Commonwealth anything is for the jury; no source reports how it landed.
HIS OPINION WENT BACK ON THE RECORD BEFORE TEN. After a sidebar at about 9:55, Mack said he had determined Clancy was in a major depressive episode on January 24 but could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct — the same opinion the Globe reported him giving on Friday. He also noted a colleague's diagnosis of bipolar II, and said the caution about prescribing SSRIs to patients with bipolar disorder has lessened. The Globe does not report whether the questioning at that point was still cross or had turned to redirect.
AFTER TEN THE CROSS WENT TO THE ONSET WINDOW. Reddington asked whether bipolar disorder is a precursor to postpartum depression; Mack said it depends on the patient's mood disorder and on timing, and put the guideline onset at four weeks for the postpartum period and six weeks for postpartum psychosis, against longer periods Reddington read from guidelines of his own. He also said Clancy has shown no signs of mania at Tewksbury Hospital. The disagreement over the window is on the record unresolved.
HER SLEEP IS BACK IN ISSUE. At about 10:08 Mack said Clancy had reported problems sleeping when a provider increased her dosage before the killings, and Reddington put to him that she went forty-eight hours without sleep after the increase. The Globe does not report his answer to that. It is the defense's ground — the medication record and what it did to her — put to the Commonwealth's own expert.
THE ARGUMENT IS NOW OVER WHAT COUNTS AS POSTPARTUM. Mack holds the postpartum period at four weeks from the birth for diagnostic purposes; Reddington put longer windows to him from guidelines of his own, told him postpartum is not a disease, and said every woman who has given birth remains postpartum. The Globe notes other experts have rejected the four-week definition for a year or longer. Which definition the jury accepts bears on whether her state on January 24 can be called a postpartum illness at all. No source reports it being resolved.
HE GAVE THE DEPRESSION AND HELD THE LINE ON PSYCHOSIS. At about 10:20 Mack confirmed Clancy had major depressive episodes after the birth of her third child, acknowledged distress when Reddington put her near-off-the-charts score on one depression scale to him, and listed what she had reported to her providers — anxiety, worry without an apparent cause, feeling overwhelmed — with an inability to laugh as an indicator of major depression. What he does not give is psychosis, which is the ground the defense needs under McHoul.
HE SEPARATED WANTING SLEEP FROM NOT NEEDING IT. Mack agreed that a decreased need for sleep is one element of mania in the guidelines, then said that in his view Clancy desperately wanted to sleep. It is the same distinction his opinion rests on: her insomnia, on his account, is depression rather than mania. Boston Globe alone, and no source reports how Reddington answered it.
MACK CALLED HIMSELF A GENERALIST, naming adolescent mental health and addiction among his focuses. That is his answer to Reddington's Friday suggestion that he has little experience with postpartum patients, and it matters because the Commonwealth's whole rebuttal rests on his opinion.
HE IS APPEARING BY VIDEO LINK, AND THAT IS A CHANGE. The Globe reports him resuming by Zoom; the Patriot Ledger reports that he testified from the witness stand on Friday. Neither outlet reports a reason for the change.
THE TWO EXPERTS REMAIN IN DIRECT CONFLICT. Resnick, for the defense, testified the defendant was psychotic on January 24 and could not conform her conduct to the law. Mack, for the Commonwealth, gave a major depressive episode, no bipolar disorder and no psychosis, with capacity retained. The jury has to choose between them on the only live issue in the case.
THE TWO REMAINING REBUTTAL WITNESSES ARE NOW NAMED — BUT AS A WITNESS LIST, NOT AS WITNESSES CALLED. The Patriot Ledger reports that after Mack the Commonwealth could call two more experts from its list: Dr. Gregory Saathoff, a forensic psychiatrist and FBI consultant, and Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, the psychologist who evaluated Clancy alongside Mack. That matches the count CBS Boston and Reddington both gave. Neither has been called, and nothing on the record today says either will be.
THE REPORTED DAYS FOR CLOSING ARGUMENTS DO NOT AGREE. The Boston Herald has Judge Sullivan indicating Tuesday or Wednesday; CBS Boston reported a Monday-or-Tuesday condition from the bench, whose Monday limb failed when Mack's cross did not finish; the Globe's own preview puts them as early as Tuesday. Recorded as a discrepancy, not resolved.
STILL UNRESOLVED FROM AUGUST 20: whether involuntary manslaughter goes on the verdict slip and whether the jury is instructed on involuntary intoxication. Both were requested by the defense, opposed by the Commonwealth, and no ruling has been reported.
The Boston Herald records eighteen jurors still sitting, to be narrowed at random to the twelve who deliberate.
HE SAID IN TERMS THAT THE RECORD SHOWS NO EVIDENCE OF PSYCHOSIS. At about 10:37, minutes after acknowledging a period in the records in which Clancy worried that people could hear her thoughts, Mack said he found no evidence of psychosis in her record: intrusive thoughts and a feeling that things were not real do not necessarily amount to it, and neither does appearing composed between mood episodes. That is the Commonwealth's answer to the defense's whole theory, and it is what the jury has to weigh against Resnick. Boston Globe alone.
THE JUDGE TOLD THE COMMONWEALTH'S EXPERT TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS RATHER THAN ASK THEM. At about 10:39 Judge Sullivan intervened from the bench during Reddington's cross to tell Mack how the questioning works — a witness answers, and if he cannot answer a question as posed the court can have counsel rephrase it. It follows a morning in which Mack repeatedly said he could not answer questions as they were framed. Boston Globe alone, reported as an admonishment; no objection, ruling or sanction is reported with it.
HE TAKES NO POSITION ON THE CARE SHE WAS GIVEN. At about 10:40 Mack said he held no view on the standard of care Clancy received from her medical providers, which leaves the prescriber record — the ground the defense has worked all trial — untouched by the Commonwealth's rebuttal expert. He said she had reported suicidal ideation, that he was not certain whether she lacked awareness of her own condition, and that blood work can be required before certain psychiatric medications are prescribed. Boston Globe alone.
THE CROSS-EXAMINATION IS OVER AND THE COMMONWEALTH IS REPAIRING ITS WITNESS. The Globe's first entry describing redirect examination came at about 10:47, which puts the end of Reddington's cross between 10:43 and 10:47; no outlet reports the moment it ended or how it closed. On redirect Mack said he is paid for his time and work whatever opinion he reaches, that he does not regard his role as investigative, and that he was formally retained by the government in early 2025. ADA Shanan Buckingham conducted it; ADA Jennifer Sprague took his direct on Friday. Boston Globe, with Boston 25 reporting the redirect still under way at 11:00.
THE COMMONWEALTH MOVED TO PUT THE VIDEOTAPE OF ITS EXPERT'S INTERVIEWS WITH CLANCY IN EVIDENCE. At about 10:52 Mack said the two interviews at Tewksbury Hospital were videotaped, and Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar as the prosecution offered the tape. It would put Clancy's own recorded account in front of the jury, and she has not testified. Boston Globe and Boston 25 both report the motion and the sidebar; neither reports a ruling on it.
THE GLOBE'S OWN LIVE BLOG GIVES TWO DIFFERENT FIGURES FOR THE POSTPARTUM PERIOD. Its entries at 10:05 and 10:11 have Mack putting the DSM postpartum period at four weeks from the birth; its entry at 10:30 gives four months. The length of that window is the hinge of the whole cross-examination — Clancy's youngest was eight months old — so the difference matters, and no other outlet reports the figure. Both are recorded and the conflict is logged unresolved.
THE JUDGE SUSTAINED AN OBJECTION TO THE DEFENSE'S SHARPEST QUESTION ABOUT BIAS. At about 9:36, when Reddington asked Mack whether the prosecution had described this to him as a terrible case, one in which a mother had killed her own children, the Commonwealth objected and Judge Sullivan sustained it. Boston Globe alone.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S FIRST REBUTTAL EXPERT HAS FINISHED, AND THE COURT IS IN RECESS. Mack stepped down at about 11:08 and Judge Sullivan called the morning break — the Globe and Boston 25 agree, the latter putting it at 11:07. Boston 25 reported at 9:12 that two further rebuttal witnesses were scheduled for the day; neither had been called when the court broke, and no outlet reports a ruling on the videotape the Commonwealth offered at 10:52.
HIS ANSWER ON THE FLORIDA CASE CHANGED DURING THE MORNING. Under cross at about 9:29 Mack said he did not believe his testimony in an earlier Florida case had been struck. At about 10:59, after the sidebar, the Globe reports him acknowledging that the court there ruled he was not qualified to testify to expertise in addiction treatment, and headlines the entry as an acknowledgment that a Florida court struck his opinion. The defense spent the first half hour of the day on his qualifications; this is the concession it did not get then. Both answers are recorded as reported, and no outlet says which examination the second came in.
HE LEFT THE STAND ON THE SAME DIAGNOSIS HE ARRIVED WITH. His last answers, at about 11:08, described bipolar disorder as a disorder of mood comparable to major depressive disorder and restated a major depressive episode — with an inability to take pleasure in things, guilt, a fixation on death or suicide, disturbed sleep and eating, agitation and trouble concentrating among the symptoms it can carry. A day and a half of cross-examination did not move him off it, and it is not psychosis, which is what the defense needs under McHoul.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S EXPERT SAID THE PSYCHIATRIC MANUAL DOES NOT RECOGNIZE POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS AS AN ILLNESS. On the Patriot Ledger's account of the close of the cross-examination, Mack said psychiatrists cannot speak of postpartum psychosis as an illness because it has not been approved by the American Psychiatric Association. Pressed on whether that meant he did not accept it, he said he had not said that at all, and that psychosis at any time is a legitimate illness needing treatment. It is the nearest thing to a straight answer any outlet reports to the question the Globe recorded him not answering yes or no at 10:31, and it goes to whether the condition the defense names is one his own authority recognizes. Patriot Ledger.
NO ONE EVER TESTED HOW SHE WAS METABOLIZING WHAT SHE WAS PRESCRIBED. Reddington put to Mack that no test was administered to measure how the enzymes in Clancy's blood were metabolizing her prescription medications, and Mack affirmed it. He also affirmed that her doctors and mental health providers ordered no blood test at all, having said that tests are needed in some situations and that in others a psychiatrist may be comfortable without one. The defense theory is prescribed-medication-induced psychosis, so what was never measured is its ground. Patriot Ledger for the enzyme testing; the Globe reported the absence of blood work at 10:40 and 10:43.
REDDINGTON PUT A COUNT TO HIM: NINE OF TEN SYMPTOMS OF PSYCHOSIS. The Patriot Ledger reports him telling Mack that Clancy exhibited nine of the ten symptoms of psychosis, in the same passage in which Mack said he saw no evidence of psychotic features in her medical records, agreed she had complained of not feeling like herself, and affirmed that she had intrusive thoughts about harming the children and suicidal thoughts. No answer from Mack to the nine-of-ten assertion is reported. Patriot Ledger alone.
THE MEDICATION BEHIND THE FORTY-EIGHT SLEEPLESS HOURS IS NAMED, AND THE PERIOD IS DATED. The Patriot Ledger puts the episode in the fall of 2022, names the drug as sertraline, and adds that Clancy felt she did not need to sleep — which is the distinction Mack's whole opinion turns on, since his answer was that she desperately wanted to sleep. The Globe reported the forty-eight hours without the medication or the date. Patriot Ledger for both.
A SECOND OUTLET NOW GIVES FOUR WEEKS FOR THE POSTPARTUM WINDOW, AND A DIFFERENT FIGURE THAT MEASURES SOMETHING ELSE. The Patriot Ledger reports Reddington putting to Mack that he has opined postpartum depression must begin within four weeks of the birth under the DSM-5, against Reddington's own year — counsel's characterization of the opinion rather than Mack's own answer. It separately reports Mack saying Clancy had a major depressive episode within four to five months of the birth, which is a statement about when her episode began and not about the diagnostic window. The Globe's four-months figure at 10:30 is still uncorroborated. Recorded, not resolved.
A FIFTH OUTLET PUTS THE REBUTTAL AT THREE WITNESSES IN ALL. NBC Boston's day-19 page, which carries a livestream rather than a live blog, says the prosecution is expected to call a total of three rebuttal witnesses before closing arguments and that closings could come early this week. That is consistent with the two-more-after-Mack given by Boston 25, by CBS Boston and by Reddington himself, and with the Patriot Ledger naming Dr. Gregory Saathoff and Dr. Kirk Heilbrun from the witness list. It is an expectation and nothing more; neither has been called.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S SECOND REBUTTAL EXPERT IS ON THE STAND. The jury came back at about 11:51 and prosecutors called Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, the forensic psychologist who went to Tewksbury Hospital with Mack in April and ran the psychological testing there. The Globe places him at Drexel University, where he directs a forensic assessment clinic, and names Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague as the prosecutor taking his direct, as she took Mack's. By 12:15 the direct had covered his qualifications and his work in the case but no opinion on Clancy's mental state on January 24.
HE IS THE COLLEAGUE WHOSE DIAGNOSIS MACK DECLINED TO ADOPT. On Mack's cross-examination this morning it emerged that the colleague who tested Clancy diagnosed her with bipolar II, and that Mack concluded instead that she had a major depressive episode as part of a major depressive disorder. That colleague is Heilbrun. What he will say about her mental state on January 24 has not been reported.
THE GLOBE NOW PUTS CLOSINGS AS EARLY AS TUESDAY. Its standing summary at the top of the day-19 blog says jurors are expected to begin deliberating this week, with closing arguments anticipated as early as Tuesday. That is the outlet's expectation and not a date given from the bench; no outlet reports a schedule fixed on the record. That summary has since been rewritten: with the live blog closed for the day, the top of the Globe’s day-19 page now says closing arguments are expected Wednesday, which agrees with what the outlet reported Judge Sullivan saying from the bench at 3:32 p.m.
HEILBRUN SAYS HE AND MACK INTERVIEWED HER TOGETHER AND DISAGREED. On Boston 25's account at 12:15, Heilbrun told the jury that he and Dr. Avram Mack each produced their own report and their own analysis, that they wrote separately, and that they did not agree with each other on the diagnosis even though they interviewed Clancy at the same time. Until now the disagreement between the Commonwealth's two experts had reached the record only through Mack, who said on cross that the colleague who tested her diagnosed bipolar II and that he did not adopt it. This is the first account of it from Heilbrun himself. Boston 25 at 12:15, with the Boston Globe reporting the same answer at 12:17; he has not yet said which diagnosis he reached.
THREE DAYS AT TEWKSBURY, TWO OF THEM WITH MACK, AND ALL OF THOSE VIDEOTAPED. Boston 25 reports at 12:14 that Heilbrun met with Clancy over three days in April, the first and the third alongside Mack, that those sessions were videotaped, and that he has spent 180 hours on the case. It is the fullest account yet of what the Commonwealth's experts did at the hospital, and it bears on the videotape the Commonwealth offered into evidence at 10:52, on which no ruling has been reported. Boston 25 alone.
HE PUT HIS OWN INDEPENDENCE IN ISSUE BEFORE ANYONE CROSS-EXAMINED HIM. The Globe reports Heilbrun saying at 12:04 that he has testified about 330 times in cases involving mental health issues in adults and juveniles, primarily for the defense and for prosecutors about 25 percent of the time, and that he would not carry out a forensic evaluation on one of his own patients because of the conflict. At 12:07 he said he keeps an independent perspective and that not specializing gives him an advantage, letting him keep an open mind about a defendant. At 12:08 he defined the two biases: retention bias, where an evaluator favors the side that hired the expert, and confirmation bias, where an evaluator ignores information that contradicts the hypothesis he has formed. He said he works to guard against both. It answers in advance the line Reddington ran at Mack all morning. Boston Globe, with Boston 25 reporting the same ground at 12:05.
WHAT THE COMMONWEALTH'S SECOND EXPERT ACTUALLY LOOKED AT. On the Globe's account at 12:13, Heilbrun met Clancy on multiple occasions in April for about ten hours in all, interviewed her former husband and her former mother-in-law, and has been reviewing documents in the case since January 2025 — medical records, police reports, surveillance footage, cell phone records, Apple Watch data, the grand jury proceedings and the defense expert reports. Clancy's sister chose not to be interviewed. Boston 25 separately puts his total time on the case at 180 hours; the two figures measure different things, the Globe's the interviews and Boston 25's the whole engagement, and neither outlet reports the other's number.
HE HAS STARTED ON HER HISTORY, AND ON SEPTEMBER 2022 AS THE LINE. Boston 25 reports at 12:18 that Heilbrun described Clancy as a high-achieving person, a straight-A student, hard-working and self-disciplined, said her anxiety fueled her, and said she did not like leaving any of her children with anyone — school or a babysitter — before September 2022. In a second post in the same minute he said her anxiety did not interfere with her life before September 2022. Boston 25 alone. Where that account is going has not been reported.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S SECOND EXPERT DATED THE TROUBLE TO SEPTEMBER 2022 AND THE ZOLOFT TO OCTOBER. On the Globe's account at 12:22, Heilbrun said Clancy became very anxious and at times depressed from September 2022 about leaving her third child to go back to work as a labor and delivery nurse, that the baby was not taking his bottle and that this made her particularly anxious about the night shift, that Zoloft was prescribed to her later and she started taking it in October 2022, and that things started getting very difficult at that point. The medication record is the defense's ground under Berry, and this is the Commonwealth's own witness placing the prescription and the deterioration in the same answer. What he attributes the deterioration to has not been reported. Boston Globe alone.
HE FOUND ALMOST NO MENTAL HEALTH HISTORY BEFORE THAT AUTUMN. At 12:17 and 12:22 Heilbrun described a fairly limited mental health history before September 2022 — anxiety related to achievement, in nursing school, over her three pregnancies and about returning to work after each birth, but nothing that impeded her ability to function — and said she reported neither witnessing nor experiencing abuse or trauma as a child. Where the Commonwealth is taking that has not been reported; the same facts sit in the record of a case in which the defense says her illness began after a birth. Boston Globe alone.
ONE OUTLET NOW CARRIES BOTH OF THE TIME FIGURES, AND THEY DO NOT CONFLICT. The Patriot Ledger's 12:28 account of the direct puts Heilbrun at about 180 hours on the case including about 10.5 hours interviewing Clancy, over three days with her in April 2026. The Globe had reported about ten hours and Boston 25 180, each without the other; the Ledger has them together, so the interview time sits inside the total and there is nothing to reconcile.
THE COMMONWEALTH DREW THE LINE BETWEEN AN EVALUATOR AND A TREATING DOCTOR IN TERMS. On the Patriot Ledger's account Heilbrun told the jury he would not call the subject of an evaluation his patient, because forensic evaluators aim at accuracy while therapists aim at helping, and would not evaluate a patient of his own. The Ledger notes — as its own context from an earlier day, not as testimony this morning — that Sprague had previously drawn attention to a defense evaluator, Dr. Paul Zeizel, calling Clancy his patient in a request for a transportation accommodation. It is the same distinction the Commonwealth ran on Mack's redirect, put this time on direct.
HE DREW THE PSYCHOSIS LINE FOR THE JURY, AND PUT HER OWN DESCRIPTION ON THE OTHER SIDE OF IT. On Boston 25's account at 12:29 and the Globe's at 12:30, Heilbrun said Clancy described horrible intrusive thoughts in December 2022 — about harming herself and at times about harming her children, in the form of statements that her brain was damaged and that she should kill herself — but did not describe them as auditory hallucinations from a voice that was not there; she said they were like her own thoughts. At 12:31 Boston 25 has him calling that an important distinction, because a voice from outside her head would likely be a psychotic symptom. It is the Commonwealth's second expert giving the jury the test he applied and the answer he got, on the same ground on which Dr. Avram Mack said he found no evidence of psychosis in her record.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S OWN EXPERT PUT HER MEDICATION ATTRIBUTION INTO THE RECORD. At 12:25 the Globe has Heilbrun saying Patrick Clancy told him his then-wife's anxiety got worse while she was taking Zoloft, with trouble sleeping and increased stress, that she texted her mother-in-law from an emergency room in November 2022, and that it was her own thought that the medications were causing these adverse reactions. Set beside the October 2022 Zoloft prescription he described at 12:22 and the numbness, weight loss and hopelessness he placed in December, it is the Commonwealth's expert laying out the sequence the defense argues under Commonwealth v. Berry. What he concludes from it has not been reported. Boston Globe alone.
TURNED AWAY BY A POSTPARTUM PROGRAM IN LATE DECEMBER, IN McLEAN BY NEW YEAR'S DAY. At 12:34 the Globe has Heilbrun saying Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island told Clancy in late December 2022 that she did not meet the criteria for its postpartum program because she appeared to show signs of general anxiety, and offered her other programs; she admitted herself to McLean Hospital on January 1, 2023, and what got her there was suicidal thinking. Boston 25 adds at 12:37 that she left McLean cooperative and pleasant, with no psychosis and no suicidal or homicidal thinking, and that the suicidal thoughts returned a week later. Neither outlet reports the date of the discharge.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S SECOND EXPERT NAMED POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS AMONG THE DIAGNOSES IN HER RECORD. At 12:43 the Globe has Heilbrun saying that between the fall of 2022 and January 2023 Clancy had multiple different providers and multiple diagnoses — generalized anxiety, sleep deprivation, postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. Dr. Avram Mack told the jury at about 10:37 the same morning that he found no evidence of psychosis in her record. The two answers came from the Commonwealth's own two experts about five hours apart. No outlet reports Heilbrun being asked who made the diagnoses he listed, or whether he adopts any of them, and he has still given no diagnosis of his own. Boston Globe alone on the 12:43 answer.
HE AIMED THE INTRUSIVE-THOUGHT DISTINCTION AT WHAT THE DEFENSE SAYS HAPPENED IN THE HOUSE. At 12:37 the Globe's Lea Skene has Heilbrun drawing the line between the intrusive thoughts she described in the weeks before January 24 and the voice the defense says she heard while she strangled the children. He said she described thoughts that her brain was damaged and that she needed to kill herself, that she said they were not auditory hallucinations but her own thoughts, intrusive and unwelcome, and that the difference is important. He had given the same test in the abstract at 12:29 and 12:31; this is the first report of it being put against the defense's account of January 24 itself.
FIVE DAYS AT McLEAN, AND A REASON SHE GAVE FOR NOT TAKING HER OWN LIFE. At 12:38 the Globe has Heilbrun saying insomnia was Clancy's primary complaint at McLean, that she told staff that her children and her mother were the reason she would not kill herself, that she stayed five days, and that her mood there was numb while she denied suicidal or homicidal thoughts. At 12:37 he said she denied delusions and suicidal thoughts during the admission. It is the first account to give the length of the stay; no outlet gives the date she was discharged.
THE PATRIOT LEDGER NAMES THE EMERGENCY ROOM AND MOVES TWO DATES. In an account posted at 12:46 the Ledger has Heilbrun putting Clancy in the emergency room at South Shore Hospital in mid-November 2022 with racing thoughts and insomnia that persisted through late November, dating her concerns about the medications to mid-October rather than November, and saying the horrible intrusive thoughts began in early December and continued through December and January. The Globe reported the emergency room without naming it and placed the intrusive thoughts in December alone. The Ledger is the only account so far to carry them into the month of the killings.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S SECOND EXPERT DIAGNOSED A MAJOR MENTAL ILLNESS. At about 12:49 Heilbrun told the jury he diagnosed Clancy with bipolar II — reported by the Boston Globe at 12:49, Boston 25 at 12:50 and the Patriot Ledger at 12:54. It is the first diagnosis he has given from the stand, and it is not the one the Commonwealth's first rebuttal expert gave: Dr. Avram Mack testified to a major depressive episode and told Reddington on cross this morning that he did not conclude Clancy suffered from bipolar 2. The two interviewed her together in April and, as Heilbrun said at 12:15, wrote separate reports and did not agree on the diagnosis. What he concludes from it about January 24 has not been reported — under McHoul a mental disease or defect is the first half of the question and not the answer to it.
WHAT PERSUADED HIM WAS THE TREATMENT SHE IS ON NOW. On the Globe's account at 12:54 Heilbrun said he thought long and hard about the bipolar diagnosis and was convinced after learning that Clancy is on bipolar medication now at Tewksbury Hospital, where she is held and treated, and that taking her off a mood stabilizer had produced a response in her straight away. The Patriot Ledger has him saying the diagnosis of record at Tewksbury is bipolar disorder and that the hospital is very careful about what it prescribes and how. Reddington put that same Tewksbury diagnosis to Mack on cross this morning, and Mack asked him to show where he was referring to.
THE MANIC EPISODE HE COULD NOT FIND, AND WHERE ONE OUTLET PUTS IT. Heilbrun said he chose bipolar 2 over bipolar 1 because he could not find a manic episode. The Globe has him saying he did not see one in her history before the killings, and that references to Clancy and her then-husband clearing out their garage fell well short of mania. The Patriot Ledger writes that he did not diagnose bipolar 1 because he did not see a clear example of manic behavior until January 24, 2023 — a formulation that leaves open what he made of her conduct that day, which the Globe's account does not touch. No outlet reports him being asked about it directly, and the difference is in how two reporters rendered the same answer rather than in what he is reported to have said.
THE TESTING HE RAN, AND THE BREAK FOR LUNCH. At about 12:57 Heilbrun said he performed psychological testing on Clancy that looked at factors including her response style when answering questions, and that he was also checking for hallucinations, delusions and a lack of focus; no outlet reports which instruments he used or what the results were. Judge Sullivan then sent the jurors out for lunch just before 1 p.m., with testimony to resume at 2 p.m. and Heilbrun still on direct. Boston Globe.
THE CROSS ENDED ON THE THYROID, AND ONLY ONE OUTLET REPORTS IT. NBC News's national live blog gives Kevin Reddington's final question to Dr. Avram Mack as whether Clancy's thyroid should have been checked by blood work while her doctors were prescribing her a number of psychiatric medications in the space of a few months. Mack agreed in general terms but again resisted the framing, and Reddington answered "I don't care" and told the judge he was finished with the witness. Until this, the close of a cross-examination that had run since Friday afternoon was fixed only between the Boston Globe's 10:43 and 10:47 entries and described by nobody. NBC News alone.
SHE TOLD THE COMMONWEALTH'S EXAMINER SHE FEARED SHE HAD BECOME DEPENDENT ON BENZODIAZEPINES. NBC News reports Dr. Kirk Heilbrun saying that through the fall of 2022 Clancy described panic symptoms, concern that she was addicted to or dependent on benzodiazepines, and feeling disoriented, forgetful and disconnected from her body, and that by late fall she was, in her own phrase, near the end of her rope. It is the first account of the benzodiazepine concern in his evidence, and it goes to the medication record on which the defense has built its case. NBC News alone.
THREE OUTLETS GIVE THREE DATES FOR WHEN THE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS BEGAN, AND WHEN THEY TURNED TO THE CHILDREN. NBC News has Heilbrun dating the horrible intrusive thoughts about harming herself to late November 2022 and thoughts about harming the children to January; the Boston Globe places both in December 2022; the Patriot Ledger dates the onset to early December, with thoughts occasionally about the children through December and January. When the thoughts first turned to the children bears directly on the mental-state timeline the jury has to weigh, and the conflict is logged unresolved in data/evidence.json.
WHY HE CALLED BIPOLAR II A DIFFICULT DIAGNOSIS. In NBC News's fuller account, Heilbrun described bipolar II as a classification of the disorder that is not associated with mania and said the diagnosis was difficult because Clancy had depressive episodes but described nothing that seemed to him like mania. The periods when she was higher in energy looked to him like her simply feeling good — feeling close to her husband and her children, and getting back into exercise — rather than a manic episode. It is the fullest reported statement of his reasoning, and it sits against his own evidence that she stopped exercising in October 2022 and later resumed. NBC News.
THE BENCH DIRECTED THE COMMONWEALTH'S FIRST REBUTTAL EXPERT TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS MORE THAN ONCE. NBC News reports Judge Sullivan telling Mack to listen to the question and answer the question after Reddington had pressed him on his annual earnings, and reports the judge directing him again during the exchange over what the word postpartum means. The Boston Globe records a further intervention at about 10:39, and NBC News reports the Commonwealth objecting in that same minute that Mack had answered the question repeatedly, with Judge Sullivan urging Reddington to move on. No outlet reports a sanction. Boston Globe and NBC News.
THE INSTRUMENTS BEHIND THE TESTING ARE NAMED, AND ONE OF THEM WAS A CHECK ON WHETHER SHE WAS EXAGGERATING. In an account posted at 1:28 p.m. the Patriot Ledger has Heilbrun telling Sprague he screened Clancy's response style for exaggeration, minimization or fabrication of symptoms on the MMPI, and that a second test measured tangential speech and cognitive disorganization. The Boston Globe had reported at 12:57 only that he looked at her response style and checked for hallucinations, delusions and a lack of focus. No outlet reports what either test showed. Malingering has been in issue all morning: the Commonwealth's first rebuttal expert told Reddington at about 9:49 that Clancy was not fabricating symptoms.
HIS DIRECT HAS REACHED JANUARY 24 ITSELF — BUT NOT WHAT HE CONCLUDED ABOUT IT. The Patriot Ledger reports that after the testing Heilbrun reviewed Clancy's symptoms around January 24, 2023, including depression and suicidal thinking, and that Judge Sullivan called the recess at that point. It is the first report of the direct examination reaching the day of the killings. No outlet reports him being asked, or answering, whether she could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or conform it to the law — the question the Commonwealth called him to answer, and the only live issue in the case.
A FOURTH ACCOUNT DATES THE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS, AND IT FALLS BETWEEN TWO OF THE OTHERS. CBS Boston, publishing its first account of Heilbrun's evidence later in the day, puts the terrible thoughts about harming herself in late November and early December, with thoughts about the children coming later and undated. NBC News has late November for the thoughts about herself and January for the children; the Boston Globe puts both in December; the Patriot Ledger dates the onset to early December and runs the thoughts into January. Four paraphrases of one passage, none quoting the witness on a date. Logged in data/evidence.json and left unresolved.
A SEVENTH OUTLET IS NOW CARRYING THE DAY, AND AN EIGHTH DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTERIZATION COMES WITH IT. CBS Boston's day-19 page, which carried no testimony from Heilbrun when this day was last compiled, now quotes him on Clancy's history and on the intrusive thoughts, and boston.com's livestream page has been updated to record the recess. CBS Boston describes his roughly 330 appearances as cases about competency to stand trial; the Boston Globe puts the same number on cases dealing with mental health issues in adults and juveniles. Both are recorded; no outlet reports the question that produced the figure.
TWO MORE OUTLETS REACH THE RECORD DURING THE RECESS, AND BOTH ADD EVIDENCE. Hearst Connecticut's News-Times has been running a day-19 live file, updated at 1:08 p.m., and Fox News Digital a day-19 live blog whose newest post is timed 1:07 p.m. Neither had been read before. That makes nine outlets carrying something from the day. Both carry answers from Dr. Kirk Heilbrun's direct examination that no Boston outlet reported, and Hearst Connecticut is the only account so far of what the Commonwealth took Dr. Avram Mack back over on redirect.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S SECOND EXPERT IS ALSO A PARK DIETZ CONTRACTOR. Hearst Connecticut reports Heilbrun telling the jury he does independent contractor work for Park Dietz Associates — the retention firm through which the Plymouth district attorney's office engaged Dr. Avram Mack. The Commonwealth put the Park Dietz connection to Mack on redirect at about 10:51. Hearst Connecticut alone on Heilbrun's, and no outlet reports him being asked about it further.
HE SAID HE SETTLED ON BIPOLAR II BECAUSE TEWKSBURY HAD. Hearst Connecticut has him saying he had a hard time finding the manic period the diagnosis requires and went with bipolar 2 because that was the diagnosis of the hospital where Clancy is being held, quoting him that they are very careful about what they prescribe. The Boston Globe put the same reasoning as learning she is on bipolar medication at Tewksbury and had an immediate response when a mood stabilizer was withdrawn. Three outlets now give the Tewksbury diagnosis as part of why the Commonwealth's own expert reached a bipolar diagnosis that its first expert declined to adopt.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S FIRST EXPERT CONCEDED TWO AUTHORITIES LONGER THAN HIS OWN. Fox News Digital reports Mack acknowledging on cross-examination that the World Health Organization's system uses a different postpartum window from the DSM's four weeks, and that a proposed revision to the DSM uses six weeks. No other outlet carries either concession. The figure he gave for the window is the subject of an open discrepancy on this site, and Fox News Digital's account has been added to it.
THE ZOLOFT PRESCRIPTION AND THE START OF IT ARE NOT THE SAME DATE. Hearst Connecticut has Heilbrun saying Clancy received the prescription from Dr. Jennifer Tufts but did not begin taking it until October. It is the first account in his evidence to name the prescriber, and the first to separate when the prescription was written from when she started it — which is what the outlets have been differing about, CBS Boston dating the Zoloft to mid-October and the Boston Globe having her begin it in October 2022. No outlet reports him being asked when it was written.
THE VIDEOTAPE MAY HAVE GONE IN, ON ONE OUTLET'S ACCOUNT. Hearst Connecticut writes that ADA Shanan Buckingham entered Mack's interview with Clancy into evidence during the redirect examination. That is the first report that the recording the Commonwealth offered at about 10:52 was admitted, but it is the outlet's own description and it reports no ruling from the bench, where the Boston Globe and Boston 25 both record the offer, the sidebar and no decision. The question is still treated here as open.
THE ONLY THING FILED SINCE THE RECESS BEGAN IS A DESCRIPTION OF THE ROOM. NBC News posted at 1:58 p.m. that the courtroom was mostly full through the morning with media, spectators and Clancy's parents sitting a few rows behind her; that the jury appeared to listen intently, some jurors taking notes; and that Clancy did not appear to react to any of the day's testimony. It is the outlet's observation and not evidence. Court went back in at 2 p.m. and no outlet has yet filed anything from the afternoon.
THE FIRST RESULT FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING IS UNDERREPORTING, NOT EXAGGERATION. The Boston Globe reports Heilbrun saying at about 2:21 p.m. that his testing showed Clancy had a slight tendency to underreport her symptoms, and calling her a bright woman. Before the lunch recess the Patriot Ledger had him naming the MMPI and describing the screening as being for exaggeration, minimization or fabrication of symptoms; this is the first account of what it found. Boston Globe alone.
SHE HAS BEEN WATCHED ONE TO ONE FOR THREE YEARS AND IS STILL CONSIDERED AT RISK. The Boston Globe has Heilbrun saying his testing showed Clancy was and remains at risk for suicide, and describes her as being on one-to-one suicide protections at Tewksbury Hospital; Boston 25 has him telling the jury the one-to-one suicide watch there has run three years and continues. Boston Globe and Boston 25, with the three-year figure Boston 25's alone.
COURT RESUMED AT ABOUT 2:15 AND THE DIRECT EXAMINATION IS STILL RUNNING. NBC News, the Boston Globe and Boston 25 all record the return from the lunch recess, NBC News putting the break at about an hour and Boston 25 saying Heilbrun remains on direct. He has still not been reported giving an opinion on Clancy's mental state on January 24, 2023, which is the question the Commonwealth called him to reach. Boston Globe, Boston 25 and NBC News.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S SECOND EXPERT HAS NOW SAID WHY HE THINKS SHE KILLED THEM, AND IT IS NOT COMMAND HALLUCINATIONS. Shortly after half past two Heilbrun told the jury there were two possible explanations for what Clancy did: acute psychosis with command hallucinations, or a serious suicide attempt in which she took the children with her so they would not be left to suffer. He chose the second — and, on the Boston Globe's account, chose it even though she told him a voice had told her to kill her children and herself. The Boston Globe at 2:33 p.m., Boston 25 at 2:30 p.m. and NBC News all report the same answer. It is the first opinion he has given that bears on January 24, it is the opposite of Dr. Phillip Resnick's, and he has still not been reported answering the criminal responsibility question itself.
HE CALLED WHAT SHE DID THAT NIGHT A SERIOUS SUICIDE ATTEMPT. At about 2:30 p.m. the Boston Globe reports him saying Clancy made a serious suicide attempt in January 2023 and had felt highly depressed and hopeless, and that something felt wrong with her mind as she struggled to focus. He said she had been trying very hard since October 2022 to control what she was experiencing, and it was not working. The Commonwealth has argued elsewhere in the trial that her suicide attempt was not serious; its own second rebuttal expert has now told the jury it was.
THE KILLINGS WERE OUT OF CHARACTER, ON HIS ACCOUNT. Boston 25's Bob Ward reports him at 2:25 p.m. telling the jury the killing of the children was out of character for Clancy, that the children were not spanked and discipline in the house was not hands-on, and that she and Patrick Clancy felt bad when they yelled at them. Boston 25 alone. It is a Commonwealth witness giving the jury the defense's picture of the household.
THE MEDICATIONS SHE IS ON AT TEWKSBURY NOW ARE NAMED FOR THE FIRST TIME. boston.com reports Mack confirming that Clancy is being treated successfully with Zyprexa, clonidine, trazodone and occasional propranolol. The Boston Globe recorded him listing her current medications at about 10:08 without naming any of them. boston.com alone.
THE TWO ACCOUNTS OF WHAT MACK SAID ABOUT THE CHILD PROTECTION RECORDS DO NOT AGREE. The Boston Globe has him at about 9:36 describing February 2023 Department of Children and Families records as recording no earlier instance of Clancy abusing her children. boston.com has Reddington putting that to him directly and Mack answering that he did not think that was necessarily the conclusion of that report. Whether the Commonwealth's expert conceded the point or declined it is not something the reporting settles, and it is logged as a discrepancy.
THE ONLY REPORT THAT HIS DIRECT REACHED THE LEGAL TEST IS A VIDEO WITH NO TEXT. The Patriot Ledger's 2:26 p.m. entry is a clip captioned as Heilbrun explaining the legal standards for criminal responsibility, posted without a written account. Nothing of what he said about the standards is recorded here, because no outlet reports it in words. The Ledger's headline on the entry calls him a defense witness; he is the Commonwealth's.
boston.com HAS BECOME A NINTH ACCOUNT RATHER THAN A NINTH LIVESTREAM. Its page carried nothing from the sitting through the morning; updated at 2:24 p.m. it carries two long narrative updates that add the names of the current medications, the full list of the diagnoses in Clancy's record, the Kingsbury Club, Sue Clancy and Allison Ozga, and the exchange behind the garage. None of it is timestamped to the courtroom clock.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S SECOND EXPERT SPENT THE AFTERNOON TAKING THE VOICE APART. Between about 2:35 and 2:50 p.m. Heilbrun gave the jury his reasons for not accepting the command hallucination the defense case rests on: Clancy heard the voice only across the 18 minutes or so the killings took and never before or since, which he called very unusual to put it mildly; genuine psychotic hallucinations can be intermittent, where hers was constant; and she never reported trying to stop it or to distract herself from it, as people in the throes of psychosis often do. The Boston Globe, Boston 25, NBC News and the Patriot Ledger all carry parts of it, and the Globe alone has the last two.
HE TOLD THE JURY A SYMPTOM REPORTED ONLY DURING AN OFFENSE IS CONVENIENT. NBC News has him saying he is wary when a person reports a symptom that arose only in the course of committing an offense, because that is a convenient route away from blame; the Patriot Ledger renders it as a convenient way of lessening your own culpability. Neither reports him saying in terms that he believed Clancy was doing it. NBC News and Patriot Ledger.
THE ACCOUNTS OF WHAT THE VOICE SAID DID NOT MATCH, ON HIS EVIDENCE. Boston 25 quotes him saying inconsistency is important because it questions accuracy; NBC News has Clancy telling some people the voice repeated that this was her last chance to kill the kids so she could kill herself and later saying it also said the children would suffer without her, or that she had to take them with her; the Boston Globe puts the second version to a hospital staffer and quotes him saying the more inconsistency there is, the harder it becomes to credit any one account. Four outlets.
HE ALSO ALLOWED THAT WHAT SHE DESCRIBED WOULD BE A COMMAND HALLUCINATION. NBC News reports him saying that a voice genuinely heard in the way Clancy has described it would qualify as a command hallucination, and that the words she reported would be an example of a symptom of psychosis. On that account his objection is to the pattern of the symptom rather than to its content. NBC News alone in putting it that way.
HE WEIGHED A MOTIVE NEITHER PARTY HAS PUT FORWARD. The Boston Globe reports him saying he also considered whether Clancy feared her children would be taken from her, and that as a mandated reporter herself she knew she could lose them if she disclosed thoughts of harming them. Hearst Connecticut has him saying she may have been concerned someone would take the children away and that this was not a paranoid thought, because child protective services may have intervened had she said so. Neither outlet reports whether he accepted the motive or set it aside.
A THIRD FIGURE APPEARS FOR THE LENGTH OF THE SUICIDE WATCH. Hearst Connecticut puts Clancy on a one-on-one suicide watch for the past three and a half years, where Boston 25 and NBC News both give three years and boston.com's three and a half years measures her stay at Tewksbury Hospital rather than the watch. Recorded as reported and logged as a discrepancy.
THE SECOND EXPERT PUTS POSTPARTUM ONSET AT ONE TO TWO MONTHS. The Boston Globe reports Heilbrun saying at about 2:50 p.m. that medical guidelines put the onset of postpartum symptoms at one to two months after giving birth. It is a fresh figure on the question that ran through the cross-examination of Dr. Avram Mack, whose own answers were reported as anything from four weeks to four months, and it is added to that open discrepancy. Boston Globe alone; no outlet reports what he drew from it.
THE COMMONWEALTH'S EXPERT USED THE WORD FABRICATED. The Boston Globe reports Heilbrun saying at about 2:55 p.m. that his assessment suggested Clancy was describing exaggerated or fabricated hallucinations, and NBC News reports him counting about three points on which her account more closely resembled an exaggerated or fabricated hallucination, one on which it looked more genuine and one mixed. It is the first time either Commonwealth expert has been reported putting that word to her account. It sits beside his own testing result, reported at 2:21 p.m., that she has a slight tendency to underreport symptoms; no outlet reports him being asked how the two fit together.
HE GAVE THE JURY AN ALTERNATIVE, NOT ONLY A DOUBT. Four outlets — the Boston Globe, the Patriot Ledger, Hearst Connecticut and, on the underlying reasoning, NBC News — have him telling the jury that what Clancy described was more likely an unwelcome intrusive thought than an auditory hallucination, consistent with the intrusive thoughts she had been reporting for months. The Patriot Ledger dates those thoughts to December 2022. Until this point in the afternoon he had given reasons to doubt the command hallucination without offering anything in its place.
HER OWN WORDS TO HER HUSBAND WERE PUT TO THE JURY AS A TEST. The Boston Globe and the Patriot Ledger both report him saying that when Patrick Clancy asked his wife what she had done, she answered that she had tried to kill herself, and that someone acting under a command hallucination would more likely have been vague — having done what she had to do, or what the voice said. Two outlets.
THE ONE LINE THAT TOUCHES THE LEGAL TEST IS HERS, NOT HIS. The Boston Globe at 2:58 p.m. reports Heilbrun saying Clancy told him the wrongfulness of what she was doing had not been in her mind at all during the killings. It is the first thing in his evidence to reach the language of the McHoul standard, and it is an account of what she told him rather than an opinion on whether she could appreciate wrongfulness. He has still not been reported being asked, or answering, the criminal responsibility question itself.
THE TWO OUTLETS DESCRIBE THE INTERMITTENCY POINT IN OPPOSITE TERMS. The Boston Globe has him saying genuine psychotic hallucinations can be intermittent, where Clancy's was constant for 18 minutes; NBC News has him saying genuine hallucinations are more consistent than intermittent, where hers lasted only about 18 to 20 minutes. Both run to the same conclusion, that her account does not match the usual pattern, but the property each assigns to a genuine hallucination is the reverse of the other. Logged as a discrepancy and left open.
HE DOUBTED THE POSTPARTUM CONNECTION ITSELF. The Boston Globe reports him expressing skepticism about whether Clancy's conditions were connected to a birth about eight months earlier, and saying he adheres to a shorter timeframe when considering the postpartum period. It is the same position as the one-to-two-months figure he gave minutes earlier, applied to Clancy rather than stated as a guideline. Boston Globe alone.
AN 88 PERCENT FIGURE ENTERED THE EVIDENCE, AND TWO OUTLETS CARRY IT. NBC News and the Patriot Ledger both report Heilbrun telling the jury that command hallucinations are accompanied by related delusions in about 88 percent of cases, and that Clancy reported none. Neither outlet reports the source of the figure or whether it was put to him on cross.
THE COMMONWEALTH’S EXPERT GAVE THE KILLINGS A NAME. The Boston Globe reports Heilbrun saying at about 3:00 p.m. that his evaluation showed “suicide combined with altruistic filicide,” which he glossed as killing your kids out of love: a highly lethal suicide attempt, preceded by months of thoughts and impulses about harming herself, in which the decision to kill the children was likely an attempt to keep them from suffering without her. It is the first time either Commonwealth expert has been reported giving the January 24 killings a name from the literature.
AND SEVEN MINUTES LATER A SECOND OUTLET HAS HIM RULING THAT NAME OUT. NBC News, at 3:07 p.m., reports Heilbrun saying that Clancy telling her husband she had tried to kill herself — without mentioning the voice or the children — pointed him away from altruistic filicide, and that what it looked like instead was an extreme attempt at suicide. The Boston Globe has him adopting the term and NBC News has him rejecting it, on the same afternoon and in part on the same evidence. Logged as a discrepancy and left open.
A QUESTION ABOUT MORTAL SIN DREW AN OBJECTION. Boston 25’s Bob Ward reports at 2:54 p.m. that Heilbrun told the jury he had asked Clancy, a devout Catholic, whether that was a mortal sin, and that an objection and a sidebar followed. Boston 25 alone. No outlet reports her answer, the ground of the objection, or how the judge ruled.
THE JURY WAS SENT OUT AND THE DIRECT EXAMINATION STOPPED SHORT. The Boston Globe reports at 3:04 p.m. that following a sidebar Judge Sullivan sent the jurors out for a brief recess, with no reason given. Heilbrun’s direct examination had not finished, and cross-examination has not begun.
THE DAY ENDED WITH A MISTRIAL MOTION, AND IT WAS DENIED. At 3:20 p.m., with the jury out of the room and Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s direct examination unfinished, Kevin Reddington moved for a mistrial over the Commonwealth’s witness bringing up Clancy’s Catholic faith, and called it intentional misconduct by prosecutors. Judge Sullivan refused. He said he would deal with it by instructing the jury instead, told the Commonwealth to tell its witness he could not go into that, and said he would try to minimize the damage and that the jury can follow instructions. Boston 25, the Boston Globe and NBC News all report the denial; the Patriot Ledger and NBC Boston headline the motion without an account of the argument.
THE TESTIMONY THAT PROMPTED IT WAS STRUCK FROM THE RECORD. NBC News reports at 3:33 p.m. that the judge told the jury the religion the defendant was raised with is an absolutely inappropriate area of testimony, that it is to be stricken and not to be considered, and that the witness’s own understanding of Catholic teaching is irrelevant and immaterial. The jury was then sent home for the day. This is the first evidence recorded here as struck during the rebuttal case, and it is the second time the reporting has an instruction of this kind following a warning — Boston 25 says the bench had warned on the subject last week after the questioning of Susan Clancy, which no other outlet reports.
THE SITTING ENDED EARLY, THE WITNESS IS NOT FINISHED, AND THE COURT SAID WHAT COMES NEXT. The jury was dismissed for the rest of the day at about 3:33 p.m. and returns Tuesday for the rest of Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s direct examination. He has not been reported being asked the criminal responsibility question itself, and Reddington has not begun to cross-examine him. The Boston Globe reports at 3:32 p.m. that Judge Sullivan said he believes the prosecutors have one more witness to call after Heilbrun and that closing arguments are expected on Wednesday; CBS Boston and Hearst Connecticut both report the further rebuttal witness, and the Wednesday date is the Globe alone. It is the first date for closings this compilation has attributed to the bench, and it does not agree with every outlet’s expectation; the conflict is logged and left open.
THE PASSAGE THAT PROMPTED THE MISTRIAL MOTION HAS NOW BEEN PUBLISHED. CBS Boston, at 3:41 p.m., quotes the testimony itself rather than describing it: Heilbrun telling the jury that Clancy had expected, in part, to be with her children in heaven, with God, that she was raised as a Catholic, that as he understood Catholic considerations that is not necessarily what happens, and that he asked her “Isn’t suicide a mortal sin?” before the objection and the sidebar cut him off. The quotation contains both the reunion-in-heaven element and the suicide question that outlets had reported separately; it does not contain the reference to murder that Boston 25 reported.
IT WAS THE SECOND TIME RELIGION CAME INTO THE TRIAL, AND THE FIRST TIME WAS NOT MOVED ON. The Patriot Ledger reports Reddington telling the court that Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague had mentioned mortal sin earlier in the trial while questioning Patrick Clancy’s mother, Sue Clancy, that he objected then but did not move for a mistrial because “I felt the court’s instructions were sufficient”, and that this time it was “just over the top”. CBS Boston reports the earlier question as struck from the record. Boston 25 dates the bench’s warning on the subject to last week; the Ledger dates the incident only as earlier in the trial.
THE WIRE ACCOUNT OF THE DAY IS IN, AND IT LEADS ON THE DIAGNOSIS RATHER THAN THE MISTRIAL MOTION. The Associated Press, in a story by Michael Casey filed after the adjournment, reports Heilbrun testifying that Clancy has bipolar disorder and was experiencing anxiety, depression, insomnia and suicidal thoughts in the weeks before the killings, and quotes him at length on why the diagnosis was difficult: he struggled with it “because of all the diagnoses in the records and all the symptoms that she experienced”, and was “having a hard time finding something that looked like it was a manic episode”. It is the first Associated Press account this compilation has recorded of the sitting. That was the story as it stood when filed at about 2:36 p.m., and it carried nothing of the mistrial motion; the wire was rewritten at about 4:54 p.m. and the later version carries the motion, the refusal and the instruction.
A SECOND OUTLET HAS NOW PUBLISHED THE PASSAGE THAT PROMPTED THE MISTRIAL MOTION, AND IT MATCHES THE FIRST. NBC News, at 3:51 p.m., quotes the same stretch CBS Boston published — the expectation of being together in heaven with God, the Catholic upbringing, his understanding that that is not necessarily what happens — and reports the judge pausing the testimony at the point where Heilbrun said he had asked Clancy whether suicide is a mortal sin. Boston 25’s account of a question about murder remains unmatched.
THE EARLIER OCCASION IS NOW FULLY ON THE RECORD, AND THE ACCOUNTS DISAGREE ABOUT WHO ASKED THE QUESTION. NBC News dates the first religion incident to the prosecution’s cross-examination of Clancy’s former mother-in-law last week and reports that the judge struck it then, which is the exchange this compilation records on August 18: the prosecutor asked Susan Clancy, an active Catholic, whether she was aware that murder is considered a mortal sin, and Judge Sullivan struck the question before it was answered. The Patriot Ledger today attributes that question to Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague; the August 18 reporting has Shanan Buckingham cross-examining. Both are recorded and neither is preferred.
THE FILING AT TEN PAST FOUR ADDS A WORD FROM THE BENCH THAT NO OTHER OUTLET CARRIES. Fox News Digital, posting at about 4:10 p.m., reports Judge Sullivan calling the testimony that prompted the mistrial motion “problematic” while telling the jurors to disregard it. Every other account of the refusal has him asking how any of it was proper and calling the witness’s understanding of Catholic teaching irrelevant; none of them uses that word. Nothing else in the post is new, and no outlet has added anything to Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s evidence since the wire account.
DEFENSE COUNSEL HAS SPOKEN OUTSIDE THE COURTROOM, AND HE SAYS HE EXPECTS THE INSTRUCTION TO HOLD. NBC News, at about 4:34 p.m., reports Kevin Reddington telling reporters after the adjournment that he believes the jurors will follow the judge’s instruction to disregard the testimony about Lindsay Clancy’s Catholic faith, that it has been a good trial and the evidence has come out, and that he would rather not say whether the episode could give a ground for appeal — which would in any case require a conviction first. It is the first remark by counsel outside the courtroom this compilation has recorded on day 19. NBC News was the only outlet carrying any such remark until Fox News Digital filed an account of its own after six o’clock.
THE WIRE WAS REWRITTEN AFTER THE ADJOURNMENT, AND THE SECOND VERSION LEADS ON THE CONCLUSION RATHER THAN THE DIAGNOSIS. The Associated Press replaced its earlier story at about 4:54 p.m. with a longer one reporting that Clancy was not acutely psychotic when she killed the three children, and that she took their lives so they would not “suffer” once she had taken her own. It gives the reason Heilbrun ruled out acute psychosis with command hallucinations — he did not believe her account of the voice — and quotes the words she gave it as “kill the children so you can kill yourself”. The rewritten wire also carries the mistrial motion, the refusal and the instruction to disregard, which the version filed two hours earlier did not.
A SECOND ACCOUNT NAMES SHANAN BUCKINGHAM AS THE PROSECUTOR WHO ASKED THE AUGUST 18 MORTAL SIN QUESTION. Hearst Connecticut, in a day-19 recap updated at about 4:52 p.m., sets out that exchange word for word and attributes it to Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham: she asked Susan Clancy whether she was an active member of the Catholic Church, Susan Clancy said yes, and she then asked whether she was aware that murder is considered a mortal sin, at which Judge Sullivan stopped the questioning and told the jury to strike it. That agrees with the August 18 reporting compiled here and puts a second account against the Patriot Ledger’s, which today attributed the question to Jennifer Sprague. The conflict is logged in the evidence file and is not resolved here.
DEFENSE COUNSEL HAS EXPLAINED WHY THE FIRST RELIGION INCIDENT DID NOT DRAW A MOTION. ABC News, in a post filed at about 5:02 p.m., reports Kevin Reddington telling the court that his decision not to move for a mistrial when mortal sin was raised during the August 18 cross-examination of Clancy’s former mother-in-law had been a “tactical decision”, and that this second instance was too much. No other outlet carries that explanation; the Patriot Ledger had him saying only that he felt the court’s instruction was sufficient on that occasion.
THE COMMONWEALTH’S ANSWER TO THE MISTRIAL MOTION IS NOW ON THE RECORD WHOLE. ABC News quotes Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague telling the judge “There was no intentional conduct by the Commonwealth”, that the questioning was not where she had intended to go, and that she did not think the witness intended to do any harm either but was explaining his rationale. The Patriot Ledger and Hearst Connecticut each carried part of that answer and this is the first account to give all of it.
A NATIONAL OUTLET ADDS TWO POINTS TO THE SECOND REBUTTAL EXPERT’S DIRECT EXAMINATION. ABC News reports Dr. Kirk Heilbrun telling the jury that Clancy came out of her brief inpatient stay in January 2023 with “a small shred of hope” before her condition worsened again, and giving his own reason for the difficulty of the diagnosis — that between mid-October 2022 and late January 2023 “she’d had a lot of providers offer a lot of diagnoses, and there were a lot of complicating considerations”. The same account has him meeting Clancy four times this year, where the Boston Globe had multiple occasions in April running to about ten hours and the Patriot Ledger about 10.5 hours over three days.
THE SITTING RESUMES AT 9 A.M. TUESDAY WITH THE SAME WITNESS. ABC News is the first outlet to give the time. Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s direct examination was unfinished when the jury was sent home, the criminal responsibility question has still not been put to him, and cross-examination has not begun.
THE QUESTION BEHIND THE ONE LINE THAT TOUCHES THE LEGAL TEST IS NOW REPORTED. boston.com, in a recap updated at about 5:21 p.m., has Heilbrun telling the jury he put to Clancy the question whether, in the moment, she knew what she was doing to be unlawful or wrong, and quotes her answer as he reported it: that she had not been thinking about it at all, “No thoughts, no decisions, none of that. It was just all action.” It is a second account of the evidence the Boston Globe reported at 2:58 p.m. and the first to give the question. It is still what she told him, not his opinion, and he has still not been asked the criminal responsibility question.
HE CHOSE BETWEEN HIS TWO EXPLANATIONS IN HIS OWN WORDS. boston.com quotes Heilbrun saying “Most of the evidence that I saw supported the second one, and not the first” — the second being altruistic filicide, which it quotes him defining as killing your children out of love so that they would not have to suffer. It is a third position in the open conflict over whether he adopted or rejected that term, alongside the Boston Globe’s account and NBC News’s opposite one, and it is logged rather than treated as resolving it.
A SECOND RESULT FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING, AND THE SYMPTOMS HE REVIEWED FOR JANUARY 2023. boston.com alone reports Heilbrun saying the evaluation put Clancy at higher levels on what he called importance and control of thoughts, and alone lists the symptoms he told the jury she reported for January 2023 — hopelessness about the future, low mood, self-consciousness, thoughts of death or dying, a feeling that something was wrong with her mind, and difficulty concentrating — which he said were mostly consistent with depression. It also has the underreporting finding in fuller form, as a tendency to deny unusual experiences done in a way he called sophisticated.
THE FEAR THAT THE CHILDREN WOULD BE TAKEN WAS NOT A DELUSION, ON A THIRD ACCOUNT WITH A DIFFERENT REASON. boston.com has Heilbrun saying Clancy’s worry that authorities might take her children was not a paranoid delusion on the ground that a Massachusetts psychologist is a mandated reporter, who would have been bound by law to pass any disclosure of thoughts of harming them to state officials. The Boston Globe put the mandated reporter status on Clancy herself and Hearst Connecticut gave child protective services intervening as the reason. All three agree he did not treat the fear as a delusion and differ on whose reporting obligation made it realistic.
THE MISTRIAL ARGUMENT IS NOW ON THE RECORD AT LENGTH, ON BOTH SIDES. boston.com quotes Reddington moving “reluctantly” after describing the strain on his client and the length of the trial, and quotes Sprague saying her question did not solicit testimony about religion, Catholicism or mortal sin and that she did not think the witness was trying to inflame the jury. It also quotes the judge’s reason for sending the jury home early — that he did not want the last thing they heard to be this witness’s understanding of Catholic teaching. No outlet has yet named the prosecutor who put the mortal sin question on August 18, and that conflict stays open.
A TWELFTH OUTLET FILED AFTER FIVE O'CLOCK, AND IT IS NOT A LIVE BLOG. CNN published a written story on the sitting at about 4:35 p.m., by Eric Levenson and Nicki Brown. It was not among the pages tracked for this day and was found on a search this evening. Almost everything in it was already on this page from the Boston outlets; what it adds goes to the two questions the day left open.
A FOURTH OUTLET HAS HIM NAMING THE KILLINGS ALTRUISTIC FILICIDE — FROM THE EVIDENCE THE ONE DISSENTING ACCOUNT USES AGAINST IT. CNN reports Dr. Kirk Heilbrun describing the killings as altruistic filicide, killing one's children out of love, and reaches that description immediately after setting out that the first thing Clancy said to her husband was that she had tried to kill herself. NBC News, at 3:07 p.m., reported him treating that same fact as his reason for ruling the term out. The Boston Globe, boston.com and CNN now stand against NBC News, but the disagreement is over the same passage of evidence rather than over different parts of the afternoon, and it is logged unresolved.
THE WEDNESDAY DATE FOR CLOSING ARGUMENTS HAS A SECOND OUTLET AND A QUALIFICATION. CNN reports Judge Sullivan saying the Commonwealth's remaining witnesses are likely to finish Tuesday and that closings are expected Wednesday — until now the Boston Globe alone — and is the only account to report him cautioning that the timeline is subject to change. Hearst Connecticut's day-19 page still carries an unattributed line putting closings on Tuesday, so the conflict stands.
THE ONLY REPORT OF WHAT THE JURORS DID WHILE THE EVIDENCE WAS STRUCK. CNN reports that several jurors were nodding as Judge Sullivan delivered the instruction to disregard Dr. Kirk Heilbrun's evidence about Clancy's Catholic faith. No other outlet describes their reaction, and CNN gives no more of it than that. It is recorded because the judge said in terms that he was relying on the jury's ability to follow the instruction.
HE PUT A FREQUENCY ON THE POINT HE MADE ABOUT SYMPTOMS THAT SURFACE ONLY DURING AN OFFENSE. CNN, a third outlet on the answer, quotes him saying he is always very careful with such a report because it is a convenient way of lessening one's own culpability, and adds a clause NBC News and the Patriot Ledger did not carry: that while it is always possible, he finds it very, very rare. No outlet reports him saying he believed Clancy was doing it.
WHDH’s 7News is the thirteenth outlet on the sitting, and the only one to quote the words Heilbrun was speaking when the objection came. On its account he began “When I said suicide isn’t a mortal sin,” before Kevin Reddington cut him off, and Judge William Sullivan then asked to speak with the prosecution.
Boston 25 filed a standalone article on the ruling at about 5:42 p.m. that describes the testimony behind the motion as questions Heilbrun asked Clancy about suicide being a mortal sin — the other version of the doctrine from the one its own live blog gave in the afternoon. What he said is logged as a conflict and is not resolved here.
Three outlets filing on the evening of August 24 — Hearst Connecticut, Boston 25’s standalone article and WHDH — name Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham as the prosecutor who put the mortal sin question to Susan Clancy on August 18, and two of them set the exchange out word for word. The Patriot Ledger’s account of the mistrial argument, which named Jennifer Sprague, stands alone. The conflict is logged and is not resolved here.
WHDH reports that Kevin Reddington will cross-examine Heilbrun on Tuesday, in what it expects to be the last day of testimony, and that closing arguments are expected Wednesday. It is a third outlet on Wednesday, but unlike the Boston Globe and CNN it does not attribute the day to the judge, and the expectation about Tuesday is the outlet’s own and is not reported as anything said from the bench.
A SECOND OUTLET REACHES DEFENSE COUNSEL AFTER THE RULING, AND HE SAYS HE SAW THE REFUSAL COMING. Fox News Digital, in a post by Adam Sabes carried as its page’s latest update at about 6:07 p.m., reports Kevin Reddington saying he expected Judge William Sullivan to deny his mistrial motion, and quotes him saying he has no doubt the jury will be able to overlook the testimony about Lindsay Clancy’s Catholic faith. The expectation is new; the confidence in the jury is the same position NBC News reported at about 4:34 p.m., when it had him saying he believes the jurors will follow the instruction to disregard it. Fox News Digital gives what prompted the motion as prosecutors again raising Clancy’s Catholic faith and sin, where the courtroom accounts recorded here have the witness raising the doctrine himself on direct examination. It does not say when or where counsel spoke.
A FOURTEENTH OUTLET FILED IN THE EVENING, AND IT IS THE FULLEST SINGLE NARRATIVE OF THE DAY OUTSIDE THE LIVE BLOGS. Los Angeles Magazine published a bylined account of the whole sitting by Lauren Conlin. It is untimed, so nothing in it can be placed on the courtroom clock and nothing here is timed from it, but it carries several things no other outlet reports: the name of the depression scale Reddington put to Dr. Avram Mack, two suicide assessment instruments and an obsessional beliefs questionnaire in Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s testing, the PowerPoint he presented from, the Commonwealth’s answer to the mistrial motion in fuller terms, and the distinction Judge Sullivan drew in refusing it. Every point in it that could be checked against the thirteen outlets already compiled here agrees with them.
THE COMMONWEALTH’S ANSWER TO THE MISTRIAL MOTION IS NOW ON THE RECORD IN FULLER TERMS. The accounts already compiled had the prosecutors saying the remark was unintentional, that the question asked had nothing to do with religion, and that the witness was explaining his reasoning. Los Angeles Magazine adds that Sprague told the court Catholicism and mortal sin did not appear on the slide the witness was presenting from. It is one outlet and the point is not corroborated.
FOX NEWS DIGITAL IS A SECOND OUTLET ON THE COUNT OF POINTS AGAINST THE HALLUCINATION. Its seventh day-19 post, filed in the evening, gives Heilbrun’s breakdown as a quotation, putting it at about three points where her account looked more like an exaggerated or invented hallucination, one where it looked more genuine, and one that came out mixed. NBC News had the same count untimed and it had rested on that account alone. The wording of the two is the same in substance.

On the stand

Witnesses 2

Dr. Avram Mack

Commonwealth

Role: Psychiatrist, called by the Commonwealth as its first rebuttal witness. The Boston Globe places him practicing and teaching in Philadelphia and gives his expertise as forensic psychiatry.
Direct: Sprague
Cross: Reddington

Testimony, as reported:

ON THE STAND AND UNDER CROSS-EXAMINATION. He resumed at about 9:18, by video link, with Kevin Reddington's cross-examination — begun at about 14:50 on Friday and unfinished at the weekend break — still running. Boston Globe, and no other outlet has yet reported from today's sitting.
CROSS — HOW OFTEN HE HAS TESTIFIED ON THE QUESTION IN ISSUE. At about 9:21 Reddington asked him how many times he had testified in court on criminal responsibility. Mack estimated one or two, which the Globe notes would make this case about his third. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — WHAT KIND OF PSYCHIATRIST HE IS. He told the jury he considers himself a generalist, giving adolescent mental health and addiction among his focuses. The Globe frames it against Reddington's suggestion on Friday that he has little experience treating postpartum patients. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — PRIOR CASES IN WHICH JUDGES QUESTIONED HIS QUALIFICATIONS. At about 9:24 Reddington put such cases to him. Mack acknowledged having formed opinions in comparable cases, but said he did not recall the cases Reddington raised, or disagreed with the way Reddington characterized the rulings. The Globe does not name the cases. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — A FLORIDA LAWSUIT, AND WHETHER HIS EVIDENCE THERE WAS STRUCK. At about 9:29 he was asked about an earlier Florida case concerning the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. He said he did not believe his testimony in it had been struck. The Globe gives no more of the case than that. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — HOW HE EXAMINED THE DEFENDANT. He confirmed that he saw Clancy at Tewksbury Hospital in April, on two separate days, and that a colleague carried out psychological testing. He said he stayed at a private home in Wellesley while the evaluation was going on and did not know where his colleague stayed. Nothing yet reported explains what Reddington was driving at. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — CONTACT WITH THE PROSECUTORS, AND THE RECORDS HE READ. At about 9:36 he said he had spoken with the prosecutors by telephone before he evaluated Clancy. He described reviewing Department of Children and Families records from February 2023 that included an interview with Patrick Clancy, and said those records recorded no earlier instance of Lindsay Clancy abusing her children. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — WHEN HE FIRST MET HER, AND WHAT HE IS PAID. At about 9:38 Reddington established that Mack did not meet Clancy until 2026, roughly three years after January 24, 2023, and that he earns several hundred thousand dollars a year from forensic evaluations. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — CONFIRMATION BIAS, PUT TO HIM DIRECTLY. In the same minute Reddington asked him to define confirmation bias; Mack agreed with the sense of gathering information that confirms an idea already held. Asked whether he had hoped to assist the prosecutors who hired him, he answered no. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — HOW LONG THE FIRST INTERVIEW RAN. At about 9:41 he put the initial interview at Tewksbury Hospital at four or five hours, conducted with a colleague. He said Clancy did not ask for a break and remained polite in answering, and that they discussed her catheter schedule while questioning her. The psychological testing was done by his colleague the following day. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — TESTS FOR TRUTHFULNESS OF RESPONSES. At about 9:46 he acknowledged familiarity with tests Reddington raised for gauging whether a subject is answering truthfully. He said one of them measures personality and was not designed as a lie detector. The Globe does not name the tests. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — WHETHER SHE WAS MALINGERING, AND WHAT HIS OWN TESTING SHOWED. At about 9:49 Reddington asked whether someone indicted for murder would be motivated to fabricate mental health symptoms; Mack answered not necessarily. He said the psychological testing his colleague administered effectively showed the procedure was valid — that Clancy was answering truthfully rather than malingering. It is a concession from the Commonwealth's own rebuttal expert on a point the defense has to hold. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — A SHARP EXCHANGE ABOUT HIS DEMEANOR. At about 9:52, pressing him on the tests for exaggerated symptoms, Reddington objected to Mack smiling on the video link and told him it was not funny. He asked whether Mack knew that Clancy had shown no indication whatsoever of exaggerating her symptoms in the testing. The Globe records the question and Reddington's rebuke but not Mack's answer. Boston Globe alone.
BIPOLAR SYMPTOMS AND THE SSRI QUESTION. At about 9:55 he said he was aware of symptoms of bipolar disorder in Clancy, and that the medical caution about prescribing SSRI antidepressants to patients with bipolar disorder has lessened in recent years. The medication record is the defense's ground, so this is his answer on it. Boston Globe alone.
HIS SECOND SESSION, AND THE DIAGNOSIS HE REACHED. He put the second of his two sessions with Clancy at about three hours, and said he concluded she had a major depressive disorder. The Globe reports counsel called to sidebar immediately after that answer. Boston Globe alone.
HIS OPINION ON CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY, RESTATED BEFORE TEN. At about 9:59, after the sidebar, he said he had determined that Clancy was in a major depressive episode at the time of the killings but retained the ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct. He noted that a colleague had diagnosed her with bipolar II, which he described as carrying no history of a full manic episode. It is the same opinion the Globe reported him giving on Friday. The entries do not say whether this came on continued cross-examination or on redirect. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — WHETHER BIPOLAR DISORDER PRECEDES POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION, AND WHEN ONSET COUNTS. At about 10:05 Reddington asked whether bipolar disorder is a precursor to postpartum depression. Mack said it depends on whether the patient has a mood disorder and on the timeframe of onset, and gave the guidelines as onset within four weeks for the postpartum period and within six weeks for postpartum psychosis; Reddington put longer periods to him from guidelines he cited in turn. The Globe describes this exchange as cross-examination. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — NO SIGNS OF MANIA IN THE HOSPITAL. In the same exchange he said Clancy has not demonstrated any signs of mania at Tewksbury Hospital. Mania is the element his opinion turns on: he told the jury on Friday that he found no mania or hypomania to support bipolar disorder or psychosis before the killings, and this puts the same absence in her presentation since. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — WHAT SHE TAKES NOW, AND HER SLEEP BEFORE THE KILLINGS. At about 10:08 he listed the medications Clancy currently takes at Tewksbury Hospital — the Globe does not name them — and said she had reported problems sleeping when a provider increased her dosage before the killings, describing her as having wanted to sleep and having tried hard to without succeeding. Reddington put to him that she had gone forty-eight hours without sleep after that increase; the Globe records the assertion but not Mack's answer. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — THE CLINICIANS WHO DIAGNOSED BIPOLAR DISORDER. At about 10:11 Reddington listed the mental health clinicians who have diagnosed Clancy with bipolar disorder, before and after the killings, and asked whether that was a strong indicator that a person could be suffering from postpartum depression. Mack said the question confused him. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — HOW LONG THE POSTPARTUM PERIOD RUNS. For diagnostic purposes Mack put it at four weeks from the birth. The Globe notes that other experts have rejected that definition and extend the period to a year or longer. Reddington told him postpartum is not a disease and that every woman who has given birth remains postpartum. Mack held to his opinion of major depressive episodes without psychosis. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — WANTING SLEEP AGAINST NOT NEEDING IT. At about 10:20 he agreed that the guidelines give a decreased need for sleep as one element of mania, and said that in his view Clancy desperately wanted to sleep. It is the distinction his opinion rests on, her insomnia being depression rather than mania on his account. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — MAJOR DEPRESSIVE EPISODES AFTER THE THIRD BIRTH. Asked about signs of postpartum depression, he confirmed that Clancy had major depressive episodes following the birth of her third child. Reddington put to him that her score on one depression scale was nearly off the charts, and Mack acknowledged that she was in distress. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — THE SYMPTOMS SHE REPORTED TO HER PROVIDERS. He gave an inability to laugh as an indicator of major depression, and said Clancy had reported anxiety, worry without an apparent cause and feeling overwhelmed to her providers. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — WHAT THE FLORIDA TESTIMONY WAS ABOUT. On the Patriot Ledger's account of the same passage the Globe recorded at about 9:29, Mack had testified for the state of Florida that beneficiaries of state aid should be drug tested. Reddington characterized that testimony as resting on needy people being more inclined to violence, drug use and suicide; Mack said that was not the correct conceptualization, and Reddington answered that this was merely Mack's own view. Asked whether his testimony had been stricken, Mack said he did not believe that it was. Patriot Ledger for the substance.
CROSS — THE COLLEAGUE HAS A NAME. The Patriot Ledger identifies the colleague who went with Mack to Tewksbury Hospital, sat through the four-to-five-hour first interview and carried out the psychological testing as Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, himself an expert witness for the Commonwealth. The Globe reported the same facts without the name.
CROSS — WHAT BIPOLAR DISORDER LOOKS LIKE. Asked to describe the condition, Mack listed flights of ideas, distractibility, engagement in pleasurable activities with painful consequences, pressured speech and grandiosity. Patriot Ledger alone.
CROSS — HE SAID NO TO BIPOLAR II IN TERMS. Asked directly whether he had concluded that Clancy suffered from a major mental disease or defect, namely bipolar II, Mack said no, and clarified that what he had concluded was a major depressive episode as part of a major depressive disorder. Told that she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at Tewksbury, he asked to be shown where. Patriot Ledger alone.
CROSS — THE COMMONWEALTH'S OTHER EXPERT DIAGNOSED BIPOLAR II. Mack agreed that Dr. Kirk Heilbrun made a diagnosis of bipolar II. Heilbrun is the colleague who evaluated Clancy with him and is himself on the Commonwealth's witness list. The Globe recorded the bipolar II diagnosis without naming its author; the Patriot Ledger names him.
CROSS — WHO ELSE HAS DIAGNOSED BIPOLAR DISORDER. The clinicians Reddington listed are, on the Patriot Ledger's account, nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta, who raised the possibility, and Dr. Paul Zeizel, Dr. Margaret Spinelli and Dr. Phillip Resnick, all of whom evaluated Clancy and diagnosed bipolar disorder. Patriot Ledger for the names.
CROSS — THOUGHTS OF HARMING HERSELF, AND WHAT WOULD COUNT AS PSYCHOSIS. At about 10:25 Mack said Clancy had also indicated she had thoughts of harming herself. Asked whether postpartum depression can be followed by postpartum psychosis, he said he could not answer. He said that hearing voices would be psychosis. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — A PERIOD IN THE RECORDS WHERE SHE WORRIED PEOPLE COULD HEAR HER THOUGHTS. At about 10:31 Mack said he had come across such a period in his review of the records. He said she was suffering, and that she at times felt things were not real, or felt uncomfortable. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — ASKED WHETHER POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS IS A LEGITIMATE DISEASE. Mack answered that the presence of psychosis is always concerning and that psychiatric guidelines give a time frame for its onset after a birth. The Globe does not report him answering the question yes or no. Boston Globe alone. CBS Boston, in a narrative carrying no timestamps, gives an answer: he described symptoms of psychosis in the postpartum period as a legitimate finding, something to be concerned about and to treat.
CROSS — HE SAID THE RECORD SHOWS NO EVIDENCE OF PSYCHOSIS. At about 10:37, minutes after acknowledging a period in the records in which Clancy worried people could hear her thoughts, Mack said he found no evidence of psychosis in her record. He allowed that she had reported intrusive thoughts and had indicated that at times things did not feel real, and said neither necessarily amounts to psychosis; nor, he said, does appearing composed between mood episodes. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — HE WOULD NOT SAY WHETHER SEVERE SLEEP LOSS POINTS TO POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS. Asked at about 10:37, Mack said he could not answer the question as Reddington had framed it. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — NO POSITION ON THE STANDARD OF CARE SHE RECEIVED. At about 10:40 Mack said he held no position on the standard of care Clancy received from her medical providers. He noted that she had reported suicidal ideation, said he was not certain whether she lacked awareness of her own condition, and said blood work can be required or needed before certain psychiatric medications are prescribed. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — WHAT HE TAKES THE POSTPARTUM PERIOD TO BE, AND THE AUTHORITY HE USES. At about 10:30 he said that making a diagnosis in psychiatry requires an authority and that he uses the DSM for it. The Globe's entry in this minute gives his DSM figure for the postpartum period as four months after the birth, and notes that Clancy's youngest child was eight months old; the same blog gave the figure as four weeks at 10:05 and again at 10:11. The two do not agree and the conflict is recorded rather than resolved. Boston Globe alone.
CROSS — WHETHER HER PROVIDERS EVER TOOK BLOOD WORK. At about 10:43 he said he did not recall records showing that Clancy's providers had drawn blood to gauge how she was reacting to her medications, and agreed when Reddington put it to him that the testing was not done. He said thyroid levels matter for psychiatric patients. It follows his answer three minutes earlier that blood work can be required before certain psychiatric medications are prescribed. Boston Globe alone.
THE CROSS-EXAMINATION ENDED, AND ONLY ONE OUTLET DESCRIBES HOW. The Globe's 10:47 entry is the first to describe the questioning as redirect examination, which puts the end of Reddington's cross between 10:43 and 10:47. No outlet gives the moment a courtroom time, but NBC News's national live blog, posting at 10:53, reports the last question and the words on which the cross closed. Boston Globe and NBC News.
REDIRECT — WHAT HE IS PAID, AND WHO ENGAGED HIM. At about 10:47 he said he does not regard his role as that of an investigator, that he was retained to analyze Clancy's mental state working in part from her medical records, that he was formally retained by the government in early 2025, and that he is paid for his time and work whatever opinion he reaches. At about 10:51 ADA Shanan Buckingham had him repeat that he is paid regardless of his ultimate opinion and questioned him about Park Dietz and Associates, the retention firm through which the Plymouth district attorney's office reached him. It is the Commonwealth answering the bought-opinion line Reddington ran through the morning. Boston Globe alone.
REDIRECT — THE INTERVIEWS WERE VIDEOTAPED, AND THE COMMONWEALTH OFFERED THE TAPE. At about 10:52 he said he had not met the colleague who did the psychological testing before the two of them evaluated Clancy, that she was offered breaks more than once and declined, and that the interviews were videotaped. Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar as the prosecution moved the tape into evidence. Boston Globe, corroborated by Boston 25, which describes it as a video interview recorded at Tewksbury State Hospital in April. No ruling on the motion is reported.
THE FLORIDA CASE CAME BACK AFTER THE SIDEBAR, AND HIS ANSWER ON IT MOVED. At about 10:59 the Globe reports him acknowledging that a Florida court struck his opinion in a separate case: he said Florida had retained him as an expert in a civil case about a welfare program, and that the court there ruled he was not qualified to testify to expertise in addiction treatment in that matter. At about 9:29, on cross-examination, he had said he did not believe his testimony in that case was struck. Both are recorded as reported, and no outlet says whether this came on redirect or on further cross. Boston Globe alone.
HIS LAST ANSWERS PUT BIPOLAR DISORDER AND DEPRESSION IN THE SAME FAMILY. At about 11:08 Mack described bipolar disorder as a disorder of mood, comparable in that respect to major depressive disorder, and repeated that what he concluded Clancy had was a major depressive episode. He listed what its symptoms can include: an inability to take pleasure in things, depression, guilt, a fixation on death or suicide, problems with sleeping and eating, agitation, and difficulty concentrating. Boston Globe alone.
HE HAS FINISHED TESTIFYING. Mack stepped down at about 11:08 and Judge Sullivan called the morning recess; Boston 25 reports his testimony concluding and the break together at 11:07. He was on the stand from Friday afternoon through Monday morning, by video link for the whole of Monday. No outlet reports a ruling on the Commonwealth's motion to put the videotape of his two interviews with Clancy in evidence. NBC News, posting at 11:20, is the only outlet to describe how the redirect closed and the judge dismissing him.
CROSS — HOW SHE HAS BEEN AT TEWKSBURY OVER THREE YEARS. On the Patriot Ledger's account of the close of the cross, Reddington put to him that Clancy has not suffered from insomnia, anxiety, mania or depression there over the past three years, and asked whether she had shown signs of anxiety while on the right medication. Mack said she expressed feeling anxiety but that he did not know whether she exhibited symptoms of it. He agreed that she has been able to bathe, communicate and carry out other functions at the hospital. Patriot Ledger alone.
CROSS — THE FALL OF 2022, AND THE DRUG BEHIND THE SLEEPLESS PERIOD. The Patriot Ledger dates the episode to the fall of 2022 and names the medication: after taking sertraline, Clancy did not sleep for forty-eight hours and felt she did not need to sleep. Mack answered that she desperately wanted to sleep. Reddington called a decreased need for sleep a textbook symptom of mania. The Globe reported the forty-eight hours at about 10:08 and 10:20 without the medication or the date. Patriot Ledger for both.
CROSS — WHEN THE DEPRESSIVE EPISODE BEGAN. Mack said Clancy had a major depressive episode within four to five months of the birth, and did not say that she had postpartum depression. It measures when her episode began rather than the length of the diagnostic postpartum window, which the Globe's entries put at four weeks and, once, at four months. Patriot Ledger alone.
CROSS — WHETHER THE MANUAL RECOGNIZES POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS AT ALL. Mack said psychiatrists cannot speak of postpartum psychosis as an illness because it has not been approved by the American Psychiatric Association. Asked whether he was saying he did not believe in or accept it, he said he had not said that at all; asked whether it is a legitimate disease or defect, he said psychosis at any time is a legitimate illness needing treatment. It is the nearest thing to an answer any outlet reports to the question the Globe recorded him leaving unanswered at 10:31, and it runs alongside CBS Boston's untimed version of the same answer. Patriot Ledger.
CROSS — NO PSYCHOTIC FEATURES IN THE RECORDS, AND WHAT HE DID AGREE TO. He said he did not see any evidence of psychotic features in Clancy's medical records — the Globe reports the same answer at about 10:37. Asked whether a patient not feeling like herself can be a symptom of postpartum psychosis, he said it can be if the person has psychosis, and agreed that Clancy had complained of not feeling like herself. He affirmed that she had intrusive thoughts about harming the children and suicidal thoughts, and said he was not sure whether she had poor insight. Reddington then put to him that she exhibited nine of the ten symptoms of psychosis; no answer to that is reported. Patriot Ledger, alone on the nine-of-ten assertion.
CROSS — THE TESTS HER PROVIDERS NEVER ORDERED. Mack said blood tests are needed in some situations and that in others a psychiatrist may be comfortable without one. He affirmed that Clancy's doctors and mental health providers ordered no blood test, and that no test was administered to measure how the enzymes in her blood were metabolizing her prescription medications. The Globe reported the absence of blood work at 10:40 and 10:43; the enzyme testing is the Patriot Ledger's alone, and it goes directly to the defense's medication theory.
CROSS — HOW IT OPENED, IN NBC NEWS'S ACCOUNT. NBC News's national live blog reports the cross opening in a testy exchange, with Reddington's first questions largely on Mack's history of serving as a witness in criminal cases and Mack appearing to misremember or disagree with most of them. When Mack said he disagreed with one, Reddington answered "Says you." NBC News alone.
CROSS — THE FIRST TIME THE BENCH TOLD HIM TO ANSWER THE QUESTION. NBC News reports Judge William Sullivan interjecting, after a lengthy and contentious back and forth, to tell Mack to listen to the question and answer the question, and places it after Reddington had pressed him on how much he earns in a year. NBC News files it at 9:42; the Boston Globe recorded the questioning about his earnings at about 9:38 without the intervention. It is the earlier of two occasions on which NBC News describes the bench directing him to answer, and is distinct from the intervention the Globe records at about 10:39. NBC News alone.
CROSS — THE TEST FOR EXAGGERATION HAS A NAME: THE K SCALE. NBC News reports that the exchange about Mack's smile came while Reddington was pressing him on the K Scale, which Mack in the end explained as an instrument clinicians rely on to catch a patient overstating or inventing symptoms. NBC News files it at 9:48 and the Boston Globe at 9:52; both are posting times and neither gives a courtroom clock. No other outlet names the instrument.
CROSS — HE KEPT SAYING HE HAD ANSWERED THIS ON FRIDAY. NBC News reports Mack answering a number of questions by telling him he had covered the point the other day — a reference back to when he first took the stand, and Reddington pressing him to answer regardless — "Why don't you say it again, sir?" NBC News alone.
CROSS — POSTPARTUM IS NOT A DISEASE, AND A SECOND DIRECTION FROM THE BENCH. NBC News reports Mack repeatedly calling Clancy's condition postpartum without naming one of the illnesses that follow childbirth, and putting postpartum onset within four weeks; Reddington answered that postpartum simply means a woman has had a child, that mothers are technically postpartum for the rest of their lives, and that postpartum is not a disease. The Boston Globe records the same point from Reddington at about 10:11. NBC News adds that in the middle of it the bench had once more to tell Mack to answer what was put to him, and is alone in reporting that direction.
CROSS — THE COMMONWEALTH OBJECTED THAT HE HAD ANSWERED ALREADY. NBC News reports the prosecution objecting to Reddington's line of questioning on the ground that Mack had answered the question repeatedly, Reddington answering "Really?", and Judge Sullivan urging Reddington to move on. NBC News does not report whether the objection was sustained. Its posting time, 10:39, is the same minute in which the Globe files the judge's instruction to the witness, and no outlet says whether the two describe one moment or two. NBC News alone.
CROSS — THE LAST QUESTION, AND THE WORDS IT ENDED ON. NBC News gives Reddington's final question as whether Clancy's thyroid should have been checked by blood work while her doctors were prescribing her a number of psychiatric medications over the course of a few months. Mack agreed in general terms but again resisted the framing, saying he was not sure that specifically answered the question; Reddington answered "I don't care" and told the judge he was finished with the witness. It sits with the Globe's 10:43 entry on the blood work her providers never drew. NBC News's posting time is 10:53, after the Globe had already described the questioning as redirect, so the exchange had happened earlier. NBC News alone.
REDIRECT — THE COMMONWEALTH'S LAST POINT, AND AN INTERJECTION ABOUT ACCESS TO THE DEFENDANT. NBC News reports the prosecution spending its final minutes with Mack seeking to reaffirm that Clancy had been diagnosed with postpartum depression and not postpartum psychosis, and reports Mack saying he had had a difficult time seeing Clancy himself while she was hospitalized. Reddington interjected to ask whether Mack was suggesting his office had had any control over whether Mack could see her; Mack answered that he did not know whether Reddington's office had been involved, and that he imagined it was aware but did not know. Reddington answered that he did not know, and thanked him. The judge then dismissed the witness. NBC News alone; its posting time is 11:20, after Mack had stepped down.
CROSS — THE DSM WINDOW, AND TWO ALTERNATIVES TO IT HE ACKNOWLEDGED. Fox News Digital, in a post timed by its page at 11:00, reports him testifying that the DSM — the diagnostic manual used by psychiatrists in the United States — defines the postpartum onset specifier as four weeks after the birth, and acknowledging under cross-examination that the World Health Organization works to a different window, and that a proposed revision of the DSM would put the figure at six weeks. Fox News Digital alone on the World Health Organization and on the proposed revision, and it is the first account in which he concedes any authority giving a longer period than his own. It renders Reddington's position as postpartum depression and psychosis being able to develop up to a year or longer after a birth, and carries his line that postpartum is not a disease. The figure he gave for the window is logged in data/evidence.json, where the accounts do not agree.
CROSS — EVERY SYMPTOM OF POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION, AND STILL NOT POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION. Hearst Connecticut's News-Times reports him agreeing under the defense's questioning that every symptom of postpartum depression was present in Clancy, who could not sleep and took no pleasure in time with family or friends, while maintaining repeatedly that she was suffering from depression rather than postpartum depression. It also has him saying there is no recognized diagnosis of postpartum psychosis while agreeing that postpartum psychosis is a legitimate finding, saying he did not know what authority sets out its symptoms, and saying he found no record of psychosis in her record while agreeing she complained of intrusive thoughts and that he did see the component he was asked about when the question turned to her feeling dissociated. Hearst Connecticut, News-Times, which gives the postpartum window in his evidence as four to six weeks. CBS Boston separately reports the legitimate-finding answer; the Boston Globe reported the no-evidence-of-psychosis answer at about 10:37.
CROSS — A THIRD OUTLET AND A FOURTH RENDER THE ANSWER ON HIS EXPERIENCE FLATLY. Fox News Digital reports Reddington getting him to acknowledge that he had taken the stand on criminal responsibility only about three times in his career, this occasion included, and Hearst Connecticut writes that he said this is the third time. The Boston Globe at about 9:21 has him estimating one or two, which it notes would make this case about his third, and the Patriot Ledger has two prior cases. The accounts fit together rather than conflict.
REDIRECT — WHAT THE COMMONWEALTH TOOK HIM BACK OVER, IN THE ONLY ACCOUNT OF IT. Hearst Connecticut's News-Times reports ADA Shanan Buckingham taking him back over issues Reddington had raised, among them the specifiers for postpartum depression used by the psychiatric authorities. It has him saying it is important to review the diagnoses of others but to form your own, and defining a major depressive episode as a discrete change in a person's mood lasting two weeks and persisting most days, with symptoms including a lack of pleasure, problems with sleep, eating and energy, and feeling depressed. Hearst Connecticut alone; the Boston Globe's account of the redirect at 10:47 and 10:51 covers his fee and his retention rather than the diagnosis.
CROSS — THE MEDICATIONS SHE IS ON NOW, NAMED. boston.com reports Mack confirming at Reddington's prompting that Clancy is now being treated successfully with Zyprexa, clonidine, trazodone and, occasionally, propranolol. The Boston Globe recorded him listing her current medications at Tewksbury Hospital at about 10:08 and did not name them; boston.com is the only outlet that does. Its descriptions of what each of those drugs is ordinarily prescribed for are the outlet's own and are not recorded here as testimony.
CROSS — WHAT HE ACTUALLY SAID ABOUT THE CHILD PROTECTION RECORDS, IN A SECOND ACCOUNT THAT DOES NOT MATCH THE FIRST. boston.com reports Reddington asking him whether there are no Department of Children and Families records showing that Clancy was abusive to her children, and Mack answering that he did not think that was necessarily the conclusion of that report. The Boston Globe's entry at about 9:36 has him describing the same February 2023 records — which included an interview with Patrick Clancy — as recording no earlier instance of her abusing her children. The two accounts do not agree on whether he accepted the point put to him, and the conflict is logged rather than resolved.
CROSS — WHETHER POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS COMES AND GOES. boston.com reports Reddington asking him to accept that postpartum psychosis rises and falls, arriving without warning and then lifting, and that a person in its grip can appear normal and even laugh. Mack said he was not sure he understood the context Reddington was offering, and noted that postpartum psychosis is not a standalone illness in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5. boston.com alone. It is the same ground the Boston Globe recorded at about 10:31, where the question was whether he regarded postpartum psychosis as a legitimate disease and the Globe reported no yes or no.
CROSS — WHAT THE K SCALE IS FOR, IN A THIRD DESCRIPTION. boston.com names the instrument Reddington was pressing him on as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory K Scale and describes it as used to measure a patient's defensiveness and denial of their symptoms, where NBC News described the same test as one providers use to determine whether patients are exaggerating or lying about their symptoms. Both descriptions are the outlets' own glosses on the same exchange rather than quotations of the witness, and both are recorded.
REDIRECT — THE COMMONWEALTH'S ANSWER TO THE SYMPTOM LIST. boston.com reports that after Reddington ran through a series of symptoms Clancy reported experiencing and compared them with the signs of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis, ADA Shanan Buckingham on redirect examination had Mack confirm that a major depressive episode can result in similar symptoms. boston.com alone, and it is the point his whole opinion depends on: the symptoms are not in dispute, only what they are symptoms of.
CROSS — A NATIONAL OUTLET QUOTES A STRETCH OF THE CROSS-EXAMINATION NO OTHER ACCOUNT CARRIES. ABC News, in a post headed on the cross-examination of the Commonwealth’s expert turning heated, reports Reddington putting it to Mack that nothing in the medical records he reviewed showed Clancy indicating she had stopped participating in reality, that she was dissociated, or that she was out of touch with reality, and asking “you’re telling this jury you never saw that?” Mack answered “I don’t see that as a sign, strictly speaking, of psychosis. It may have been in some cases, but I don’t see any signs of psychosis or delusions.” After a further exchange about how postpartum psychosis might present, Mack asked whether the question was about postpartum psychosis and illness or about findings of psychosis in someone who is postpartum, and Reddington answered that he was asking about Lindsay Clancy, “the young lady that is sitting right here that you’re testifying against in front of this jury that she is responsible for the death of her children”. ABC News also reports that Mack at times refused to answer the questions put to him and that Judge Sullivan intervened more than once, which is consistent with the direction from the bench at about 10:39 already recorded here. One caution about the timing: the post is stamped 12:37 p.m. and describes the redirect examination as under way at that point, where the outlets compiled here have the cross-examination ending between 10:43 and 10:47 and Mack stepping down at about 11:08. It reads as a late filing rather than a different sequence, and the times recorded here are unchanged.
CROSS — THE DEPRESSION SCALE IS NAMED, BY A FOURTEENTH OUTLET. Los Angeles Magazine, in an untimed narrative of the whole sitting published in the evening, is the only account to name the instrument behind the off-the-charts exchange. It reports Reddington putting to Mack that he had had the weekend to look at Clancy’s Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale result and asking what the score was; Mack could not give it from memory; and Reddington began “If I told you it was off the charts…” before an objection cut him off. The Boston Globe carried the same exchange without naming the scale and with Mack acknowledging that she was in distress. Neither account is preferred here and both are recorded. Los Angeles Magazine alone on the name of the scale.
CROSS — THE SAME ANSWER ABOUT REALITY, READ AS AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Los Angeles Magazine reports Mack saying he did not see distorted beliefs, and that when the question came whether anything he had seen showed Clancy out of touch with reality, Mack allowed that it did, while maintaining he did not regard it as evidence of psychosis or delusion. boston.com quotes the same passage of the cross differently, with Mack answering that he does not see that as a sign, strictly speaking, of psychosis, that it may have been in some cases, and that he sees no signs of psychosis or delusions. These are two renderings of one answer and the site records both rather than choosing between them. It also reports Judge Sullivan stepping in several times to direct Mack to answer the question put to him.
REDIRECT — A THIRD ACCOUNT OF WHEN THE COMMONWEALTH ENGAGED HIM, AND THE ONLY ONE TO CARRY BOTH DATES. Los Angeles Magazine reports Mack testifying on redirect that talk of engaging him started in 2024 and the formal retainer followed in 2025. It is the first account to put both dates in one answer, and it sits across East Idaho News’s late 2024 and the Boston Globe’s early 2025. The conflict is logged in the evidence index and is not resolved here. Los Angeles Magazine alone.

Dr. Kirk Heilbrun

Commonwealth (rebuttal)

Role: Forensic psychologist, called by the Commonwealth as its second rebuttal witness. The Boston Globe puts him at Drexel University, in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and, citing his biography, says he directs a forensic assessment clinic there. He is the colleague who went with Dr. Avram Mack to Tewksbury Hospital in April, sat through the first interview of four or five hours, carried out the psychological testing, and — on Mack's own evidence this morning — diagnosed Clancy with bipolar II. Boston 25 spells the name Heilburn.
Direct: Sprague. The Boston Globe at 12:07 names Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague as the prosecutor questioning him; she also took Dr. Avram Mack's direct. Boston 25 attributes the questioning to the district attorney's office without naming counsel.
Cross: Not reached at the time of this compilation.

Testimony, as reported:

CALLED AT ABOUT 11:54, AFTER THE MORNING RECESS. The jury returned shortly after 11:50 and the Commonwealth called him as the second of its rebuttal experts. Boston Globe and Boston 25.
DIRECT — HIS BACKGROUND AND HIS PUBLICATIONS. At about 12:01 he set out his professional background and training and put his output at some 240 writings on mentally disordered adult offenders and related subjects. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — WHAT A FORENSIC EVALUATOR IS NOT. In the same minute he said he does not regard a person he is evaluating as a patient, because the role of a forensic evaluator differs from that of a treating therapist. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — THAT HE REPORTS AGAINST THE SIDE THAT HIRED HIM. At about 12:05 Boston 25 records the prosecutor asking whether, when he works for the prosecution and finds that a person is not criminally responsible, he tells the prosecutor. He said he does, and that it is something an evaluator has to be able to do. Boston 25 also describes him as having extensive courtroom experience for both sides. Boston 25 alone.
HE HAD ALREADY BEEN NAMED IN THE EVIDENCE BEFORE HE WAS CALLED. On Mack's cross-examination this morning he was identified as the colleague who accompanied Mack to Tewksbury Hospital in April, who administered the psychological testing, and who diagnosed Clancy with bipolar II — a diagnosis Mack did not adopt. Patriot Ledger, with the Globe recording the same facts about an unnamed colleague.
DIRECT — HOW OFTEN HE HAS TESTIFIED, AND FOR WHICH SIDE. At about 12:04 he said he has testified about 330 times in cases dealing with mental health issues in adults and juveniles, for prosecutors and for the defense, and that his work has been primarily for the defense, with prosecutors accounting for about 25 percent of it. He said he would not carry out a forensic evaluation on one of his own patients, because of the potential conflict. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — WHY HE SAYS HE IS NOT A SPECIALIST. At about 12:07, answering Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague, he said he has testified for both the defense and the prosecution and maintains an independent perspective, and that in some ways not specializing gives him an advantage because it lets him keep an open mind when evaluating a defendant. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — RETENTION BIAS AND CONFIRMATION BIAS, DEFINED BEFORE THE CROSS. At about 12:08 he defined retention bias as an evaluator favoring the side that hired the expert, and said he works to guard against it. He defined confirmation bias as an evaluator ignoring information that contradicts his hypothesis of what happened. The Commonwealth put both to him on direct, before any cross-examination. Boston Globe alone; Boston 25 records the related answer at 12:05 that he tells a prosecutor who hired him when he finds a person not criminally responsible.
DIRECT — THREE DAYS WITH CLANCY IN APRIL, AND 180 HOURS ON THE CASE. At about 12:14 he said he met with Clancy over three days at Tewksbury State Hospital in April, the first and the third of them with Mack, that those sessions were videotaped, and that he has spent 180 hours on the case. Boston 25 alone, and the fullest account so far of what the Commonwealth's two experts did at the hospital.
DIRECT — SEPARATE REPORTS, AND A DISAGREEMENT WITH MACK. At about 12:15 he said that he and Mack each came up with their own report and their own analysis, that they wrote separately, and that they did not agree with each other on the diagnosis, even though they interviewed Clancy at the same time. On Mack's cross this morning the colleague who tested Clancy was said to have diagnosed bipolar II, which Mack did not adopt; this is the first account of the disagreement from Heilbrun. Boston 25 at 12:15, with the Boston Globe reporting the same answer at 12:17.
DIRECT — THE EVALUATION, AND EVERYTHING HE READ. At about 12:13 he said he evaluated Clancy by interviewing her and reviewing the records; that he met her on multiple occasions in April, about ten hours in all; and that he has been reviewing documents since January 2025. The Globe lists medical records, police reports, surveillance footage, cell phone records, Apple Watch data, the grand jury proceedings and the defense expert reports. He also interviewed Clancy's former husband and her former mother-in-law; her sister chose not to take part. Boston Globe alone. The ten hours is interview time and does not conflict with the 180 hours Boston 25 reports for the case as a whole.
DIRECT — WHO SHE WAS BEFORE SEPTEMBER 2022. At about 12:18 he described Clancy as a highly achieving person, a straight-A student, hard-working and self-disciplined, said that her anxiety fueled her, and said she did not like to leave any of her children with anyone, at school or with a babysitter, before September 2022. In a second post in the same minute Boston 25 has him saying her anxiety did not interfere with her life before that month. Boston 25 alone.
DIRECT — WHAT THE TWO EXAMINERS ASKED HER ABOUT. At about 12:17 he said that he and Dr. Avram Mack asked Clancy about her thinking, her feeling and her behavior in the period leading up to the killings on January 24, 2023. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — A FAIRLY LIMITED MENTAL HEALTH HISTORY BEFORE SEPTEMBER 2022. At about 12:17 he said he concluded that before that month Clancy's mental health history to that point was slight, running to some anxiety about achievement. He described a straight-A student who had been anxious in nursing school, over each of her three pregnancies, and about going back to work after each birth. She did not like to leave her children, he said, and that was an important consideration for her. Boston Globe alone, and consistent with what Boston 25 reported him saying at 12:18.
DIRECT — NO ABUSE OR TRAUMA IN CHILDHOOD. At about 12:22 he described Clancy as hardworking and high-achieving growing up, said her anxiety before September 2022 did not impede her ability to function, and said she reported having neither witnessed nor experienced abuse or trauma of any kind as a child. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — SEPTEMBER 2022, CALLAN'S BOTTLE AND THE NIGHT SHIFT. At about 12:22 he said that from September 2022 the prospect of leaving her third child, Callan, and returning to the labor and delivery floor left Clancy badly anxious and at times low, and that Callan was not taking his bottle, which made her particularly anxious about going back to the night shift. Boston Globe, with Boston 25 reporting the same answer at 12:28 — that from September 2022 she was anxious about returning to work and concerned that Callan would not take a bottle.
DIRECT — THE ZOLOFT PRESCRIPTION, AND WHEN HE SAYS IT GOT DIFFICULT. At about 12:22 he said Clancy was later prescribed Zoloft and started taking it in October 2022, and that things started getting very difficult at that point. It is the Commonwealth's own second expert placing the start of her medication and the start of the deterioration in the same answer. Boston Globe alone; no outlet reports what he was asked next, or what he attributes the deterioration to.
DIRECT — ACCURACY RATHER THAN HELPING, AND A CONCLUSION THAT CUTS EITHER WAY. The Patriot Ledger, in an account of the direct posted at 12:28, has him saying he would not call the subject of an evaluation his patient because forensic evaluators aim at accuracy where therapists aim to help their patients, and that he would not evaluate a patient of his own because of the conflict of interest. Asked whether he had ever found a defendant not criminally responsible when a prosecutor retained him, he said yes, and that a conclusion will sometimes favor whoever asked for the evaluation and sometimes will not. On retention bias he said he is aware of the pull toward the side that asked for the evaluation and tries to guard against it as much as possible. Patriot Ledger, covering ground the Globe and Boston 25 reported between 12:01 and 12:08.
DIRECT — THE TWO TIME FIGURES, IN ONE OUTLET. The Patriot Ledger gives both numbers together: about 180 hours on the case, of which about 10.5 hours were interviews with Clancy, over three days with her in April 2026. That is the first account to carry the Globe's interview figure and Boston 25's total in the same sentence, and it confirms that the two measure different things. It also has him saying he reviewed her record, interviewed her about what happened on January 24, 2023, and interviewed other people. Patriot Ledger.
DIRECT — WHAT PATRICK CLANCY TOLD HIM, AND THE EMERGENCY ROOM IN NOVEMBER. At about 12:25 he said Clancy's former husband, Patrick Clancy, told him her anxiety got worse while she was taking Zoloft, with trouble sleeping and increased stress. He said that in November 2022 she texted her mother-in-law, herself a labor and delivery nurse, from the emergency room, that she was having a great deal of difficulty with the thought of leaving the baby, and that she herself put the adverse reactions down to the medications. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — DECEMBER 2022: DISCONNECTED, NUMB AND LOSING WEIGHT. At about 12:30 he said Clancy reported feeling disconnected from her body, among other things, while she was taking her medication, and that in December 2022 she described feeling numb and zombie-like and reported weight loss and feelings of hopelessness. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — THE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS, AND WHY HE SAYS THEY WERE NOT HALLUCINATIONS. At about 12:29 and 12:30 he said that in December 2022 Clancy described horrible intrusive thoughts about harming herself and at times about harming her children — thoughts to the effect that her brain was damaged and that she should kill herself — and that she did not describe them as auditory hallucinations coming from a voice that was not there, saying instead that they were like her own thoughts. Boston 25 at 12:29 and Boston Globe at 12:30; Boston 25 renders the second thought as her being able to kill herself and the Globe as her needing to, and both report the same answer that the thoughts were her own.
DIRECT — THE TEST HE APPLIED FOR A PSYCHOTIC SYMPTOM. At about 12:31 he said that was an important distinction, because a voice from outside her head would likely be a psychotic symptom. Boston 25 alone. Mack told the jury this morning that hearing voices would be psychosis; Heilbrun put the line at whether the voice comes from outside the person's head.
DIRECT — REFUSED BY A POSTPARTUM PROGRAM IN LATE DECEMBER. At about 12:34 he said staff at Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island told Clancy in late December 2022 that she did not qualify for their postpartum program, what she presented with looking to them like general anxiety, and offered her other programs she could enroll in. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — SHE ADMITTED HERSELF TO McLEAN ON JANUARY 1, 2023. At about 12:34 he said Clancy took herself in to McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility, on January 1, 2023, suicidal thinking being what brought her there. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — HOW SHE WAS WHEN McLEAN DISCHARGED HER. At about 12:37 Boston 25's Bob Ward reports him saying that at the time of her discharge from McLean, Clancy was cooperative and pleasant, with no psychosis and no suicidal or homicidal thinking, and that a week later the suicidal thinking came back. Boston 25, corroborated by the Boston Globe at 12:38, which gives the same description of the discharge; no outlet reports the discharge date.
DIRECT — THE DISTINCTION PUT AGAINST THE DEFENSE'S ACCOUNT OF THE KILLINGS. At about 12:37 the Boston Globe's Lea Skene reports him separating two things: the intrusive thoughts she described in the weeks before January 24, and the voice the defense says she heard while she strangled her children. He said she had thoughts to the effect that her brain was damaged and that she needed to kill herself, that she said they were not auditory hallucinations but her own thoughts, intrusive and unwelcome, and that the difference is important. Boston Globe. He had given the same distinction to the jury in the abstract at 12:29 and 12:31; this is the first account of it being aimed at what the defense says happened on January 24.
DIRECT — WHAT SHE DENIED WHILE SHE WAS IN McLEAN. At about 12:37 he said that during her hospitalization at McLean, Clancy denied delusions, suicidal thoughts and other symptoms. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — FIVE DAYS AT McLEAN, AND WHAT SHE TOLD THE STAFF THERE. At about 12:38 he said Clancy reported insomnia as her primary complaint at McLean and told staff that her children and her mother were the reason she would not kill herself. He put the stay at five days, described her mood there as numb while she denied suicidal or homicidal thoughts, and said she had great difficulty with insomnia. Boston Globe alone, and the first account to give the length of the admission; no outlet gives the discharge date.
DIRECT — WHAT SHE SAID THE MEDICATION WAS DOING TO HER SLEEP. At about 12:38 he said that in late 2022 Clancy had complained of the medication making sleep a real difficulty and leaving her emotionally numb. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — THE DIAGNOSES IN HER RECORD, POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS AMONG THEM. At about 12:43 he said that between the fall of 2022 and January 2023 Clancy had multiple different providers and multiple diagnoses, and listed them as generalized anxiety, sleep deprivation, postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. Boston Globe alone. Dr. Avram Mack told the jury at about 10:37 this morning that he found no evidence of psychosis in Clancy's record; the Commonwealth's second expert has now named postpartum psychosis among the diagnoses in it. No outlet reports him being asked who made those diagnoses, or whether he adopts any of them.
DIRECT — SHE TOLD HER PROVIDERS THE MEDICATIONS WERE MAKING HER WORSE. At about 12:43 he said Clancy had put it to her providers that the medications were making her worse. Boston Globe alone. It is the second time in twenty minutes that the Commonwealth's own expert has put her medication attribution into the record, after the answer the Globe reported at 12:25 that it was her own thought that the medications were causing the adverse reactions.
DIRECT — THE EXERCISE ROUTINE SHE STOPPED IN OCTOBER. At about 12:43 he said Clancy discontinued her exercise routine in October 2022 and later resumed exercising. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT — THE EMERGENCY ROOM NAMED, AND DATED TO MID-NOVEMBER. In an account of the direct posted at 12:46 the Patriot Ledger has him saying that in mid-November Clancy went to the emergency room at South Shore Hospital reporting racing thoughts, insomnia and other symptoms, and that those symptoms persisted through late November. Patriot Ledger. The Boston Globe reported at 12:25 that she texted her mother-in-law from an emergency room in November 2022 without naming the hospital; the two accounts fit together rather than conflict, and no outlet says whether the text and the visit were the same occasion.
DIRECT — HER DOUBTS ABOUT THE MEDICATIONS DATED TO MID-OCTOBER. The Patriot Ledger, at 12:46, has him saying Clancy had concerns all along, starting in mid-October, about the impact of the medications, and that it was her own thought that they were giving her the adverse reactions: she had wanted improvement in her anxiety and instead it got worse. Patriot Ledger, which dates the concern about a month earlier than any other account of this direct.
DIRECT — THE BOTTLE, AND THAT SHE HAD STOPPED BREASTFEEDING. The Patriot Ledger, at 12:46, has him saying Clancy had stopped breastfeeding Callan and feared he would not take the bottle while she was away on a night shift, and that from September 2022 she was anxious about leaving him and returning to work. It also has him saying that after she started Zoloft she had significant insomnia and stress, and that she had hoped to return to work but it was not going to work out because her symptoms were so difficult. Patriot Ledger, adding the end of breastfeeding to the account the Globe and Boston 25 gave of the same autumn.
DIRECT — THE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS RAN INTO JANUARY. The Patriot Ledger, at 12:46, has him dating the horrible intrusive thoughts about harming herself to early December and saying they continued through December and January, and were occasionally about harming the children. Patriot Ledger. The Boston Globe at 12:30 and Boston 25 at 12:29 placed them in December 2022 without carrying them forward; the Ledger is the only account so far to run them into the month of the killings.
DIRECT — THE DIAGNOSIS: BIPOLAR II. At about 12:49 Heilbrun said he diagnosed Clancy with bipolar 2 disorder — a condition in which a person has mood swings and a period of depression as well as manic periods, and which he described as a slightly less severe form than bipolar 1. Boston Globe at 12:49, Boston 25 at 12:50 and the Patriot Ledger at 12:54, all three carrying the same diagnosis. It is the first diagnosis he has given from the stand, and it is not the one the Commonwealth's first rebuttal expert gave: Dr. Avram Mack testified to a major depressive episode within a major depressive disorder and told Reddington on cross this morning that he did not conclude Clancy suffered from bipolar 2.
DIRECT — THE MANIC EPISODE HE COULD NOT FIND. He said it took him a while to reach the diagnosis because he did not see a manic episode in Clancy's history before the killings, and that he settled on bipolar 2 rather than bipolar 1 because of the absence of any sort of manic incident. References to Clancy and her then-husband clearing out their garage, he said, fell well short of mania. Boston Globe at 12:49. On the Patriot Ledger's account at 12:54 he set out what bipolar 1 requires — periods of depressed mood together with a manic episode, marked by jumpiness, a decreased need for sleep, racing thoughts, thinking very fast and excessive appetites for different kinds of things — and said he was having a hard time finding evidence of a manic episode. The Ledger writes that he did not diagnose bipolar 1 because he did not see a clear example of manic behavior until January 24, 2023; the Globe's rendering of the same reasoning stops at her history before the killings, and no outlet reports him being asked whether he regards her conduct that day as a manic episode.
DIRECT — WHAT SETTLED IT WAS THE TREATMENT SHE IS ON NOW. In the Globe's fuller account at 12:54, from Lea Skene, Heilbrun said he had turned the bipolar question over at length before satisfying himself that it fit, and put bipolar II to the jury as the milder way of carrying the illness. What convinced him, he said, was learning that Clancy is on bipolar medication now at Tewksbury Hospital, where she is being held and receiving psychiatric treatment, and that taking her off a mood stabilizer had produced a response in her straight away. Boston Globe. The Patriot Ledger has him saying at 12:54 that the diagnosis of record at Tewksbury is bipolar disorder and that the hospital is very careful about what it prescribes and how. Reddington put the Tewksbury bipolar diagnosis to Mack on cross this morning, and Mack asked him to show where he was referring to.
DIRECT — WHEN THE ILLNESS TYPICALLY BEGINS. Asked by Sprague whether there is any way to tell if Clancy always had bipolar 2 or whether it is new, Heilbrun said the disorder typically emerges in adulthood, in a person's twenties or thirties. Patriot Ledger at 12:54 and Boston Globe at 12:52, which adds that Clancy is now 36. Neither outlet reports him giving a date for the onset in her case.
DIRECT — WHAT HE SAID HE WAS THERE TO DECIDE. He said the question he had set himself was whether Clancy bore criminal responsibility for the killings. Boston Globe alone, at 12:52. He had not been asked for that conclusion by the time the court broke for lunch.
DIRECT — THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING HE RAN. At about 12:57 Heilbrun said he performed psychological testing on Clancy that looked at factors including her response style when answering questions, and that he was also checking for hallucinations, delusions and a lack of focus. Boston Globe. The Patriot Ledger, in an account posted at 1:28 p.m., names the instruments; no outlet reports what the testing showed.
DIRECT — TWO CLINICS AT DREXEL, ONE OF THEM IN THE FEDERAL PRISON SYSTEM. NBC News reports him telling the jury he runs two clinics at Drexel University: one that conducts psychological evaluations for courts and attorneys, and one NBC News names as the Reentry Project, which it says provides evaluation and treatment to people involved in the federal prison system. The Boston Globe, citing his biography, has said he directs a forensic assessment clinic at Drexel. NBC News alone for the second clinic.
DIRECT — HER HISTORY BEFORE SEPTEMBER 2022, IN NBC NEWS'S ACCOUNT. NBC News reports him saying Clancy's self-reported experience of mental illness was limited before September 2022, amounting to some anxiety while she was in nursing school and again through each of her pregnancies, and that her childhood was absent major trauma such as abuse. It quotes him saying that after each child she would have some time off, return after several months, and have some anxiety because she did not like to leave her children. This corroborates the Boston Globe at 12:17 and 12:22.
DIRECT — HOW MANY TIMES HE INTERVIEWED HER, ON NBC NEWS'S ACCOUNT. NBC News describes him speaking to Clancy in two interviews before trial. Boston 25 has him meeting her over three days at Tewksbury State Hospital in April, the first and the third of them with Dr. Avram Mack, and the Patriot Ledger has three days and about 10.5 hours of interviewing in all. The accounts are recorded as they stand; no outlet reconciles them, and none reports him being asked the number in terms.
DIRECT — THE FALL OF 2022: RACING THOUGHTS, LOST APPETITE AND THE END OF HER ROPE. NBC News reports him recounting Clancy's difficulty sleeping, racing thoughts and loss of appetite through the fall of 2022 as she continued to seek treatment from a number of doctors and medical centers, and saying that by late fall she was, in her own phrase, near the end of her rope. NBC News alone.
DIRECT — SHE FEARED SHE HAD BECOME DEPENDENT ON BENZODIAZEPINES. NBC News reports him saying Clancy described panic symptoms, concern that she was addicted to or dependent on benzodiazepines, and feeling disoriented, forgetful and disconnected from her body. It is the first account of the benzodiazepine concern in his evidence. NBC News alone.
DIRECT — FOUR ACCOUNTS DATE THE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS DIFFERENTLY. NBC News dates the horrible intrusive thoughts about harming herself to late November 2022, continuing into December, and reports that in January she began to have thoughts about harming her children. The Boston Globe places the intrusive thoughts, about herself and at times her children, in December 2022. The Patriot Ledger dates their onset to early December, running through December and January and occasionally about the children. CBS Boston, publishing later in the day, puts the thoughts about harming herself in late November and early December and has the thoughts about the children coming later, without dating them. The four datings are recorded as they stand and logged in data/evidence.json; none is treated here as settled.
DIRECT — WHY HE CALLED THE DIAGNOSIS A DIFFICULT ONE. In a fuller account of the answers the Boston Globe filed at 12:49 and 12:54, NBC News reports him describing bipolar II as a classification of the disorder that is not associated with mania, and calling it a difficult diagnosis because Clancy had depressive episodes but described nothing that seemed to him like mania. The periods in which she was higher in energy looked to him like her simply feeling good: he said she felt really close to her husband and her children, and that it looked less like a manic episode than like her feeling good and getting back into exercise. It is the fullest reported statement of the reasoning behind the diagnosis, and it sits against his evidence at about 12:43 that she discontinued her exercise routine in October 2022 and later resumed it. NBC News.
DIRECT — HYPOMANIA, AS NBC NEWS PUTS IT RATHER THAN AS TESTIMONY. NBC News writes that bipolar II may involve hypomania — racing thoughts and high moods — as distinct from a manic episode, without attributing those words to the witness. The sentence that follows it, describing mania as a more severe symptom that can cause a break from reality or psychosis, is sourced by NBC News to the Mayo Clinic. Neither is recorded here as something Heilbrun told the jury.
DIRECT — THE INSTRUMENTS ARE NAMED: THE MMPI, AND A SECOND TEST. In an account posted at 1:28 p.m. the Patriot Ledger has Sprague asking what psychological testing he administered to Clancy, and Heilbrun answering that he screened her response style for exaggeration, minimization or fabrication of symptoms, on the instrument he named as the MMPI. A second test, he said, measured tangential speech and cognitive disorganization. Patriot Ledger alone, and the first account to put names to the testing the Boston Globe described at 12:57 as looking at her response style and checking for hallucinations, delusions and a lack of focus. No outlet reports what either test showed.
DIRECT — THE EVIDENCE REACHED JANUARY 24 ITSELF, BUT NOT HIS CONCLUSION ABOUT IT. The Patriot Ledger, at 1:28 p.m., reports him going on to review Clancy's symptoms around January 24, 2023, including depression and suicidal thinking, and says Judge Sullivan called the recess at that point. Patriot Ledger alone. It is the first report of his direct examination reaching the day of the killings. The Ledger reports no opinion from him about her mental state that day, and no outlet reports him being asked for one before the break.
DIRECT — CBS BOSTON'S ACCOUNT OF THE SAME HISTORY, AND A NARROWER DESCRIPTION OF THE 330 CASES. CBS Boston, whose page carried nothing of his evidence earlier in the day, now quotes him on her history before September 2022 in terms close to the Boston Globe's: a fairly limited mental health history, some anxiety related to achievement, a very strong student who got straight As, and anxiety connected to her three pregnancies. It dates the Zoloft to mid-October, has her getting more anxious when she started it, and quotes him saying she immediately began to have some difficulty, with symptoms of depression, really difficult insomnia and a great deal of stress. On the number of times he has testified, CBS Boston has roughly 330 cases about competency to stand trial, where the Globe at 12:04 puts the same figure on cases dealing with mental health issues in adults and juveniles; both are recorded, and no outlet reports the question that produced the number. CBS Boston attaches no times to any of it.
DIRECT — A SECOND OUTLET HAS THE DIFFICULTY ON ZOLOFT BEGINNING IMMEDIATELY. CBS Boston quotes him saying Clancy immediately began to have some difficulty after starting Zoloft, which corroborates NBC News's rendering that the drug prompted immediate difficulty. The Boston Globe and the Patriot Ledger describe the difficulty building over the weeks that followed. CBS Boston and NBC News on one side, the Globe and the Ledger on the other; the accounts are recorded as they stand and none is preferred.
DIRECT — HE TOO WORKS THROUGH THE FIRM THAT PRODUCED THE COMMONWEALTH'S FIRST EXPERT. Hearst Connecticut's News-Times reports him telling the jury he is a forensic psychologist who testifies in criminal cases and does independent contractor work for Park Dietz Associates. That is the retention firm through which the Plymouth district attorney's office engaged Dr. Avram Mack, a connection the Commonwealth put to Mack on redirect at about 10:51 and which Reddington has raised before. Hearst Connecticut also has him saying he works with people leaving prison and with people released after being falsely convicted, that he teaches, and that he has written more than 200 papers; the Boston Globe at about 12:01 put his output at some 240 writings. Hearst Connecticut alone on the Park Dietz connection, and no outlet reports him being asked about it further.
DIRECT — SIX MONTHS OF TREATMENT IN NURSING SCHOOL, AND A COMPETITIVE CHEERLEADER. Fox News Digital and Hearst Connecticut both report him putting her treatment for anxiety connected with nursing school at about six months, which no earlier account gave a length for. Hearst quotes him saying it did not interfere with her life; Fox News Digital renders the same answer as the anxiety not interfering very much with her functioning, and adds that she was a straight-A student and a competitive cheerleader. Hearst also has him saying she did not like to leave the children for work, for dropping them off at school or for a date night. Fox News Digital and Hearst Connecticut, filling in the account the Boston Globe gave at about 12:17 and 12:22.
DIRECT — THE PRESCRIPTION SEPARATED FROM THE START, AND THE PRESCRIBER NAMED. Hearst Connecticut reports him saying Clancy received a prescription for Zoloft from Dr. Jennifer Tufts but did not start taking it until October, that things got more difficult at that point, and quotes him saying the anxiety did not get better but got worse and that she felt a lot of stress. Hearst Connecticut alone in his evidence on both the prescriber and the gap between the prescription being written and her beginning it. It matters because the outlets differ on the date: CBS Boston dates the Zoloft to mid-October and the Boston Globe has her beginning it in October 2022. No outlet reports him being asked when the prescription was written.
DIRECT — WHAT THE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS WERE, AND WHERE HE PUT THE LINE. Hearst Connecticut reports him saying Clancy described feeling like a zombie and having intrusive thoughts to the effect that her brain was damaged and that she needed to kill herself, and explaining that these were thoughts inside her head rather than hallucinations carrying a second voice. Had she been hearing a voice other than her own, he said, the diagnosis would have been a different one. Hearst Connecticut, corroborating Boston 25 at 12:29 and 12:31 and the Boston Globe at 12:30 and 12:37, and stating the consequence in terms of the diagnosis where Boston 25 has him stating it in terms of a psychotic symptom.
DIRECT — MID-DECEMBER, ON HEARST CONNECTICUT'S DATING. It reports him saying that by mid-December Clancy was feeling hopelessness and a loss of pleasure, and that she felt zombie-like and numb. The Boston Globe at about 12:30 placed the numbness, the zombie-like feeling, the weight loss and the hopelessness in December 2022 without narrowing the month. Hearst Connecticut alone on mid-December.
DIRECT — WHY SHE WENT TO McLEAN, AND WHAT HAPPENED WHEN SHE CAME OUT. Hearst Connecticut reports him saying what took her to McLean Hospital was thinking about killing herself, and that the thoughts were uncomfortable; that she came out hopeful, having been weaned off some of the medication, only for the symptoms to come back inside a week; that insomnia was a real problem; and that she thought the medication was making her symptoms worse. The Boston Globe at about 12:34 gave suicidal thinking as what got her to McLean and Boston 25 at 12:37 reported the suicidal thinking returning a week after discharge, but the reason for her hopefulness — that she had been weaned off some of the medication — is Hearst Connecticut's alone.
DIRECT — A THIRD ACCOUNT OF WHY BIPOLAR II, AND THE FLATTEST STATEMENT OF THE REASON. Hearst Connecticut reports him saying he had settled on bipolar 2 disorder for Clancy, the lesser form of the illness; that she had a period of depression, one hallmark of the illness, but that he had a hard time finding the required manic period; and that he ultimately went with bipolar 2 because that was the diagnosis of Tewksbury Hospital, where she is being held. It quotes him saying they are very careful about what they prescribe. That puts the Tewksbury diagnosis as the reason he settled on bipolar II, where the Boston Globe at 12:54 has what convinced him as learning she is on medication for bipolar disorder at Tewksbury and had an immediate response when taken off a mood stabilizer, and the Patriot Ledger has the diagnosis of record at Tewksbury together with the hospital's care about what it prescribes. The three are recorded side by side; no outlet reports the question that produced the answer.
DIRECT — THE RECESS CAME BEFORE THE QUESTION HE WAS CALLED TO ANSWER, IN TERMS. Hearst Connecticut writes that the lunch recess arrived with Heilbrun yet to state any conclusion on whether Clancy is criminally responsible for the killings. It is the second outlet, with the Patriot Ledger's 1:28 p.m. account, to say the break came before any opinion from him, and the first to name criminal responsibility as the question still outstanding. Hearst Connecticut.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — WHAT THE TESTING FOUND, AND IT IS UNDERREPORTING. At about 2:21 p.m. the Boston Globe reports him saying his testing showed Clancy had a slight tendency to underreport her symptoms, and describing her as a bright woman. This is the first report of what the psychological testing actually found. Before the break the Patriot Ledger had him naming the MMPI and describing the screening as being for exaggeration, minimization or fabrication of symptoms; what it produced, on this account, is a tendency in the opposite direction. Boston Globe alone.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — SHE WAS AND REMAINS AT RISK OF SUICIDE, AND SHE IS WATCHED ONE TO ONE. At about 2:21 p.m. the Boston Globe reports him saying the testing showed Clancy was and remains at risk for suicide, and describes her as being on one-to-one suicide protections at Tewksbury Hospital. Boston 25's Bob Ward, at 2:20 p.m., reports him telling the jury that she has been on a one-to-one suicide watch at Tewksbury State Hospital for three years and still is. Boston Globe and Boston 25; the three-year duration is Boston 25's alone.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HER CHILDHOOD AGAIN, IN THE LANGUAGE OF ADVERSE EVENTS. The Boston Globe's 2:21 p.m. post also carries a line that Clancy reported no adverse childhood events. His direct had already been over her childhood before the break — the Globe at about 12:22 and NBC News both had him saying she reported neither witnessing nor experiencing abuse or trauma — and no outlet says whether this is a second passage over the same ground or the outlet restating it. Boston Globe.
DIRECT — THE HOURS, AND THE THREE PEOPLE HE WENT TO. boston.com reports him estimating that he spent about 180 hours reviewing records and evaluating Clancy before testifying, and saying he interviewed Patrick Clancy and Patrick's mother, Sue, and tried to interview Clancy's sister, Allison Ozga. Boston 25 gave the same 180 hours at about 12:13 and the Boston Globe had the former husband, the former mother-in-law and a sister who declined; boston.com is the first outlet to put the names Sue Clancy and Allison Ozga into his evidence.
DIRECT — RETENTION BIAS, IN HIS OWN WORDS. boston.com reports Sprague asking him about retention bias and quotes him describing it as a bias in favor of the party that hired the psychologist to conduct the evaluation, calling it an important consideration, and saying he is aware of it and does what he can to hold it off — consulting colleagues, drawing on more than one source of information, and by other means besides. boston.com; the Boston Globe recorded the same ground at about 12:08 without the definition.
DIRECT — THE GARAGE, IN HIS OWN WORDS AND IN PATRICK CLANCY'S. boston.com reports that where Reddington has suggested Clancy was manic or hypomanic when she cleaned and organized the garage at some point after Callan was born, Heilbrun disagreed, and said neither Clancy nor her then-husband regarded it as a manic episode. It quotes him saying that one of the things Patrick Clancy told him was that they were both working hard, that it was not all her out there putting things into twenty trash bags, and that Patrick said he was definitely a part of it. boston.com. The Boston Globe at about 12:49 had the garage in a clause; this is the exchange behind it.
DIRECT — WHAT REALLY CONVINCED HIM, QUOTED, AND HOW LONG SHE HAS BEEN AT TEWKSBURY. boston.com quotes him saying that what really convinced him is that Clancy has been at Tewksbury Hospital for more than three and a half years and that the diagnosis of record there is bipolar disorder, and that as he reads the records they are very careful about what they prescribe and how much. It also reports him pointing out that a prescription mood stabilizer had to be stopped for medical reasons and she responded to that almost at once. boston.com. The Boston Globe and the Patriot Ledger at 12:54 and Hearst Connecticut all carry the same reasoning in different words; boston.com alone gives the length of her stay and the reason the mood stabilizer was stopped. Its three and a half years measures her time at the hospital, where Boston 25's three years at 2:20 p.m. measures how long she has been on a one-to-one suicide watch. Hearst Connecticut has since attached three and a half years to the watch itself, and that conflict is logged in data/evidence.json.
DIRECT — THE EXERCISE, AND WHERE SHE TRIED TO GO BACK TO IT. boston.com reports him saying Clancy, once a dedicated athlete, drastically scaled back her exercise after reporting adverse reactions to her medications, and took it hard when the physical activity that had kept her anxiety in check was closed to her; and that at Sprague's prompting he confirmed he was aware she tried several times in December 2022 to get back into exercising, at the Kingsbury Club. boston.com. The Boston Globe at about 12:43 had her stopping in October 2022 and taking it up again later, without naming a place or a month.
DIRECT — EVERY DIAGNOSIS IN THE RECORD, LISTED. boston.com reports him saying from the fall of 2022 to the close of January 2023 Clancy passed through many providers, each with a diagnosis, and gives the list as adjustment disorder with anxiety and depression, generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, bipolar II disorder, postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. It adds that he noted she has also been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder since she killed her children. boston.com. The Boston Globe at about 12:43 gave a shorter version of the same answer — generalized anxiety, sleep deprivation, postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis — and no other outlet reports the post-traumatic stress diagnosis.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE SUICIDE RISK PUT AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, AND AT THREE YEARS. NBC News, posting at 2:25 p.m., reports him telling the jury that Clancy has been on a one-to-one suicide risk — which it describes as the highest risk level — for three years and remains at risk of suicide, and that this is a long time to remain at an elevated risk. It also has him calling her a bright woman who is likely to underreport in terms of what is really wrong with her. NBC News, corroborating the Boston Globe at 2:21 p.m. and Boston 25 at 2:20 p.m. The description of one-to-one as the highest level of risk is NBC News's phrasing; the observation about how long that is comes from him.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE KILLINGS PUT TO THE JURY AS OUT OF CHARACTER. Boston 25's Bob Ward reports at 2:25 p.m. that Heilbrun told the jury the killing of the children was out of character for Clancy, that the children were not spanked and discipline in the house was not hands-on, and that she and Patrick Clancy felt bad when they yelled at them. Boston 25 alone.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — WHAT SHE DID IN JANUARY 2023 WAS A SERIOUS SUICIDE ATTEMPT. At about 2:30 p.m. the Boston Globe reports him saying Clancy made a serious suicide attempt in January 2023, that she had described herself as deeply depressed and without hope in that period, and as sensing that something had gone wrong in her mind while her concentration failed her. He said she works hard but did not show an abnormally perfectionist streak, and that she had been trying very hard since October 2022 to control the issues she was experiencing and it was not working. Boston Globe.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE GAVE THE JURY TWO POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS AND CHOSE THE ONE THAT IS NOT PSYCHOSIS. At about 2:33 p.m. the Boston Globe reports him telling the jury that the ordinary motives for killing did not fit Clancy; that one explanation open in such cases is acute psychosis with command hallucinations; and that people also sometimes kill their children when they are about to end their own lives, if they believe they are protecting them from further suffering. He said he would place Clancy's case in the latter category, the Globe reports, notwithstanding her account to him of a voice directing her to kill the children and herself. Boston 25's Bob Ward files the same answer at 2:30 p.m., reporting that Heilbrun said he believes Clancy killed her children as part of a serious suicide attempt and quoting him saying she wanted the children to be with her so they would not suffer when she was gone. NBC News gives the fullest version and quotes him framing it as two possible explanations for why she did what she did: the first acute psychosis with command hallucinations, the second a serious attempt on her own life in which she meant to keep the children with her, so as not to be parted from them and so they would not suffer once she was gone. Boston Globe, Boston 25 and NBC News, agreeing. It is the first opinion he has given bearing on why Clancy killed her children, and he has chosen against the explanation the defense case rests on. No outlet yet reports him being asked the criminal responsibility question itself.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE REACHED FOR THE HOLOCAUST TO EXPLAIN THE SECOND CATEGORY. NBC News reports him putting the reasoning to the jury as a hypothetical: if any one of us became certain, beyond question, that the Holocaust would begin tomorrow, and thought it was going to be awful and that we could not live through it and so would take our own life, then if we had children the question might come up whether to take them with us and take their lives as well. A person will not necessarily do it, he said, but the possibility may enter their thinking. NBC News alone.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE LEGAL TEST ITSELF, REPORTED ONLY IN A VIDEO. The Patriot Ledger posted at 2:26 p.m. a video clip captioned as Heilbrun explaining the legal standards for criminal responsibility, with no text alongside it. It is the only indication that his direct has reached the test the jury has to apply, and no outlet reports in words what he said about it. Patriot Ledger. Its headline on that entry describes him as a defense witness; he was called by the Commonwealth in rebuttal.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE PATRIOT LEDGER'S ACCOUNT OF THE SAME ANSWER, AND THE QUESTION BEHIND IT. In a post timed 2:42 p.m. the Patriot Ledger reports Heilbrun describing his investigation into why Clancy killed her children and saying it was inconsistent with her character, and quotes him on having asked her how she disciplined them: it was never hands on, it was never anything like that, and they both felt bad when they yelled at the kids. It reports him weighing either psychosis with a command hallucination or a suicide attempt coupled with a wish not to be separated from her children, saying one might harm one's children if one thought it would prevent them from suffering, giving as an example someone convinced the Holocaust was coming tomorrow, and concluding that Clancy's motivation fits the second situation. Patriot Ledger. It is a fourth outlet on the two explanations and a second, with NBC News, on the Holocaust example, and the only one to report the question that produced the answer: it has Sprague asking him whether he considered evidence against psychosis.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HEARST CONNECTICUT HAS HIM LEANING RATHER THAN PLACING. Hearst Connecticut's News-Times, updated 2:46 p.m., reports him telling the jury he had taken up the question of why she would kill her children at all, so far did it seem from her character, gives the same two explanations — psychosis with command hallucinations, or a serious suicide attempt in which she wanted the children with her so they would not have to suffer without her — and says he told jurors he was leaning toward the latter. Hearst Connecticut. The Boston Globe has him placing Clancy's case in the second category and the Patriot Ledger has her motivation fitting the second situation; whether the difference between leaning and placing is his or the outlets' is not something the reporting settles.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — SHE HEARD THE VOICE ONLY WHILE SHE WAS KILLING THEM, AND HE TOLD THE JURY THAT IS VERY UNUSUAL. Four outlets carry the same answer. The Boston Globe at 2:36 p.m. reports him saying on Clancy's account the voice was with her only for the 18 minutes or so the killings took, which to put it mildly would be highly unusual. Boston 25's Bob Ward at 2:35 p.m. has him saying that before that night the male voice ordering the killings had never come to her, and has not come since. NBC News at 2:42 p.m. quotes him calling it, to put it mildly, “a very, very unusual pattern or manifestation of how this kind of thing comes about”, and the Patriot Ledger at 2:42 p.m. quotes the same words. Boston Globe, Boston 25, NBC News and Patriot Ledger, agreeing.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — A SYMPTOM THAT APPEARS ONLY DURING THE OFFENSE, HE SAID, IS CONVENIENT. NBC News reports him saying he is wary when a person reports a symptom that arose only in the course of committing an offense, because that is a convenient route away from blame. The Patriot Ledger renders the same answer as its providing a convenient way of lessening your own culpability. NBC News and Patriot Ledger. It is the sharpest thing the Commonwealth's second rebuttal expert has been reported saying about the account the defense case rests on, and neither outlet reports him saying in terms that he believed Clancy was doing it.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE ALLOWED THAT WHAT SHE DESCRIBED WOULD BE A COMMAND HALLUCINATION. NBC News reports him telling the jury that a voice genuinely heard on January 24, 2023 in the way Clancy has described it would qualify as a command hallucination, and that the words she reported — that this was her last chance, that she had to kill the kids so she could kill herself — would be an example of a symptom of psychosis. On that account his objection is to the pattern rather than to the content. NBC News alone in putting it that way.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE ACCOUNTS OF WHAT THE VOICE SAID DID NOT MATCH EACH OTHER. Boston 25's Bob Ward reports at 2:38 p.m. that Heilbrun said Clancy told different people different versions of what the voice said to her, and quotes him saying inconsistency is important because it questions accuracy. NBC News at 2:47 p.m. has her account being that the voice repeatedly told her this was her last chance and she had to kill the kids so she could kill herself, and that in later tellings the voice had also said things along the lines of the children suffering without her, or her having to take them with her. The Patriot Ledger reports the same contrast. The Boston Globe at 2:50 p.m. puts the second version to a hospital staffer and quotes him to the effect that inconsistency in the telling makes any single version of a reported auditory hallucination harder to credit. Boston 25, NBC News, Patriot Ledger and Boston Globe.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — TWO MORE THINGS HE TOLD THE JURY DO NOT FIT PSYCHOSIS. At about 2:50 p.m. the Boston Globe reports him saying that genuine psychotic hallucinations can be intermittent, where Clancy reported the voice speaking to her constantly for 18 minutes and never emerging before or since; and that she did not report making any attempt to stop the voice or to distract herself from it, things he said someone in the grip of a psychotic auditory hallucination commonly does. Boston Globe alone. It is the first account of him giving the jury tests that Clancy's report fails, rather than a pattern he finds unusual.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — A SECOND MOTIVE HE WEIGHED: THAT SHE FEARED THE CHILDREN WOULD BE TAKEN. The Boston Globe at 2:36 p.m. reports him saying he had also weighed, as a motive, a fear on Clancy's part that the children would be taken away from her, and that as a mandated reporter herself she knew she could lose them if she disclosed thoughts of harming them. Hearst Connecticut covers the same ground differently, reporting him saying she may have been concerned that someone would take away her children and that there was nothing paranoid in it, since voicing such feelings could well have brought child protective services in. Boston Globe and Hearst Connecticut. Neither reports him saying whether he accepted that motive or set it aside, and it is not a motive either party has advanced at this trial.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — VIVID THOUGHTS, AND A CONCERN THAT OTHER PEOPLE COULD HEAR THEM. Hearst Connecticut reports him saying Clancy told him she heard a voice commanding her, and that her thoughts were so vivid she came to worry other people could hear them. Hearst Connecticut alone. No other outlet reports the concern that her thoughts could be heard, and Hearst does not report what he made of it.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — POSTPARTUM ONSET PUT AT ONE TO TWO MONTHS. The Boston Globe at 2:50 p.m. reports him saying medical guidelines put the onset of postpartum symptoms at one to two months after giving birth. Boston Globe alone. It is a figure from the Commonwealth's second rebuttal expert on the question that ran through Reddington's cross-examination of its first, where the accounts of what Dr. Avram Mack gave range from four weeks to four months. The Globe does not report what question produced it or what he drew from it. Logged in data/evidence.json with the other figures.
DIRECT — A THIRD FIGURE FOR HOW LONG SHE HAS BEEN WATCHED ONE TO ONE. Hearst Connecticut reports his evidence as putting Clancy on a one-on-one suicide watch for the past three and a half years. Boston 25 at 2:20 p.m. and NBC News at 2:25 p.m. both give three years, and boston.com's three and a half years attaches to the length of her stay at Tewksbury Hospital rather than to the watch. The accounts are recorded as they stand and the conflict is logged in data/evidence.json.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE TOLD THE JURY HIS OWN ASSESSMENT PUT HER ACCOUNT CLOSER TO EXAGGERATED OR FABRICATED. The Boston Globe at 2:55 p.m. reports him saying his assessment suggested Clancy was describing exaggerated or fabricated hallucinations. NBC News, in a post untimed on a page updated at 3:03 p.m., gives the reasoning as a count: on about three points her account more closely resembled exaggerated or fabricated hallucinations, on one it looked more genuine, and one was mixed. Boston Globe and NBC News. It is the sharpest thing he has said about her report, and it is the first time either Commonwealth expert has been reported putting the word fabricated to it. The site records it beside, and does not reconcile it with, his own 2:21 p.m. testing result that Clancy has a slight tendency to underreport symptoms; no outlet reports him being asked how the two sit together.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE POINTS HE SAID HE COUNTED, AND WHICH WAY EACH WENT. NBC News reports him breaking the assessment down. Clancy described the voice as an external one rather than something in her own mind, which he said is consistent with a genuine auditory hallucination. Against it: she did not report any accompanying delusions, which he said are reported in about 88 percent of command hallucinations; genuine hallucinations, on NBC News's rendering, are more consistent than intermittent, where she reported hearing the voice for only about 18 to 20 minutes; and she reported no attempt to stop hearing it. The mixed point was the voice itself — an unfamiliar male voice, where he said hallucinations are typically a familiar voice — which he told the jury he was not counting in one direction or the other. NBC News alone on the breakdown. The Patriot Ledger at 3:01 p.m. is a second outlet on the 88 percent figure, reporting him saying that in 88 percent of cases command hallucinations are accompanied by related delusions, which were lacking in Clancy's case.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE TWO OUTLETS DESCRIBE THE INTERMITTENCY TEST IN OPPOSITE TERMS. The Boston Globe at 2:50 p.m. has him saying genuine psychotic hallucinations can be intermittent, where Clancy reported the voice speaking to her constantly for 18 minutes. NBC News has him saying genuine hallucinations are more consistent than intermittent, where she reported hearing the voice for only about 18 to 20 minutes. Both accounts run to the same conclusion — that what she described does not match the usual pattern — but the property each attributes to a genuine hallucination is the reverse of the other, and the Globe's 2:55 p.m. post adds a third rendering, that an auditory hallucination will more usually appear and disappear across a longer stretch of time. Recorded as reported and logged in data/evidence.json; nothing here resolves which way he put it.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — WHAT HE MEANT BY NOT TRYING TO STOP IT. The Patriot Ledger at 3:01 p.m. reports him saying people who hear voices typically try to reduce the hallucination's influence through coping mechanisms, and quotes him giving praying and listening to music as examples; Clancy did not report doing this, he said. Patriot Ledger. It is a second outlet on the point the Boston Globe reported at 2:50 p.m., and the first to report what he told the jury the missing conduct would have looked like.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE EXPLANATION HE PREFERS: AN INTRUSIVE THOUGHT, NOT A VOICE. Four outlets have it. The Boston Globe at 2:55 p.m. reports him saying an intrusive thought is a more believable explanation on his assessment, that Clancy had previously reported all sorts of unwelcome thoughts, and quotes him saying that on January 24 such a thought would sit with what she had been living through for months, and that what she had would then be an unwelcome intrusive thought and not an auditory hallucination. Its 2:56 p.m. post adds that the voice she described would be very unusual, but that an intrusive thought about killing the children and herself that night would be consistent with what she had been dealing with for months. The Patriot Ledger reports him suggesting the voice was actually a continuation of the intrusive thoughts Clancy had reported since December 2022. Hearst Connecticut reports him saying he took it to be not a command hallucination but one more of the intrusive thoughts that had been coming to her for months, this one telling her to kill herself and the children. It is the first account of him offering an alternative to the command hallucination rather than only reasons to doubt it.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — WHAT SHE SAID TO HER HUSBAND WHEN HE FOUND HER, AND WHAT HE SAID PSYCHOSIS WOULD HAVE SOUNDED LIKE. The Boston Globe at 2:56 p.m. and the Patriot Ledger at 3:01 p.m. both report him telling the jury that when Patrick Clancy returned on January 24, 2023 and asked his wife what she had done — the Ledger quotes the question as “What did you do?”, the Globe places it after he found her lying outside the house having jumped from a window — she answered that she had tried to kill herself. Someone acting under a command hallucination, he said, would more likely have been vague: the Globe renders his example as words to the effect of having done what she had to do, and the Ledger gives both that and having done what the voice said. Boston 25’s Bob Ward is a third outlet, posting at 2:49 p.m. that Heilbrun said Patrick asked what she had done and she answered that she had tried to kill herself, and that had she experienced a hallucination she would have said she did what she had to do, or what the voice said. Boston Globe, Patriot Ledger and Boston 25. It is the first time he has been reported using her own words on the night as a test of the account. NBC News reports the same evidence at 3:07 p.m. and has him drawing a different conclusion from it, which is recorded separately below.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE CALLED THE PSYCHOSIS EXPLANATION APPEALING AND CONVENIENT, AND THE OUTLETS ATTACH THE PHRASE DIFFERENTLY. The Boston Globe at 2:55 p.m. reports him saying the defense's postpartum psychosis theory offers a convenient means of reducing one's own culpability, and quotes him adding that its appeal lies in accounting for behavior so unlike her without any need for complication, and that laying the blame on a voice that told her to do something awful is the easier course. NBC News and the Patriot Ledger reported the same phrase earlier in the afternoon attached to something narrower — a symptom that showed itself only while an offense was being committed. The three renderings are recorded as they stand; the site does not merge them, and no outlet reports him saying in terms that he believed Clancy herself was doing it.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE DOUBTED THE CONNECTION TO THE BIRTH AT ALL. The Boston Globe at 2:55 p.m. reports him expressing skepticism about whether Clancy's mental health conditions were connected to her having given birth about eight months earlier, and saying he adheres to a shorter timeframe when considering the postpartum period. Boston Globe alone. It is the same position as the one-to-two-months figure he gave at 2:50 p.m., now applied to Clancy rather than stated as a guideline, and it is added to the open discrepancy over the postpartum window in data/evidence.json.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — SHE TOLD HIM SHE WAS NOT THINKING ABOUT WRONGFULNESS AT ALL. The Boston Globe at 2:58 p.m. reports him saying Clancy told him the wrongfulness of what she was doing had not been in her mind at all during the killings. Boston Globe alone. It is the first thing in his evidence to touch the language of the legal test, and it is recorded for what it is: an account of what she told him, not an opinion from him on whether she could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct. No outlet reports him being asked that question or answering it.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — SHE WAS IN PAIN, SHE WAS SUFFERING, AND SHE BELIEVED THE CHILDREN WOULD SUFFER WITHOUT HER. The Boston Globe at 2:58 p.m. reports him saying months of thoughts and impulses preceded what he called a serious suicide attempt, and quotes him saying she was in pain, she was suffering, and that he thought she was even desperate — all of it common, he said, among people who kill themselves — and that she was convinced her children would suffer without her once she was gone. Hearst Connecticut carries the same evidence, quoting him saying she was in pain, she was suffering, and that once she had resolved to end it she was left with the question of the children, whom she did not want to see suffer. The Patriot Ledger renders it as intolerable pain and suffering, with a decision to make about the children. Boston 25’s Bob Ward posted the same evidence at 2:53 p.m.: that Clancy was in pain, was suffering and was desperate, that she resolved to end it and meant to take the children along, that she did not want to leave them, and that they would suffer without her. Four outlets.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — GO TO GOD, AND AN EXPECTATION OF BEING REUNITED. The Boston Globe at 2:58 p.m. reports him saying Clancy told each child “Go to God, baby” as she killed them, and expected that she and the children would meet again in heaven. Hearst Connecticut reports the same, that she was telling the children to go to God as she strangled them, and renders the rest as her expecting them all to be together in heaven. Boston 25’s Bob Ward posted at 2:53 p.m. that Heilbrun said Clancy told each child to go to God in the course of strangling them, so that she and the children could go to heaven. Boston Globe, Hearst Connecticut and Boston 25. It is the first account in his evidence of what she said to the children.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE CONCLUSION STATED FLATLY: A SUICIDE ATTEMPT, NOT A PSYCHOTIC EPISODE. The Patriot Ledger at 3:01 p.m. reports that rather than a psychotic episode, Heilbrun concluded it was a suicide attempt, and quotes him tying it to the ground he covered on the morning's direct — that Clancy did not like to leave her children, whether for date night, or school, or going back to work, and that if she had taken her own life her children would have been without her. Patriot Ledger. Hearst Connecticut's account, updated 3:00 p.m., is consistent with it. The conclusion is about why she killed the children; it is not an answer to the criminal responsibility question, which no outlet reports him being asked.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE GAVE THE KILLINGS A NAME: SUICIDE COMBINED WITH ALTRUISTIC FILICIDE. The Boston Globe at 3:00 p.m. reports Heilbrun saying his evaluation of Clancy, conducted as an expert for the prosecution, showed “suicide combined with altruistic filicide,” which he glossed for the jury as “killing your kids out of love.” What he described was an attempt on her own life of high lethality and great seriousness, arriving after months of thoughts and impulses about hurting herself, and said her decision to kill the children was in all likelihood meant to spare them the suffering of being left with no one to care for them. As evidence for it he returned to ground he had covered on the morning’s direct, that leaving the children had always troubled her — a date night, the school run, a return to work, any of it. Boston Globe alone on the phrase. It is the first time either Commonwealth expert has been reported giving the killings a name from the literature, and it is the fullest statement so far of the explanation he put in place of psychosis.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — NBC NEWS REPORTS HIM RULING THAT NAME OUT, ON THE SAME EVIDENCE THE GLOBE HAS HIM RULING IT IN. In a post stamped 3:07 p.m., NBC News reports Heilbrun saying it was notable that when Patrick Clancy returned home and asked what she had done, Lindsay Clancy told him she had tried to kill herself — mentioning neither the hallucinations nor that the children were dead in the basement — and that this pointed him away from altruistic filicide, a term the outlet defines as a mother killing her children because she fears for their safety or well-being once she is gone. What it seemed like instead, on that account, was an extreme suicide attempt. NBC News alone. It cannot be squared with the Boston Globe’s 3:00 p.m. account of the same witness on the same afternoon, and both are recorded as reported and logged in data/evidence.json. Nothing here establishes which way he put it to the jury.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE ASKED A DEVOUT CATHOLIC WHETHER IT WAS A MORTAL SIN, AND THE QUESTION DREW AN OBJECTION. Boston 25’s Bob Ward posted at 2:54 p.m. that Heilbrun told the jury he had asked Clancy, a devout Catholic, whether that was a mortal sin, and that an objection and a sidebar followed. Boston 25 alone. No outlet reports her answer, what the objection was to, how the judge ruled, or whether the answer stayed in evidence, and nothing further is recorded here. It is the first time in his evidence that her religion has been reported being put to her, and it follows directly on his account of her telling each child to go to God and expecting to be reunited with them in heaven.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — WHAT HE SAID ABOUT HER RELIGION, WHY HE SAID IT, AND WHY THE ACCOUNTS OF IT DO NOT MATCH. NBC News, in its 3:28 p.m. account of the mistrial argument, reports that before the recess Heilbrun described finding Clancy’s statements about her children going to God during their deaths to be contrary to the belief of her Catholic religion, and that he offered it as part of his evaluation of her view of moral wrong. Boston 25’s Bob Ward at 2:54 p.m. has the question put more narrowly, that he asked Clancy, a devout Catholic, whether that was a mortal sin, and at 3:23 p.m. describes the subject as the Catholic Church considering murder a mortal sin. The Boston Globe, reporting the defense’s argument at 3:24 p.m., describes it as Heilbrun saying he had put a question to Clancy, raised a Catholic, about what her church teaches against suicide, and reports the prosecutor saying Clancy had told him she “had knowledge” of Catholicism treating suicide as a sin. No outlet gives the exchange in full, and the accounts differ over whether the doctrine at issue concerned suicide or murder. The conflict is logged in data/evidence.json and left open.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — CBS BOSTON PUBLISHES THE PASSAGE ITSELF, AND IT CONTAINS BOTH THINGS THE OTHER OUTLETS DESCRIBED SEPARATELY. In an account posted at 3:41 p.m., CBS Boston quotes the stretch of testimony that ended the sitting, which it places in Heilbrun’s account of a conversation he had with Clancy in April. He told the jury that she had expected, in part, to be with her children in heaven, with God; that she was raised as a Catholic; that, as he understood Catholic considerations, that is not necessarily what happens; and that when he asked her about that, he said, “Isn’t suicide a mortal sin?” CBS Boston reports him being cut off at that point, with Judge Sullivan calling the lawyers to a sidebar after a defense objection. It is the first account from any outlet of the passage itself rather than a description of it, and it carries both the reunion-in-heaven element NBC News described and the suicide question the Boston Globe and the prosecutor described. It does not contain the reference to murder that Boston 25 reported, and the conflict over what he said is left logged and open. This is the evidence Judge Sullivan struck.
THIS PART OF HIS EVIDENCE IS NO LONGER BEFORE THE JURY. Whatever he said about Clancy’s religion was struck. NBC News reports at 3:33 p.m. that Judge Sullivan instructed the jury that the religion the defendant was raised with is an absolutely inappropriate area of testimony, that it is to be stricken and not to be considered, and that Heilbrun’s own understanding of Catholic teaching is irrelevant and immaterial. The Boston Globe reports the judge directing prosecutors to tell Heilbrun “strongly” to avoid further comment on it when his direct examination resumes.
DIRECT — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES THE WIRE ACCOUNT OF THE SITTING, AND QUOTES HIM AT LENGTH ON WHY THE DIAGNOSIS WAS DIFFICULT. In a story by Michael Casey published after the adjournment, the Associated Press reports Heilbrun testifying that Clancy has bipolar disorder and was experiencing anxiety, depression, insomnia and suicidal thoughts in the weeks before she killed her three children. It quotes him saying he struggled to reach the bipolar II diagnosis “because of all the diagnoses in the records and all the symptoms that she experienced”, and gives in his own words the search for the manic episode the diagnosis of bipolar I would have required: “I was having a hard time finding something that looked like it was a manic episode.” There were times after the births of different children, he said, when she felt good, felt on top of the world and felt really close to her husband and her children — which on his reading looked less like a manic episode than like her really feeling good. It is the fullest quotation of an answer the Patriot Ledger and Hearst Connecticut had reported in summary before the break. The Associated Press also reports him noting that at a psychiatric hospital where she stayed about two weeks before the killings she never reported hallucinations or suicidal thoughts and that her main concern there was insomnia, which corroborates Boston 25’s 12:38 account of him saying she denied delusions and suicidal thoughts during the McLean Hospital admission and that insomnia was her primary complaint. The wire dates that stay only as about two weeks before the killings; the accounts earlier in the day put the admission at five days from January 1, 2023. The Associated Press frames his evidence as reaching a different conclusion from that of Dr. Avram Mack, the psychiatrist who evaluated Clancy with him and testified for the Commonwealth that she had neither bipolar disorder nor psychosis. Its account carries nothing of the mistrial motion.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — A SECOND OUTLET PUBLISHES THE PASSAGE, IN THE SAME TERMS AS CBS BOSTON. NBC News, in a post stamped 3:51 p.m. headed as the testimony that led to the failed mistrial motion, quotes the same stretch of evidence: that Clancy had expected, in part, to be with the children in heaven, with God, that she was raised as a Catholic and that, as he understood Catholic considerations, that is not necessarily what happens. It reports the judge pausing the testimony moments later, when Heilbrun said he had asked Clancy whether suicide is a “mortal sin”. NBC News places the passage in his account of her understanding of what is immoral, and reports him saying Clancy told him she said “go with God” to each of her children as she killed them, where the Boston Globe rendered the words as “Go to God, baby” and Hearst Connecticut as telling them to go to God. Two outlets now carry the passage in the same terms; Boston 25’s account of a question about murder is still unmatched by any of them.
WHERE HIS EVIDENCE STANDS AT THIS COMPILATION. Made at about 18:25, some five hours after the adjournment. The last outlets to move were WHDH’s 7News and a second, standalone Boston 25 article, both filed after five o’clock and both found outside the tracked set; the twelve pages tracked here have stopped producing new reporting, and NBC News’s national live blog has closed. His direct examination was unfinished when the jury was sent home. He has told the jury he diagnosed bipolar II; that his testing showed a slight tendency to underreport and a continuing suicide risk; that he weighed two explanations for the killings and chose the one that is not psychosis; that in his assessment her account of the voice looked closer to an exaggerated or fabricated hallucination than a genuine one, on the grounds of its 18 minutes, its inconsistency across her accounts, the absence of accompanying delusions and her not reporting any attempt to stop it; and that the better explanation is an unwelcome intrusive thought of the kind she had been reporting since December 2022. The Boston Globe, boston.com and CNN have him naming the killings altruistic filicide and NBC News has him rejecting that name, and that conflict is logged unresolved. What he said about Clancy’s Catholic faith is logged unresolved too, and the evening filings have moved it: Boston 25’s own article puts the doctrine on suicide where its live blog had put it on murder, and WHDH quotes the fragment in a form no other outlet carries. That testimony has been struck. He has still not been reported being asked or answering the criminal responsibility question itself, and cross-examination has not begun. His direct examination resumes at 9 a.m. Tuesday, WHDH expects Tuesday to be the last day of testimony, and five outlets report the Commonwealth has one more witness to call after him.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — A THIRD OUTLET GIVES THE PASSAGE, AND IT PUTS THE QUESTION ON SUICIDE AGAIN. Hearst Connecticut, in a day-19 recap updated at about 4:52 p.m., sets out the sequence in its own words: Heilbrun brought up prior testimony about Clancy telling the children to “go with God” as she strangled them, and the comments moved into the realm of the inappropriate, the judge said, when he brought up that she was raised as a Catholic and then said “isn’t suicide a mortal sin?”, at which point the judge called for a sidebar and sent the jury out. It is the third outlet to give the question itself, after CBS Boston and NBC News, and the third to put it on suicide rather than on murder. Its rendering of what she said to the children is “go with God”, matching NBC News, where the Boston Globe has “Go to God, baby”. Added to the open discrepancy in data/evidence.json.
DIRECT — THE WIRE WAS REWRITTEN AFTER THE ADJOURNMENT, AND THE LONGER VERSION GIVES HIS REASON FOR RULING OUT THE COMMAND HALLUCINATION. The Associated Press replaced its earlier story at about 4:54 p.m. with a fuller one, still by Michael Casey, which leads on the conclusion rather than the diagnosis: Clancy was not acutely psychotic when she killed the three children, and that she took their lives so they would not “suffer” once she had taken her own. It reports that Heilbrun ruled out acute psychosis with command hallucinations because her account of a voice saying “kill the children so you can kill yourself” was not one he credited — the wire’s direct quotation of the version NBC News reported at 2:47 p.m., in which the voice told her this was her last chance and she had to kill the kids so she could kill herself. It gives the answer that followed in full: a voice she had not heard before, a hallucination she has not had since, present only for the eighteen minutes or so the killings took — “a very, very unusual pattern or manifestation of how this kind of thing comes about”, to put it mildly. It also quotes him on what she said to each child — “Go to God, baby. Go to God” — and on his conclusion that she killed the children because she wanted to kill herself and did not want to leave them behind. Associated Press. The substance was already on this page from the Boston outlets; what the rewritten wire adds is the causal link stated plainly, that the command hallucination was ruled out because he did not credit her account of the voice.
DIRECT — HOW MANY TIMES HE MET HER, IN A THIRD FORM. ABC News reports Heilbrun telling the jury that this year he saw Clancy on four occasions, and that he went through her medical records and the notes her clinicians kept. The Boston Globe had the meetings as multiple occasions in April running to about ten hours in all, and the Patriot Ledger as about 10.5 hours over three days with her in April 2026. Four meetings across three days would not be inconsistent with either, but no outlet reconciles the figures; all three are recorded and none is preferred here.
DIRECT — A NATIONAL OUTLET’S ACCOUNT OF THE DIRECT, WITH TWO POINTS NO OTHER FILING CARRIES. ABC News, in a post filed at about 5:01 p.m. under the bylines of Peter Charalambous, Mason Leib and Katie Kindelan, summarizes the direct examination and adds two things to it. The first is what he made of the January 2023 admission: he told the jury that Clancy came out of that brief inpatient stay with what he called “a small shred of hope”, and that her condition worsened again afterwards. The second is his own statement of why the diagnosis was hard — that across the period in question, from mid-October 2022 to late January 2023, “she’d had a lot of providers offer a lot of diagnoses, and there were a lot of complicating considerations”. That sits alongside the reason the Associated Press quoted, that he was having a hard time finding something that looked like a manic episode. ABC News alone on both. The rest of its account is already on this page from the Boston outlets and matches them: bipolar II with no manic episode observed, the side effects of the medications she was prescribed, the disagreement among her providers about the diagnosis, the Zoloft prescription in October 2022 and things getting very difficult from that point, the trouble sleeping and the end of her rope in late November, feeling off and disconnected and like a zombie, the horrible intrusive thoughts in December 2022 including thoughts of harming the children, and his position that those thoughts were not auditory hallucinations.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE QUESTION BEHIND THE ONE LINE THAT TOUCHES THE LEGAL TEST. boston.com, in a recap of the sitting updated at about 5:21 p.m. by Abby Patkin, is the second outlet to carry the passage the Boston Globe reported at 2:58 p.m., and it is the first to give the question. On its account Heilbrun told the jury that he put to Clancy the question whether, in the moment, she knew what she was doing to be unlawful or wrong, and that she answered, in substance, that she had not been thinking about it at all: “No thoughts, no decisions, none of that. It was just all action.” The Globe rendered the same evidence as her telling him the wrongfulness of what she was doing had not been in her mind at all during the killings. The two accounts agree. It remains an account of what she told him rather than an opinion from him, and no outlet reports him being asked, or answering, whether she could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or conform it to the law.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING IN FULLER FORM, AND A SCALE NO OTHER OUTLET NAMES. boston.com quotes him saying the testing showed Clancy “showed a slight tendency to underreport, to deny unusual experiences” when he met her in April, “although she did that in a way that was pretty sophisticated; she’s a bright woman” — the same finding the Boston Globe reported at about 2:21 p.m., with the denial of unusual experiences and the word sophisticated added. It reports a second result no other outlet has: that the evaluation put her at higher levels on “something called importance and control of thoughts, meaning that for her, it’s always been important to be able to work hard and control what’s going on with her mind and her life”. It also gives the symptoms he told the jury she reported for January 2023 — hopelessness about the future, low mood, self-consciousness, thoughts of death or dying, a feeling that something was wrong with her mind, and difficulty concentrating or paying attention — and says he told them those were mostly consistent with depression. On the suicide watch it has him saying she has been on one-to-one watch, the highest level of precaution, since she arrived at Tewksbury Hospital in 2023, and quotes him: “This is a very long time to be on that kind of precautions, and what it says to me is that she was at risk for suicide; she remains at risk for suicide.” It gives no figure in years, so it does not bear on the open conflict over the length of the watch. boston.com alone on the scale and on the symptom list.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE CHOSE BETWEEN THE TWO EXPLANATIONS IN HIS OWN WORDS, AND SAID THE FEAR ABOUT THE CHILDREN WAS NOT A DELUSION. boston.com states his conclusion plainly: Clancy’s mental state on January 24 fit altruistic filicide better than it fit acute psychosis with command hallucinations. It quotes his definition — “killing your kids out of love, not because you’re trying to be cruel, or for material gain, or because you want them out of your lives, or any of that. But killing them out of love so that … they wouldn’t have to suffer” — and quotes him on the choice between them: “Most of the evidence that I saw supported the second one, and not the first.” That is a third position in the open conflict over whether he adopted or rejected the term altruistic filicide, and it is added to the discrepancy in data/evidence.json rather than treated as settling it. The same account has him allowing that some signs of psychosis were there in Clancy, the fear that her thoughts might be heard or known by others among them, and saying that her worry that authorities might take her children was not a paranoid delusion — on its account on the ground that a Massachusetts psychologist is a mandated reporter, bound by law to pass any disclosure of thoughts of harming the children to state officials. The Boston Globe put the mandated reporter status on Clancy herself, who is a nurse, and Hearst Connecticut gave the reason as child protective services possibly having intervened. The three accounts agree that he did not treat the fear as a delusion and differ on whose obligation to report made it realistic; all three are recorded and none is preferred. boston.com is also a second outlet on the character evidence Boston 25 reported at about 2:25 p.m., that neither parent used physical discipline and both felt badly even when they raised their voices at the children, and it quotes his reason for asking why at all: that this was so out of character that he wanted to know what could possibly be going on.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — A FOURTH ACCOUNT OF THE NAME HE GAVE THE KILLINGS, AND IT REACHES IT FROM THE EVIDENCE NBC NEWS USED THE OTHER WAY. CNN, in a written story published at about 4:35 p.m. by Eric Levenson and Nicki Brown, reports that Heilbrun described the killings as “altruistic filicide”, which it glosses as the act of killing one's children out of love, and gives as his supporting evidence that leaving the children was something Clancy disliked, for work or school or an evening out. It quotes him on how he put the two together: that having resolved at some point to end her life, she was left to answer what should become of the children, that she did not want to leave them, and that she was convinced they would suffer without her. What makes the account matter to the open conflict is the order in which CNN sets it out. It gives the same evidence NBC News reported at 3:07 p.m. — that the first thing Clancy said to her husband when he found her was that she had tried to kill herself, rather than anything about a voice — quotes Heilbrun saying that someone acting on a command hallucination might instead have said something to the effect of having done what she had to do or what the voice said, and then reports that the psychologist described the killings as altruistic filicide instead. NBC News reported him drawing the opposite conclusion from the same evidence. CNN alone on the sequence. It is a fourth position in the conflict logged in data/evidence.json, agreeing with the Boston Globe and boston.com against NBC News, and it is recorded as reported; no outlet quotes the whole passage and nothing here settles which way he put it to the jury.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — CNN'S FORM OF THE MOTIVE, AND A QUOTATION NO OTHER OUTLET CARRIES. CNN opens its account of his evidence with the conclusion rather than the diagnosis: that Clancy killed her children because she planned to attempt suicide and, on his account, wanted them “with” her so they would not be separated and would not have to suffer after she was gone. That is the same conclusion the Associated Press reported in the wire story it rewrote at about 4:54 p.m., and the same one the Boston Globe reported at 3:00 p.m., in a third form of words. CNN also reports that he found some evidence of an acute psychosis, chiefly her own account of hearing a male voice, but that no report from her put the voice either before the killings or after them — which is Boston 25's 2:35 p.m. answer in different words — and quotes the same “very, very unusual pattern or manifestation” answer that four outlets already carry. Its account of the alternative explanation matches the four outlets already recorded: the voice was more consistent with an unwelcome intrusive thought of the kind she had been having for months than with a command hallucination.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — HE PUT A FREQUENCY ON THE SYMPTOM THAT APPEARS ONLY DURING AN OFFENSE. CNN is a third outlet on the answer NBC News and the Patriot Ledger reported earlier in the afternoon, and it carries one clause the other two do not. It quotes him saying he is “always very careful” where a symptom is reported to have arisen only in the commission of an offense, since that conveniently reduces one's own culpability, and that while it is always possible he finds it “very, very rare”. The convenience is already on this page from NBC News and the Ledger; the statement about how rare he finds it is CNN alone. As with the earlier accounts, no outlet reports him saying in terms that he believed Clancy herself was doing it.
DIRECT — A FOURTH FORM OF THE MEETING FIGURE, AND THE ONE THAT FITS THE OTHERS. CNN reports that Heilbrun examined Clancy over three days in April and performed psychological testing, and states in a photograph caption that he testified to interviewing her for about ten hours in total over those three days. That is the Boston Globe's ten hours and the Patriot Ledger's three days in one sentence, and it sits within the Ledger's figure of about 10.5 hours. It does not dispose of ABC News's four meetings this year or NBC News's two interviews before trial, and no outlet reports him being asked the number in terms; all the figures stay on the page as reported and none is preferred here.
DIRECT — HE TESTIFIED FROM A POWERPOINT. Los Angeles Magazine reports that Heilbrun came to the stand with a PowerPoint presentation and organized his findings around the progression of Clancy’s mental health. No other outlet describes how the evidence was put to the jury, and the slides bear on the argument that ended the day: the prosecutor’s answer to the mistrial motion was in part that Catholicism and mortal sin did not appear on the slide. Los Angeles Magazine alone.
DIRECT — TWO MORE NAMED INSTRUMENTS, AND WHAT THEY SHOWED. Los Angeles Magazine reports Heilbrun going through the Beck and Columbia suicide assessments and characterizing what Clancy did in January 2023 as a serious suicide attempt. On an obsessional beliefs questionnaire, it reports, perceived threats and perfectionism did not come out elevated, while the importance and control of thoughts did, and he said she had been trying without success to control what she was experiencing since October. No other outlet names either instrument. Los Angeles Magazine alone.
DIRECT — THE MMPI CLINICAL SCALES WERE FLAT WITH ONE EXCEPTION. Los Angeles Magazine reports that Clancy was not elevated on the MMPI clinical scales apart from suicide and death ideation, and has Heilbrun cautioning that the testing was carried out roughly three and a half years after the deaths and reflects her thinking in April 2026 rather than in January 2023. It gives the underreporting finding in the same terms as the Boston outlets — done in a way he called sophisticated, and she is a bright woman — and repeats that she has been on one-to-one suicide precautions at Tewksbury Hospital, the highest level of observation, for an unusually long time. Los Angeles Magazine alone on the clinical scales.
DIRECT — HOW SHE DESCRIBED JANUARY 2023 TO HIM. Looking back at that month, Los Angeles Magazine reports, Clancy's own words for herself were blue, depressed, hopeless and self-conscious, and she had the sense that something in her mind had gone wrong, and reported trouble with attention and concentration that included losing her place in the steps of a recipe as she cooked, which Heilbrun told the jury can be a sign of depression. The sense that something was wrong with her mind is also in boston.com’s account; Los Angeles Magazine is alone on the rest.
DIRECT, AFTER THE RECESS — A SECOND OUTLET ON THE COUNT, AND THE FIRST TO GIVE IT AS A QUOTATION. Fox News Digital added a seventh post to its day-19 live blog in the evening, its first since the post on counsel’s remarks, quoting Heilbrun putting the tally at about three points where her account looked more like an exaggerated or invented hallucination, one point where it looked more genuine, and one that came out mixed. NBC News had the same breakdown untimed, and until now the count rested on that single account. Fox News Digital and NBC News.

From the bench

Rulings 8

09:36Judge Sullivan sustained an objection during Reddington's cross-examination, when Reddington asked Mack whether the prosecution had described this to him as a terrible case, one in which a mother had killed her own children. The Globe reports the objection sustained and nothing further with it. Boston Globe alone.
11:04An objection sustained in the closing stretch of the cross-examination, on the Patriot Ledger's account. Reddington put to Mack that he has opined that postpartum depression must begin within four weeks of the birth in accordance with the DSM-5, and said it could occur within a year. Mack answered that the DSM-5 is what is used in the United States; Reddington replied that maybe it should not be. The Commonwealth objected and Judge Sullivan sustained the objection. Patriot Ledger alone. The time is the Ledger's posting time, not a time given for the exchange. NBC News's national live blog reports what appears to be the same exchange at 10:20, and puts it differently: Reddington asked Mack to stop referring to the DSM, Mack answered that he could not leave it out because all diagnoses are based on it, Reddington suggested "Maybe we shouldn't," the prosecutors objected and the objection was sustained. NBC News's account gives the exchange a place in the morning that the Ledger's posting time does not, but neither outlet gives a courtroom clock, and the two renderings are recorded side by side rather than merged.
09:52An objection sustained during the sharpest exchange of the cross-examination, on boston.com's account. When Reddington took issue with the look on Dr. Avram Mack's face as he was taken through questions on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory K Scale and told him "What are you smiling for? This is not funny, sir", boston.com reports the remark drawing an objection from the prosecutors which Judge Sullivan sustained. boston.com alone. Its narrative attaches no time to the exchange; the 09:52 stamp here is the Boston Globe's for the same moment, and NBC News files it at 9:48. Neither of those outlets reports an objection with the rebuke.
15:26THE MISTRIAL MOTION WAS DENIED. Judge Sullivan refused to declare a mistrial and said he would deal with it by instructing the jury instead. Boston 25 timed the refusal at 3:24 p.m. The Boston Globe, posting at 3:28 p.m., reports him saying he would not declare a mistrial and would tell the jury that Heilbrun’s understanding of Catholic doctrine is “irrelevant”. NBC News, also at 3:28 p.m., reports the motion denied with the judge siding with the prosecution, and quotes him saying in advance of the instruction: “I’m going to tell them that’s an inappropriate area of inquiry, and that this witness’s understanding of Catholic dogma or Catholic teaching is irrelevant.” Boston 25, Boston Globe and NBC News agree on the outcome; the two timings of the refusal differ by four minutes and neither is preferred here. The Patriot Ledger, posting at 3:39 p.m., adds the judge’s own characterization of the testimony and the words in which he refused. On its account Sullivan said the witness had testified that Clancy was raised as a Catholic and had then given an opinion on the Catholic conception of heaven, and asked “How is any of that proper?” before saying “But I am not going to declare a mistrial at this time.” He went on, the Ledger reports, growing vehement: “This witness’s understanding of Catholic teaching is irrelevant.” Hearst Connecticut, updating at 3:42 p.m., carries the question in a shorter form — “She was raised as a Catholic . . . how is any of that proper at this point?” The Boston Globe, in a post stamped 3:30 p.m., reports the denial together with the criticism of the evidence touching Clancy’s Catholic faith and what she thought about mortal sin, and CBS Boston, at 3:41 p.m., reports that Sullivan denied the motion but reprimanded the prosecution over the testimony. Five outlets now report the denial. Boston 25’s written article, updated at 3:51 p.m., quotes the refusal directly: “I’m not going to declare a mistrial. What I am going to do is bring the jury in and tell them to disregard it,” Sullivan said, adding that the witness’s understanding of Catholic dogma or Catholic teaching is irrelevant. Fox News Digital filed on the ruling at about 4:10 p.m., in a post by Adam Sabes, and is a further outlet on the denial. It is also the only one to attribute the word “problematic” to the judge: on its account Sullivan called the testimony problematic but told the jurors to disregard it. No other outlet carries that word, and the post gives no more of the remark than that. Hearst Connecticut’s day-19 recap reports that the judge, although he denied the motion, agreed the jurors had to be told to disregard the comments. The Associated Press, whose wire account was rewritten at about 4:54 p.m., now also reports the motion made and denied; the version it filed at about 2:36 p.m. carried nothing of it. ABC News, which had not filed on day 19 before this evening, posted on the motion at about 5:02 p.m. and is a further outlet on the denial. It quotes the refusal in the same words the Patriot Ledger reported: “I am not going to declare a mistrial at this time.” boston.com is a fifth outlet on the refusal. CNN, in a written story published at about 4:35 p.m., is a further one, reporting that Judge Sullivan ultimately ruled against the mistrial but instructed the jurors to ignore Heilbrun's evidence about Clancy's faith and Catholic theology. Los Angeles Magazine adds the distinction the judge drew in refusing the motion, which no other outlet reports: he said he had no issue with the reference to Clancy telling each child to go to God, which had already been introduced in the trial, and that what he found problematic was the witness’s commentary on suicide, Catholicism and whether someone would go to heaven.
15:26THE COMMONWEALTH WAS TOLD TO SPEAK TO ITS WITNESS. Boston 25 reports the judge telling the Commonwealth to talk to its witness and tell him he could not go into that. The Boston Globe, posting at 3:28 p.m., has him saying that in the meantime prosecutors should “strongly” tell Heilbrun to avoid further comment about her religious background. The Patriot Ledger quotes him telling the prosecutors to talk to the witness and let him know he cannot go into that. Hearst Connecticut, in a day-19 recap updated at about 4:52 p.m. under the byline of Peter Yankowski, Lisa Backus and Austin Mirmina, is the first account to say whom the judge was addressing when he told the Commonwealth to speak to its witness. It quotes him saying “Talk to him and let him know he can’t go into that” and reports the remark made to Sprague, who had been questioning Heilbrun when he made the statements. The Patriot Ledger and Boston 25 had the same direction without naming the prosecutor it was given to. boston.com reports him urging the prosecutors to talk to Heilbrun and tell him what the appropriate areas of inquiry are, which matches Boston 25, the Boston Globe and Hearst Connecticut. Los Angeles Magazine reports him asking the Commonwealth to warn its witness against returning to the subject, which matches the accounts already recorded.
15:26THE JURY WOULD BE INSTRUCTED AND THEN SENT HOME EARLY, AND THE JUDGE GAVE HIS REASON. Boston 25 reports at 3:26 p.m. that Sullivan said he would instruct the jury and then send them home for the day, that he would try to minimize the damage, and that the jury can follow instructions. The Boston Globe, posting at 3:28 p.m., reports him saying that once the instruction had been given he would send the jury home, testimony to pick up again on Tuesday. The Patriot Ledger quotes him saying he would bring the jury back in, give them the instruction to disregard that stretch of the testimony, and send them home. Los Angeles Magazine reports him saying the jury would be told to put that part of the evidence out of mind. boston.com quotes the reason he gave for sending them home early rather than carrying on: “I don’t want them leaving here today with the last thing they heard was a discussion of this witness’s understanding of the Catholic teaching … That’s not the last thing they’re going to hear.” It reports him saying he hoped to minimize the prejudice caused by the remarks, which matches Boston 25’s account of him saying he would try to minimize the damage.
15:33THE INSTRUCTION AS DELIVERED, AND THE EVIDENCE STRUCK. NBC News reports at 3:33 p.m. that Judge Sullivan gave the jury an emphatic instruction to disregard Heilbrun’s testimony about Clancy’s Catholic upbringing, telling them that the religion the defendant was raised with is “absolutely an inappropriate area of testimony”, that it is to be stricken, that it is not to be considered, and that he could not be any more clear about it. He added that Heilbrun’s understanding of Catholic teaching is irrelevant and immaterial. Two further outlets have since carried the instruction. CBS Boston, at 3:41 p.m., reports the judge telling the jurors the remarks were “immaterial, irrelevant and to be disregarded”. Hearst Connecticut, updating at 3:42 p.m., reports him telling them the comments on Clancy’s Catholic faith “were absolutely an inappropriate area of testimony” and to disregard them, and reports him telling the lawyers before the jury came back that the witness’s understanding of Catholic dogma is irrelevant. NBC News, CBS Boston and Hearst Connecticut agree on the substance of the instruction. Hearst Connecticut’s recap, updated at about 4:52 p.m., gives the instruction in fuller quotation than any account so far: “It is to be stricken, it is not to be considered, I can’t be any more clear on that, it can not be considered”, with the judge adding that Heilbrun’s understanding of the Catholic religion is immaterial and cannot be considered. That matches NBC News’s account of the same instruction, which reported the substance without the second half of the quotation. The Associated Press, in the wire story it rewrote at about 4:54 p.m., reports him instructing the jury to disregard the reference to “the religion that the defendant was raised with” and calling it “an absolutely inappropriate area of testimony”. Four outlets carried the instruction before the evening filings, and they agree on its substance. ABC News, posting at about 5:02 p.m., is a fifth. It reports the jurors instructed again to ignore the recent testimony about Clancy’s religion, the subject called an inappropriate area of inquiry, and Heilbrun’s understanding of Catholic dogma or Catholic teaching called irrelevant. CNN gives the instruction in the same terms as the outlets already recorded — that the religion the defendant was raised in is absolutely an inappropriate area of testimony, that it is to be stricken and is not to be considered — and adds one observation of the room that no other account carries: that several jurors were nodding while Judge Sullivan delivered it. CNN alone on the jurors' reaction, and it reports nothing more of it than that.
15:33THE JURY WAS EXCUSED FOR THE DAY. NBC News reports the jury dismissed for the rest of the day once the instruction had been given, and returning tomorrow for the rest of Heilbrun’s testimony. CBS Boston, at 3:41 p.m., has the judge excusing them for the day after telling them the remarks were to be disregarded, and Hearst Connecticut, updating at 3:42 p.m., reports the jurors excused until Tuesday morning. Boston 25’s written article reports him sending the jury home early. ABC News, posting at about 5:02 p.m., reports him sending them home for the day and is the first outlet to give the time the sitting resumes: testimony will continue tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. with the same witness on the stand.

In sequence

Procedural 98

09:12Boston 25's day-19 live blog opens the morning here, with proceedings resuming at Plymouth Superior Court and Reddington's cross-examination of Mack continuing, and reports that two further Commonwealth rebuttal witnesses were scheduled for the day. Boston 25 alone on the number. Neither has been called on any account so far.
09:13The Boston Globe describes the largest crowd of the trial so far at Plymouth Superior Court, with press and public both trying for courtroom seats. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger, filing live from the courtroom, reports every seat taken on Monday morning with many people waiting outside who did not get one, and attributes the rise in public interest to the trial reaching its final phase.
09:14The jury was brought in, at about 9:15 on the Globe's account. Judge William Sullivan questioned the jurors about avoiding the weekend's media coverage of the case. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger adds that Sullivan told the jury the day would open with Reddington continuing his cross-examination of Mack by Zoom, and then set out the order of what remains: the Commonwealth continuing its rebuttal after Mack finishes, closing arguments from each side, jury instructions, and deliberations.
09:15OUTSIDE THE COURTHOUSE, NOT A COURTROOM EVENT. The Globe posted on the demonstrations twice, at 9:10 and 9:15; both are recorded here once. Small groups wore pink in support of Clancy, among them a psychiatric nurse practitioner from Plymouth, Kathleen Hood, who told the Globe she had come because of her own experience of postpartum anxiety. About a dozen people wore white for the three children — Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months — and said the children were the real victims. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger also posted on the protesters outside court, recalling that hundreds rallied in support of Clancy last week.
09:18Dr. Avram Mack resumed his testimony, appearing by video link, as the Commonwealth's rebuttal witness. His cross-examination by Kevin Reddington had been unfinished when court broke on Friday. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger reports that Mack testified from the witness stand on Friday, which makes the video link a change from how he appeared then.
09:21Cross-examination on his experience. Reddington asked how many times he had testified on criminal responsibility and Mack put it at one or two; Mack described himself as a generalist, naming adolescent mental health and addiction among his focuses. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger puts the same answer at two prior cases, which falls within the range the Globe records.
09:24Cross-examination on his qualifications. Reddington raised prior cases in which judges had questioned them; Mack said he did not recall those cases or disagreed with Reddington's characterization of the rulings. Boston Globe alone. Boston 25, filing a day-19 live blog of its own, puts the same line of questioning at 9:26 and reports Reddington pressing prior cases in which Mack was found unqualified to give an opinion, with Mack disputing that characterization. CBS Boston, in an untimed narrative, gives the same exchange: Reddington said a judge in an earlier case had ruled Mack unqualified to give testimony, and Mack disagreed with that characterization.
09:27The cross-examination opened testily, on NBC News's account. NBC News's national live blog, a sixth outlet on the day, reports Kevin Reddington getting into a testy exchange with Dr. Avram Mack from the outset of Monday's proceedings, with the first part of the cross largely on Mack's history of serving as a witness in criminal cases and Mack appearing to misremember or disagree with most of the questions put to him. When Mack said he disagreed with one, Reddington answered "Says you." NBC News alone. The time is NBC News's posting time.
09:29Cross-examination continued, on a prior case and on how this evaluation was conducted. Mack said he did not believe his testimony had been struck in an earlier Florida lawsuit concerning the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. He confirmed that he examined Clancy at Tewksbury Hospital in April on two separate days, with a colleague carrying out psychological testing, and that he stayed at a private home in Wellesley while he did so; he said he did not know where his colleague stayed. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger gives the substance of that Florida testimony: Mack testified for the state that beneficiaries of state aid should be drug tested. Reddington characterized it as testimony that needy people should be drug tested because they are more inclined to violence, drug use and suicide; Mack said that was not the correct conceptualization, and Reddington answered that this was merely Mack's own view. Asked whether he recalled his testimony being stricken, Mack said he did not believe that it was. The substance of the Florida testimony and this exchange are the Patriot Ledger's.
09:36Cross-examination on what he was given and whom he spoke to. Mack said he had spoken with the prosecutors by telephone before evaluating Clancy, and described reviewing Department of Children and Families records from February 2023 that included an interview with Patrick Clancy and recorded no earlier instance of Lindsay Clancy abusing her children. Boston Globe alone.
09:38Cross-examination on bias, fees and timing. The Globe posted twice in this minute; both are recorded here once. Reddington established that Mack did not meet Clancy until 2026, about three years after the killings, and that he earns several hundred thousand dollars a year from forensic evaluations. He also took Mack through confirmation bias, which Mack agreed he understood as gathering information to confirm an idea already held; asked whether he had hoped to assist the prosecutors who hired him, Mack said no. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger adds that Mack confirmed he had been retained by the Plymouth District Attorney's Office, and gives his answer on fees as a range rather than a figure — several hundred thousand dollars, sometimes a few, sometimes more.
09:41Cross-examination on the length of the interview. Mack said the first interview with Clancy at Tewksbury Hospital ran four or five hours, with a colleague present, that she did not ask for a break, and that they discussed her catheter schedule while questioning her. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger names the colleague as Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, himself an expert witness for the Commonwealth, and reports that Mack and Heilbrun together interviewed Clancy for four to five hours on the first day. The Globe left the colleague unnamed.
09:42Judge Sullivan told the witness to answer the question. NBC News reports Judge William Sullivan interjecting after a lengthy and contentious back and forth to tell Mack to listen to the question and answer the question, and places the intervention after Reddington had pressed him on how much money he makes in a year. The Boston Globe recorded the questioning about his earnings at about 9:38 but not the intervention. This is the earlier of two occasions on which NBC News describes the bench directing Mack to answer, and is distinct from the intervention the Globe files at about 10:39. NBC News alone. No ruling, objection or sanction is reported with it.
09:46Cross-examination on psychological testing. Mack acknowledged that he knew the tests Reddington raised for gauging whether a subject is answering truthfully, and said one of them measures personality rather than being designed as a lie detector. He said Clancy remained polite through the questioning, and that his colleague carried out the psychological testing the following day. Boston Globe alone.
09:49Cross-examination on malingering. Asked whether a person indicted for murder would be motivated to fabricate mental health symptoms, Mack said not necessarily. He said his colleague's psychological testing effectively showed the procedure was valid — that is, that Clancy was answering truthfully and was not malingering. Boston Globe alone.
09:52Cross-examination on the truthfulness testing, and a sharp exchange. Reddington pressed Mack on the tests used to assess whether a subject is exaggerating. Mack smiled over the video link, and Reddington asked what he was smiling for and told him this was not funny. Reddington then asked whether he knew that Clancy had shown no indication whatsoever of exaggerating her symptoms during the psychological testing; the Globe does not report his answer. Boston Globe. NBC News's national live blog, filing the same exchange at 9:48, names the instrument: Reddington was pressing Mack on the K Scale, which Mack in the end explained as an instrument clinicians rely on to catch a patient overstating or inventing symptoms. NBC News has him flashing a smile over the video link before the rebuke. Both times are posting times and neither outlet gives a courtroom clock; no other outlet names the test.
09:55Testimony on bipolar symptoms, SSRIs and the diagnosis he reached. Mack said he was aware of symptoms of bipolar disorder in Clancy, and that medical caution about prescribing SSRI antidepressants to patients with bipolar disorder has lessened in recent years. He put his second session with her at about three hours and said he concluded she had a major depressive disorder. Counsel were called to sidebar after that answer. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger reports the SSRI answer in more detail: Mack said the concern about prescribing them to bipolar patients was greater fifteen to twenty years ago and has lessened over time.
09:59After the sidebar, Mack said he had determined that Clancy was in a major depressive episode at the time of the killings but retained the ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct. He noted that a colleague had diagnosed her with bipolar II, a diagnosis he described as carrying no history of a full manic episode. The Globe's entries do not say whether the questioning at this point was still Reddington's cross-examination or had moved to redirect. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger names the colleague who made the bipolar II diagnosis as Dr. Kirk Heilbrun — the Commonwealth's own other expert.
10:01Cross-examination on the witness falling back on Friday's evidence. NBC News reports Mack answering a number of Reddington's questions by telling him he had covered the point the other day — a reference back to when he first took the stand on Friday, and Reddington pressing him to answer regardless — "Why don't you say it again, sir?" NBC News alone. The time is NBC News's posting time.
10:05Cross-examination on the onset window for postpartum illness. Reddington asked whether bipolar disorder is a precursor to postpartum depression; Mack said it depends on whether the patient has a mood disorder and on the timing of onset. He gave the medical guidelines as putting postpartum onset within four weeks and postpartum psychosis within six, while Reddington cited guidelines allowing longer periods. Mack said Clancy has not demonstrated any signs of mania at Tewksbury Hospital. This is the first of the Globe's entries since the sidebar to describe the questioning as cross-examination. Boston Globe alone.
10:07Cross-examination on bipolar disorder, on the Patriot Ledger's account — posted at 10:07, and overlapping the Globe's entries on either side of it. Asked to describe the condition, Mack listed flights of ideas, distractibility, engagement in pleasurable activities with painful consequences, pressured speech and grandiosity. Asked directly whether he had concluded that Clancy suffered from a major mental disease or defect, namely bipolar II, Mack said no, and clarified that what he had concluded was a major depressive episode as part of a major depressive disorder. When Reddington put it to him that she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at Tewksbury, Mack asked to be shown where. Patriot Ledger alone.
10:08Cross-examination on her medications and her sleep. Mack listed the medications Clancy currently takes at Tewksbury Hospital, which the Globe does not name, and said she had reported problems sleeping when a provider increased her dosage before the killings, describing her as having wanted to sleep and having tried hard to without being able to. Reddington put to him that she had gone forty-eight hours without sleep following the increase; the Globe does not report Mack's answer. Boston Globe alone.
10:11Cross-examination on the length of the postpartum period. Reddington listed the mental health clinicians who have diagnosed Clancy with bipolar disorder, before and after the killings, and asked whether that was a strong indicator that a person could be suffering from postpartum depression; Mack said the question confused him. Mack put the postpartum period at four weeks from the birth for diagnostic purposes, which the Globe notes other experts have rejected in favor of a year or longer. Reddington told him postpartum is not a disease and that every woman who has given birth remains postpartum. Mack held to major depressive episodes without psychosis. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger names the clinicians Reddington listed: nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta, who raised the possibility of bipolar disorder, and Dr. Paul Zeizel, Dr. Margaret Spinelli and Dr. Phillip Resnick, all of whom evaluated Clancy and diagnosed bipolar disorder. It records Dr. Kirk Heilbrun's diagnosis of bipolar II separately. NBC News's national live blog carries the same exchange over what the word postpartum means, reporting Mack repeatedly calling Clancy's condition postpartum without naming one of the illnesses that follow childbirth and putting postpartum onset within four weeks, and Reddington answering that postpartum simply means a woman has had a child and that mothers are technically postpartum for the rest of their lives. NBC News adds that in the middle of it the bench had once more to tell Mack to answer what was put to him; it is alone in reporting that direction.
10:20Cross-examination on her depression and her sleep. Mack agreed that the guidelines give a decreased need for sleep as one element of mania, but said that in his view Clancy desperately wanted to sleep. He confirmed she had major depressive episodes after the birth of her third child, and acknowledged that she was in distress when Reddington put to him that her score on one depression scale was nearly off the charts. He gave an inability to laugh as an indicator of major depression, and said she had reported anxiety, worry without an apparent cause and feeling overwhelmed to her providers. Boston Globe alone.
10:25Cross-examination on psychosis. Mack said Clancy had also indicated she had thoughts of harming herself. Asked whether postpartum depression can be followed by postpartum psychosis, he said he could not answer. He said that hearing voices would be psychosis. Boston Globe alone.
10:30Cross-examination on what the postpartum period is, and on her symptoms one by one. Mack said that making a diagnosis in psychiatry requires an authority, and that he uses the DSM for it. The Globe's entry in this minute gives his DSM figure for the postpartum period as four months after the birth and notes that Clancy's youngest child was eight months old; the same blog's entries at 10:05 and 10:11 give the figure as four weeks. The two do not agree, neither is corroborated by another outlet, and the conflict is recorded rather than resolved. Reddington then began putting Clancy's symptoms to him individually. Boston Globe alone.
10:31Cross-examination on what the records showed, and on whether postpartum psychosis is a real illness. Mack said he had come across a period in his review of the records in which Clancy worried that people could hear her thoughts. He said she was suffering, and that she at times felt things were not real, or felt uncomfortable. Reddington asked whether he believed postpartum psychosis was a legitimate disease; the Globe records Mack answering that the presence of psychosis is always concerning and that psychiatric guidelines give a time frame for its onset after a birth, and does not report him answering the question yes or no. Boston Globe alone. CBS Boston, in a short narrative carrying no timestamps, reports an answer to that question: he described symptoms of psychosis in the postpartum period as a legitimate finding, something to be concerned about and to treat. It is the nearest thing to an answer any outlet gives, and CBS attaches no time to it.
10:37Cross-examination on whether the records show psychosis. Mack said he found no evidence of psychosis in Clancy's record. He allowed that she had reported intrusive thoughts and had indicated that at times things did not feel real, and said that neither necessarily amounts to psychosis; nor, he said, does appearing composed between mood episodes. Asked whether a severe loss of sleep indicates postpartum psychosis, he said he could not answer the question as Reddington had framed it. Boston Globe alone.
10:39Judge William Sullivan intervened from the bench during the cross-examination to tell the witness how the questioning works: a witness does not ask the questions, he answers them, and if he cannot answer one as posed the court can have Reddington rephrase it. The Globe reports it as the judge admonishing the Commonwealth's expert. No ruling, objection or sanction is reported with it. Boston Globe alone. NBC News's national live blog files a different bench intervention in this same minute: the Commonwealth objected to Reddington's line of questioning on the ground that Mack had answered the question repeatedly, Reddington answered "Really?", and Judge Sullivan urged Reddington to move on. NBC News does not report whether the objection was sustained, and no outlet says whether the two accounts describe one moment or two.
10:40Cross-examination on her care and her medications. Mack said he held no position on the standard of care Clancy received from her medical providers. He noted that she had reported suicidal ideation, and said he was not certain whether she lacked awareness of her own condition. He said blood work can be required or needed before certain psychiatric medications are prescribed. Boston Globe alone.
10:43Cross-examination on what her providers did not test. Mack said he did not recall seeing records showing that Clancy's providers had taken blood work to gauge how she was reacting to the medications she was prescribed, and when Reddington put it to him directly that the testing was not done, he agreed. He said checking thyroid levels is important for psychiatric patients. Boston Globe alone.
10:47The cross-examination has ended and the Commonwealth's redirect examination has begun. This is the first entry from any outlet to describe the questioning as redirect, which places the end of Reddington's cross between 10:43 and 10:47. NBC News's national live blog, posting at 10:53, is the only outlet to describe how the cross closed; it is recorded below at that time. Mack said he does not regard his role as that of an investigator, that he was retained to analyze Clancy's mental state working in part from the medical records, and that he was formally retained by the government in early 2025 — the date the Globe gave on Friday, and one that remains in conflict with East Idaho News's late 2024. He said he is paid for his time and his work whatever opinion he ultimately reaches. Boston Globe alone.
10:51Redirect examination on his relationship with the prosecution. Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham had Mack confirm that he is paid regardless of the opinion he gives, and questioned him about Park Dietz and Associates, the retention firm through which he was engaged. His direct examination on Friday was taken by ADA Jennifer Sprague, on the Globe's account, so the redirect is being conducted by a different prosecutor. Boston Globe alone.
10:52Redirect examination on how the evaluation was recorded. Mack said he had not met the colleague who carried out the psychological testing before the two of them evaluated Clancy, that she was offered breaks more than once and declined them, and that the interviews were videotaped. Boston Globe.
10:52The Commonwealth moved to put the recording in evidence, and the judge called a sidebar. Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar as the prosecution moved to enter the tape in evidence. Boston Globe, corroborated by Boston 25, which puts Buckingham's motion at the same minute and describes the tape as a video interview of Clancy recorded at Tewksbury State Hospital in April. No ruling on the motion is reported by either outlet. Hearst Connecticut's News-Times, in an untimed post on the redirect examination, writes that ADA Shanan Buckingham entered Mack's interview with Clancy into evidence. It is the first account to say the recording went in, but it is the outlet's own description and it reports no ruling from the bench; the Globe and Boston 25 both record the offer and the sidebar and neither says what was decided. Recorded as reported, and the question is still treated here as open.
10:53The last question of the cross-examination, reported by one outlet only. NBC News gives Reddington's final question to Mack as whether Clancy's thyroid should have been checked by blood work while her doctors were prescribing her a number of psychiatric medications over the course of a few months. Mack agreed in general terms but again resisted the framing, saying he was not sure that specifically answered the question; Reddington answered "I don't care" and told the judge he was finished with the witness. The Boston Globe had already described the questioning as redirect at 10:47, so NBC News's 10:53 is a posting time for an exchange that had happened earlier. It sits with the Globe's 10:43 entry on the blood work Clancy's providers never drew. NBC News alone.
10:59The Florida case came back, after the sidebar. The Boston Globe headlines the entry as the psychiatrist acknowledging that a Florida court struck his opinion in a separate case, and reports that Mack said Florida had retained him as an expert in a civil case concerning a welfare program, and that the court there ruled he was not qualified to testify to expertise in addiction treatment in that matter. On his own answer at about 9:29, under cross-examination, he did not believe his testimony in that case had been struck. Both answers are recorded as reported. No outlet says whether this passage came on the Commonwealth's redirect or on a further cross by the defense. Boston Globe alone.
11:00Boston 25 reports the Commonwealth's redirect examination of Mack under way. It is the latest entry from any outlet at the time of this compilation. Boston 25 alone.
11:03Boston 25's own characterization of the morning, not an event in the room: it describes the cross-examination of Mack as extensive and challenging, ranging over his credentials, his findings and the DSM definitions, and reports the jurors engaged, with several taking notes throughout. Boston 25 alone, and recorded as that outlet's observation rather than as anything said or ruled.
11:04Cross-examination on how she has been at Tewksbury Hospital, and on when the depression began — the Patriot Ledger's account, posted at 11:04 under a headline reporting that Reddington had concluded a contentious cross-examination. It covers the closing stretch of that cross rather than anything happening at that minute, and the time here is the Ledger's posting time. Reddington put to Mack that Clancy has not suffered from insomnia, anxiety, mania or depression at Tewksbury over the past three years, and asked whether she had shown signs of anxiety while on the right medication; Mack said she expressed feeling anxiety but that he did not know whether she exhibited symptoms of it. Told that she has been able to bathe, communicate and carry out other functions there, he agreed. Reddington then returned to the fall of 2022 and to a period after she took sertraline in which she did not sleep for forty-eight hours and felt she did not need to sleep; Mack answered that she desperately wanted to sleep. Reddington called a decreased need for sleep a textbook symptom of mania. Mack said she had a major depressive episode within four to five months of the birth, and did not say that she had postpartum depression. Patriot Ledger, which alone names the medication, dates the sleepless period and gives the four-to-five-month figure.
11:05Cross-examination on whether postpartum psychosis is a recognized illness, on what the records showed, and on the tests her providers never ordered — the Patriot Ledger's account, posted at 11:05, again covering the close of the cross rather than that minute. Mack said psychiatrists cannot speak of postpartum psychosis as an illness because it has not been approved by the American Psychiatric Association; the Ledger headlines the entry on the association having no definition for it. Asked whether he was saying he did not believe in or accept postpartum psychosis, he said he had not said that at all, and, asked whether it is a legitimate disease or defect, said psychosis at any time is a legitimate illness needing treatment. He said he did not see any evidence of psychotic features in Clancy's medical records. Asked whether a patient not feeling like herself can be a symptom of postpartum psychosis, he said it can be if the person has psychosis, and agreed that Clancy had complained of not feeling like herself. He affirmed that she had intrusive thoughts about harming the children and suicidal thoughts, and said he was not sure whether she had poor insight. Reddington then put to him that she exhibited nine of the ten symptoms of psychosis; the Ledger reports no answer to that. On blood work, Mack said tests are needed in some situations and that in others a psychiatrist may be comfortable without one, and affirmed both that Clancy's doctors and mental health providers ordered no blood test and that no test was administered to measure how the enzymes in her blood were metabolizing her prescription medications. Patriot Ledger, which alone reports the enzyme testing and the nine-of-ten assertion. The Boston Globe reported the no-evidence-of-psychosis answer at 10:37 and the blood work at 10:40 and 10:43.
11:08The witness finished and the court broke. Mack stepped down and Judge William Sullivan called the morning recess. Boston 25 reports the same at 11:07, putting the end of his testimony and the break together. He had been on the stand since Friday afternoon. No ruling on the Commonwealth's motion to put the videotape of his interviews with Clancy in evidence has been reported by any outlet, and none of the two further rebuttal witnesses Boston 25 said were scheduled for the day had been called when the court broke.
11:20NBC News's account of the close of Mack's testimony, posted at 11:20 and covering the end of the Commonwealth's redirect examination rather than anything said in that minute; the time here is NBC News's posting time, and Mack had stepped down by about 11:08. NBC News reports the prosecution spending its final minutes with Mack seeking to reaffirm that Clancy had been diagnosed with postpartum depression and not postpartum psychosis. Mack told the court he had had a difficult time seeing Clancy himself while she was hospitalized. Reddington interjected to ask whether Mack was suggesting that his office had had any control over whether Mack could see her. Mack answered that he did not know whether Reddington's office had been involved, and that he imagined it was aware but did not know; Reddington answered that he did not know, and thanked him. The judge then dismissed the witness and the court broke until the next witness was called. NBC News alone.
11:51The jury came back from the morning recess, returning to the courtroom shortly after 11:50. Boston Globe alone.
11:54The Commonwealth called its second rebuttal witness. Prosecutors called Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, the second psychologist to have examined Clancy on the Commonwealth's behalf. The Globe puts him at Drexel University, in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and, citing his biography, says he directs a forensic assessment clinic there. Boston 25 reports the same call in the same minute and adds that he interviewed Clancy at Tewksbury State Hospital in April alongside Mack; it spells the name Heilburn, where the Globe and the Patriot Ledger give Heilbrun. He is the colleague already named in this morning's evidence as the one who carried out the psychological testing at Tewksbury and who, on Mack's account, diagnosed Clancy with bipolar II.
11:58Direct examination on the two clinics he runs — NBC News's account of the second rebuttal witness being called, posted at 11:58. NBC News reports the Commonwealth calling Dr. Kirk Heilbrun and describes him as a forensic psychologist with two clinics of his own at Drexel. He described the work of one of them as conducting psychological evaluations for courts and attorneys. NBC News names the other as the Reentry Project, which it says provides evaluation and treatment to people involved in the federal prison system. NBC News alone for the second clinic; the Boston Globe, citing his biography, has said he directs a forensic assessment clinic at Drexel.
12:01Direct examination on his qualifications. Heilbrun set out his professional background and training and said he has published some 240 writings on mentally disordered adult offenders and related subjects. He said he does not regard a person he is evaluating as a patient, because a forensic evaluator's role is different from a treating therapist's. Boston Globe alone.
12:04Direct examination on his record as a witness. Heilbrun said he does not take on a forensic evaluation of a patient of his own, given the conflict it would create, and that he has testified about 330 times in cases dealing with mental health issues in adults and juveniles, for prosecutors and for the defense. He said his testimony has been primarily for the defense, and that he works for prosecutors about 25 percent of the time. Boston Globe alone.
12:05Direct examination on working for both sides. Boston 25 describes Heilbrun as having extensive courtroom experience for the defense and for the prosecution, and records the prosecutor asking whether, when he is working for the prosecution and concludes that a person is not criminally responsible, he tells the prosecutor so. He answered that he does, and that it is something an evaluator has to be able to do. Boston 25 alone, and it does not name which prosecutor is taking the direct.
12:07Direct examination on keeping an independent perspective. The Globe names the examiner for the first time: Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague, who also took Dr. Avram Mack's direct. Heilbrun said he has testified in various cases for both the defense and the prosecution and that he maintains an independent perspective, and told the jury that in some ways not specializing gives him an advantage, because it lets him keep an open mind when he evaluates a defendant. This entry is a second Globe reporter's account of the witness taking the stand and covers ground from the start of the direct as well as this minute. Boston Globe alone.
12:08Direct examination on the two biases a forensic evaluator has to guard against. Heilbrun described retention bias as what happens when an evaluator favors the side that hired the expert, and said he works to guard against it in his own practice. He described confirmation bias as an evaluator ignoring information that contradicts his hypothesis of what happened. Boston Globe alone. The Patriot Ledger reported Reddington putting confirmatory bias to Mack on cross earlier in the morning.
12:13Direct examination on the evaluation itself. Heilbrun said he evaluated Clancy by interviewing her and reviewing the records, that he met her on multiple occasions in April for about ten hours in all, and that he has been reviewing documents in the case since January 2025. The Globe lists what he reviewed: medical records, police reports, surveillance footage, cell phone records, Apple Watch data, the grand jury proceedings and the defense expert reports. He said he also interviewed Clancy's former husband and her former mother-in-law, and that Clancy's sister chose not to take part in an interview. Boston Globe alone.
12:14Direct examination on what he did in this case. Boston 25's Bob Ward reports Heilbrun saying he met with Clancy over three days at Tewksbury State Hospital in April, the first day and the third day with Dr. Avram Mack, that those sessions were videotaped, and that he has spent 180 hours on the case. Boston 25 alone. The three-day figure and the 180 hours have not been reported anywhere else, and the videotaping is the same material the Commonwealth offered into evidence at 10:52 without a reported ruling.
12:15Direct examination on working alongside the Commonwealth's other expert. Heilbrun said that he and Mack each came up with their own report and their own analysis, that they wrote separate reports, and that they did not agree with each other on the diagnosis even though they interviewed Clancy at the same time. Boston 25 alone. It is the first time the disagreement has been described by Heilbrun; it had reached the record only through Mack's evidence on cross that the colleague who tested Clancy diagnosed bipolar II and that he did not adopt it. No outlet yet reports Heilbrun stating his own diagnosis.
12:17Direct examination on what the two examiners asked her about, and on her mental health history before September 2022. Heilbrun said he and Dr. Avram Mack asked Clancy about her thinking, her feeling and her behavior in the period leading up to the killings on January 24, 2023, and said the two of them wrote separate reports and did not agree on the diagnosis — the Globe's own account of the disagreement Boston 25 reported at 12:15. He said he concluded that before September 2022 she had a fairly limited mental health history, with some anxiety related to achievement: a straight-A student who had been anxious in nursing school, over her three pregnancies and about returning to work after each birth. She did not like to leave her children, he said, and that was an important consideration for her. Boston Globe.
12:18Direct examination on her history before the births. Boston 25's Bob Ward reports Heilbrun describing Clancy as a highly achieving person, a straight-A student, hard-working and self-disciplined, saying her anxiety fueled her, and saying she did not like to leave any of her children with anyone, at school or with a babysitter, before September 2022. In a second post timed to the same minute he adds Heilbrun saying her anxiety did not interfere with her life before September 2022. Boston 25 alone, and both posts are recorded here as one entry because the outlet gives them the same time.
12:22Direct examination on her childhood and on the autumn of 2022. Heilbrun described Clancy as hardworking and high-achieving growing up, said her anxiety did not impede her ability to function before September 2022, and said she reported no abuse or trauma of any kind as a child. Beginning in September 2022, he said, the prospect of leaving her third child, Callan, and returning to the labor and delivery floor left her badly anxious and at times low, and Callan was not taking his bottle, which made her particularly anxious about returning to the night shift. He said she was later prescribed Zoloft and started taking it in October 2022, and that things started getting very difficult at that point. Boston Globe.
12:24Direct examination on her history before September 2022 — NBC News's account, posted at 12:24 and covering the passage the Boston Globe filed at 12:17 and 12:22. NBC News reports Heilbrun saying Clancy's self-reported experience of mental illness was limited before September 2022, amounting to some anxiety while she was in nursing school and again through each of her pregnancies, and that her childhood was absent major trauma such as abuse. It quotes him saying that after each child she would have some time off, return after several months, and have some anxiety because she did not like to leave her children. That corroborates the Globe. NBC News also describes him speaking to Clancy in two interviews before trial, where Boston 25 has him meeting her over three days at Tewksbury State Hospital in April — the first and the third with Dr. Avram Mack — and the Patriot Ledger has three days and about 10.5 hours in all. The accounts are recorded as they stand; no outlet reconciles them, and none reports him being asked the number in terms.
12:25Direct examination on the autumn of 2022 and on what her husband saw. Heilbrun said Clancy's former husband, Patrick Clancy, told him that her anxiety got worse while she was taking Zoloft, with trouble sleeping and increased stress. He said that in November 2022 she texted her mother-in-law, herself a labor and delivery nurse, from the emergency room, and that she was having a great deal of difficulty with the thought of leaving the baby. Her own view, he said, was that the medications were giving her some of these adverse reactions. Boston Globe alone. It is the Commonwealth's own expert putting into the record that Clancy attributed her symptoms to her medication, which is the ground the defense argues under Commonwealth v. Berry; no outlet reports him saying whether he agrees with her about the cause.
12:28The Patriot Ledger's account of Heilbrun's direct examination, posted at 12:28 and covering the whole of it from the call rather than anything happening at that minute; the time here is the Ledger's posting time. It has Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague calling him after the recess and describes him as a clinical and forensic psychologist, a professor at Drexel University who carries out forensic psychological evaluations for judges and attorneys. It puts his output at more than 240 articles, book chapters and books, including publications on risk assessment and forensic mental health assessment, where the Globe gives some 240 writings on mentally disordered adult offenders and related subjects. Asked whether he would call the subject of an evaluation his patient, he said no, because forensic evaluators aim at accuracy while therapists aim to help their patients; asked whether he would evaluate a patient of his own, he said no, because of the conflict of interest. Asked whether he had ever found a defendant not criminally responsible when a prosecutor retained him, he said yes, and that a conclusion will sometimes favor whoever asked for the evaluation and sometimes will not. On retention bias he said it is the pull toward favoring the side that asked for the evaluation, that he is aware of it and that he tries to guard against it as much as possible. He said he reviewed Clancy's record, interviewed her about what happened on January 24, 2023 and interviewed other people, and met her over three days in April 2026. The Ledger gives both time figures together: about 180 hours on the case, of which about 10.5 hours were interviews with Clancy. Patriot Ledger. It adds, as its own context from an earlier day of the trial rather than as anything said this morning, that Sprague had previously pointed out that Dr. Paul Zeizel, who evaluated Clancy for the defense, referred to her as his patient in a request for a transportation accommodation.
12:29Direct examination on what she reported in December 2022. Boston 25's Bob Ward reports Heilbrun saying that in December Clancy described intrusive thoughts that would pop into her head — that her brain was damaged, that she could kill herself — and that these were not auditory hallucinations, because she said they were her own thoughts. Boston 25. The Boston Globe reports the same answers a minute later at 12:30, in a fuller account, and renders the second thought as a statement that she needed to kill herself.
12:30Direct examination on the intrusive thoughts, in the Boston Globe's fuller account of the answers Boston 25 filed at 12:29. Heilbrun said Clancy reported feeling disconnected from her body, among other things, while she was taking her medication. He said that in December 2022 she was beset by intrusive thoughts she herself called horrible, about hurting herself and, occasionally, about hurting her children — thoughts to the effect that her brain was damaged and that she needed to kill herself — and that she did not describe them as auditory hallucinations coming from a voice that was not there, saying instead that they were like her own thoughts. He said she also described feeling numb and zombie-like that month, and reported weight loss and feelings of hopelessness. Boston Globe.
12:31Direct examination on why that distinction matters. Heilbrun said it is an important distinction: if the voice had been outside her head, it would likely be a psychotic symptom. Boston 25 alone. Dr. Avram Mack told the jury this morning that hearing voices would be psychosis; Heilbrun located the line at whether the voice comes from outside the person's head, and applied it to what Clancy reported in December 2022.
12:33Direct examination on the fall of 2022, and NBC News's dates for the intrusive thoughts. NBC News, posting at 12:33, reports Heilbrun recounting Clancy's difficulty sleeping, racing thoughts and loss of appetite through the fall of 2022 as she continued to seek treatment from a number of doctors and medical centers, and saying that by late fall she was, in her own phrase, near the end of her rope. It reports her describing panic symptoms, concern that she was addicted to or dependent on benzodiazepines, and feeling disoriented, forgetful and disconnected from her body — the first account of the benzodiazepine concern in his evidence. NBC News dates the horrible intrusive thoughts about harming herself to late November, continuing into December, and reports that in January she began to have thoughts about harming her children. The Boston Globe places the intrusive thoughts, about herself and at times her children, in December 2022; the Patriot Ledger dates their onset to early December and has them running through December and January, occasionally about the children. The three datings are logged as a discrepancy in data/evidence.json and are not reconciled here. NBC News also has Zoloft prompting immediate difficulty, where the Globe and the Ledger describe the difficulty building over the weeks that followed; CBS Boston, in an account published later in the day, quotes him saying she immediately began to have some difficulty, which puts a second outlet behind NBC News's rendering.
12:34Direct examination on the program that turned her away and the hospital she admitted herself to. Heilbrun said that in late December 2022 staff at Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island told Clancy she did not qualify for their postpartum program, what she presented with looking to them like general anxiety, and offered her other programs she could enroll in. On January 1, 2023, he said, she took herself in to McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility, and it was suicidal thinking that brought her there. Boston Globe alone.
12:37Direct examination on how she was when McLean discharged her. Boston 25's Bob Ward reports Heilbrun saying that at the time of her discharge from McLean Hospital Clancy was cooperative and pleasant, with no psychosis and no suicidal or homicidal thinking, and that a week later the suicidal thinking came back. Boston 25, with the Boston Globe reporting the same description of her discharge a minute later at 12:38 and putting the stay at five days. No outlet reports the date she was discharged; the Globe's entry at 12:34 gives January 1, 2023 as the day she admitted herself.
12:37Direct examination on the difference between an intrusive thought and a voice — the Boston Globe's entry in the same minute as Boston 25's, and a different answer. The Globe's Lea Skene reports Heilbrun separating two things: the intrusive thoughts she described in the weeks before January 24, and the voice the defense says she heard when she strangled her children. She was having thoughts, he said, to the effect that her brain was damaged and that she needed to kill herself; she said they were not auditory hallucinations but her own thoughts, intrusive and unwelcome, and he told the jury the difference is important. He also said that during her hospitalization at McLean she denied delusions, suicidal thoughts and other symptoms. Boston Globe. It is the first time a Commonwealth expert has been reported putting the distinction directly against the defense's account of the killings themselves. The Globe adds, in its own voice rather than as testimony, that the prosecution has sought throughout the trial to downplay the seriousness of Clancy's symptoms in the months before January 24.
12:38Direct examination on the five days at McLean. Heilbrun said Clancy reported insomnia as her primary complaint there, and told staff that her children and her mother were the reason she would not kill herself. He put the stay at five days, described her mood there as numb while she denied suicidal or homicidal thoughts, and said that at discharge she was described as cooperative and pleasant, with no psychosis and no suicidal or homicidal thoughts. He said she had great difficulty with insomnia, and that in late 2022 she had complained of the medication making sleep a real difficulty and leaving her emotionally numb. Boston Globe. It corroborates the discharge description Boston 25 filed a minute earlier and adds the length of the stay; no outlet gives the date she was discharged.
12:43Direct examination on what her providers diagnosed. Heilbrun said Clancy had put it to her providers that the medications were making her worse. Between the fall of 2022 and January 2023, he said, she had multiple different providers and multiple diagnoses, which he listed as generalized anxiety, sleep deprivation, postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. He also said she discontinued her exercise routine in October 2022 and later resumed exercising. Boston Globe alone. Dr. Avram Mack told the jury at about 10:37 this morning that he found no evidence of psychosis in Clancy's record; the Commonwealth's second expert has now named postpartum psychosis among the diagnoses in it. No outlet reports Heilbrun being asked whether he adopts any of the diagnoses he listed, or who made them.
12:46The Patriot Ledger's second account of Heilbrun's direct examination, posted at 12:46 and covering the stretch from September 2022 through January rather than anything said in that minute; the time here is the Ledger's posting time. It has him saying Clancy stopped breastfeeding Callan and feared he would not take the bottle while she was away on a night shift, and that from September 2022 she was anxious about leaving him and returning to work. After she started Zoloft, he said, she had significant insomnia and stress, and she had hoped to go back to work but it was not going to work out because her symptoms were so difficult. In mid-November she went to the emergency room at South Shore Hospital reporting racing thoughts, insomnia and other symptoms, which persisted through late November. He said she had concerns all along, starting in mid-October, about the impact of the medications, and that it was her own thought that they were causing the adverse reactions — she had wanted the medication to improve her anxiety and instead it got worse. In early December she reported horrible intrusive thoughts about harming herself, which continued through December and January and were occasionally about harming the children; she said her brain was damaged and that she needed to kill herself. Those were her own thoughts, he said, intrusive and unwelcome, and not auditory hallucinations. If she had actually heard voices coming from outside her, he said, that would be a psychotic symptom, with different implications for what is wrong with a person. Patriot Ledger.
12:49Direct examination on the diagnosis he reached. Heilbrun said he diagnosed Clancy with bipolar 2 disorder. Someone with it, he said, swings in mood, with stretches of depression and stretches of mania. Reaching that diagnosis took him some time, he said, because nothing in her history before the killings looked to him like a manic episode; it was that absence of any manic incident that settled him on bipolar 2, the milder of the two forms. References to Clancy and her then-husband clearing out their garage, he said, fell well short of mania. Boston Globe, with Boston 25's Bob Ward filing the same diagnosis a minute later at 12:50 and describing bipolar 2 as less severe than bipolar. It is the first diagnosis Heilbrun has given from the stand, and it is not the diagnosis the Commonwealth's first rebuttal expert gave.
12:52Direct examination on when the illness typically begins. Heilbrun said the onset of bipolar 2 disorder usually comes in a person's twenties or thirties; the Globe notes that Clancy is now 36. He also said the question he had set himself was whether Clancy bore criminal responsibility for the killings. Boston Globe. The Patriot Ledger, in an account posted at 12:54, has the same answer given in response to a question from Sprague about whether there is any way to tell if Clancy always had bipolar 2 or whether it is new, with Heilbrun saying the disorder typically emerges in adulthood.
12:54Direct examination on how he arrived at the diagnosis, in the Boston Globe's fuller account. Lea Skene reports Heilbrun saying he had turned the bipolar question over at length before satisfying himself that it fit Clancy, and settled on bipolar II, which he put to the jury as the milder way of carrying the illness. The reason it was not immediately clear, he said under direct examination by Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague, was that he struggled to find a manic episode in her history. What settled it for him, he said, was learning that Clancy is on bipolar medication now at Tewksbury Hospital, where she is being held and receiving psychiatric treatment, and that withdrawing a mood stabilizer had produced a response in her straight away, which pointed the same way. Boston Globe.
12:54The Patriot Ledger's account of the same stretch of the direct, posted at 12:54. It has Heilbrun diagnosing bipolar 2 disorder and describing it as a less serious mode of bipolar 1 disorder, and setting out what bipolar 1 requires: periods of depressed mood together with a manic episode — jumpiness, a decreased need for sleep, racing thoughts, thinking very fast, and excessive appetites for different kinds of things. He said he was having a hard time finding evidence of a manic episode, that Clancy has been at Tewksbury Hospital, that the diagnosis of record there is bipolar disorder, and that the hospital is very careful about what it prescribes and how. The Ledger writes that he did not diagnose bipolar 1 because he did not see a clear example of manic behavior until January 24, 2023. Patriot Ledger. The Globe's account of the same reasoning has him saying he did not see a manic episode in her history before the killings and does not report anything about that day; no outlet reports him being asked whether he regards her conduct on January 24 as a manic episode.
12:57Direct examination on the psychological testing. Heilbrun said he performed psychological testing on Clancy that looked at factors including her response style when answering questions, and that he was also checking for hallucinations, delusions and a lack of focus. Boston Globe.
12:57The lunch recess. Judge William Sullivan sent the jurors out for lunch just before 1 p.m., with testimony to resume at 2 p.m. and Heilbrun still on direct examination. Boston Globe. Boston 25's Bob Ward filed the recess in the same minute, reporting the break for lunch, a return at about 2 p.m., and Heilbrun still on the stand. NBC News's national live blog files the break in the following minute, reporting the judge pausing Heilbrun's testimony, dismissing the jury and asking the jurors to return at 2 p.m. boston.com's livestream page, which had carried nothing from the sitting all morning, was updated at 1:26 p.m. to record the court in recess for lunch until about 2 p.m. with Heilbrun the witness on the stand.
12:57Direct examination on why he called the diagnosis a difficult one — NBC News's fuller account of the answers the Boston Globe filed at 12:49 and 12:54, posted at 12:57 in the same minute as the Globe's entry on the lunch recess. NBC News reports Heilbrun describing bipolar II as a classification of the disorder that is not associated with mania, and calling it a difficult diagnosis because Clancy had depressive episodes but did not describe anything that seemed to him like mania. The periods in which she was higher in energy looked to him like her simply feeling good: he said she felt really close to her husband and her children, and that it looked less like a manic episode than like her feeling good and getting back into exercise. NBC News writes, without attributing the words to the witness, that bipolar II may involve hypomania — racing thoughts and high moods — as distinct from a manic episode; the sentence that follows in its account, describing mania as a more severe symptom that can cause a break from reality or psychosis, is sourced by NBC News to the Mayo Clinic and is not testimony.
13:07AN EIGHTH OUTLET JOINS THE RECORD, AND IT IS A NATIONAL ONE. Fox News Digital has been running a day-19 live blog, covered by Adam Sabes, which this compilation reaches for the first time. It carries four posts, timed by the page itself at 9:14, 9:51, 11:00 and 1:07 p.m.; the last of them is the first account of Dr. Kirk Heilbrun's direct examination from this outlet and it adds two details no other outlet has. The 9:14 post is an interview with a columnist about the crowds outside the courthouse and is not an account of the sitting; a line in it describing the prosecution as having wrapped up its case on Monday morning before the defense began is inconsistent with every other account of this trial and is not recorded here. Fox News Digital.
13:08A NINTH OUTLET, FILING FROM CONNECTICUT, WHERE CLANCY IS FROM. Hearst Connecticut's News-Times has been running a day-19 live file, by Peter Yankowski, Lisa Backus and Austin Mirmina, updated at 1:08 p.m. and carrying Patriot Ledger photographs from inside the courtroom. Its posts are untimed. It is the fullest account of Dr. Kirk Heilbrun's direct examination outside the Boston Globe, the Patriot Ledger and Boston 25, and it carries material on the redirect examination of Dr. Avram Mack that no other outlet has. Hearst Connecticut, News-Times.
13:28The Patriot Ledger's account of the last stretch of Heilbrun's direct before the break, posted at 1:28 p.m. and covering testimony given before the recess rather than anything happening at that minute; the time here is the Ledger's posting time. Asked by Sprague what psychological testing he administered to Clancy, Heilbrun said he screened her response style for exaggeration, minimization or fabrication of symptoms, and named that instrument as the MMPI. A second test, he said, measured tangential speech and cognitive disorganization. The Ledger then reports him reviewing Clancy's symptoms around January 24, 2023, including depression and suicidal thinking, and says Judge Sullivan called the recess at that point, with testimony to resume at 2 p.m. Patriot Ledger, which labels the break the afternoon recess where the Boston Globe, Boston 25 and NBC News all call it lunch. It is the first account to name the instruments behind the testing the Globe described at 12:57, and the first to report his direct reaching January 24 itself. The Ledger does not report him giving any conclusion about that day, and no outlet reports him being asked for one.
13:29CBS Boston, whose day-19 page carried no account of Heilbrun's evidence when this day was last compiled, now carries one. Its narrative attaches no times to anything; the time here is the page's own update stamp of 1:29 p.m. It has him saying he has testified in roughly 330 cases about competency to stand trial, where the Boston Globe at 12:04 has him putting the same figure on cases dealing with mental health issues in adults and juveniles — one number, two characterizations of what the cases were about, and no outlet reports the question that produced it. CBS Boston quotes him on her history before September 2022 in terms close to the Globe's: a fairly limited mental health history, some anxiety related to achievement, a very strong student who got straight As, and anxiety connected to her three pregnancies. It dates the Zoloft to mid-October and has her getting more anxious when she started it, and quotes him saying she immediately began to have some difficulty, with symptoms of depression, really difficult insomnia and a great deal of stress. On the intrusive thoughts it has him putting the terrible thoughts about harming herself in late November and early December, with thoughts occasionally about harming her children later, and reports him saying she did not describe hearing voices — the thoughts were not auditory hallucinations but her own. CBS Boston. Its dating is a fourth version of the same passage and is added to the discrepancy logged in data/evidence.json.
13:58THE ONLY POST FROM ANY OUTLET SINCE THE RECESS BEGAN, AND IT IS ABOUT THE ROOM RATHER THAN THE EVIDENCE. NBC News's national live blog posted a description of the courtroom during the morning: mostly full, with media, spectators and Clancy's parents, who sat a few rows behind her; the jury appearing to listen intently to the testimony, some jurors with notebooks and appearing to take notes; and Clancy not appearing to react to any of the day's testimony. NBC News alone. It is the outlet's own observation of the room and not anything said in it. It corroborates the crowd the Boston Globe and the Patriot Ledger described at about 9:13, and it carries nothing from the afternoon session.
14:14COURT CAME BACK IN FROM THE LUNCH RECESS AND THE DIRECT EXAMINATION PICKED UP WHERE IT HAD STOPPED. NBC News posted at 2:14 p.m. that the court had returned from a break of about an hour to resume the testimony of Dr. Kirk Heilbrun; the Boston Globe posted at 2:15 p.m. that the jurors were back to continue hearing testimony; and Boston 25's Bob Ward, at 2:20 p.m., that the session had resumed with Heilbrun on the stand and still on direct examination. No outlet reports anything having happened in the courtroom between the jury leaving just before 1 p.m. and its return. Boston Globe, Boston 25 and NBC News.
14:24boston.com'S PAGE STOPS BEING A LIVESTREAM AND BECOMES AN ACCOUNT. Through the morning and the lunch recess boston.com carried a video player, a note of who was on the stand and background on the case, and nothing from the sitting. Updated at 2:24 p.m. it now carries two long narrative updates by Abby Patkin, stamped noon and 1:30 p.m., which together are the fullest single account of Monday morning outside the live blogs — the first on the cross-examination and redirect of Dr. Avram Mack, the second on Dr. Kirk Heilbrun's direct examination. Both are untimed narratives; the stamps are the outlet's own and are not courtroom times, and the substance is folded into the witness detail rather than given a clock here. boston.com.
14:26THE PATRIOT LEDGER POSTS A VIDEO AND NO TEXT, AND IT POINTS AT THE QUESTION THE DAY TURNS ON. Its 2:26 p.m. entry carries a video clip captioned as Dr. Kirk Heilbrun explaining the legal standards for criminal responsibility, with no written account of the testimony alongside it. It is the first indication from any outlet that his direct examination has reached the legal test itself, but what he said about it is not reported in text anywhere, so nothing of the substance is recorded here. The Ledger's headline on the entry calls him a defense witness; he was called by the Commonwealth in rebuttal, which the Ledger's own earlier posts and every other outlet record, and the headline is noted rather than treated as a change. Patriot Ledger.
14:58A SIDEBAR AFTER THE GO-TO-GOD TESTIMONY, WITH ONE OUTLET REPORTING WHAT PROMPTED IT AND ONE NOT. The Boston Globe’s 2:58 p.m. post ends by reporting that the lawyers were later called to a sidebar, and reports nothing of what it concerned, how long it lasted, or anything from the bench. Boston 25’s Bob Ward, at 2:54 p.m., reports an objection and a sidebar immediately after Heilbrun said he had asked Clancy, a devout Catholic, whether that was a mortal sin. The two fall in the same stretch of testimony, but no outlet says they are the same sidebar and the site does not treat them as one; both are recorded, and the 14:58 stamp is the posting time of the Globe entry rather than a time given for the sidebar itself. Boston Globe and Boston 25. CBS Boston, in an account updated at 3:53 p.m., describes a single sidebar: it quotes the passage of testimony and reports that Judge Sullivan called the attorneys to sidebar after a defense objection, without giving a time for it. NBC News, at 3:51 p.m., likewise reports the judge pausing the testimony at the point where Heilbrun said he had asked Clancy about mortal sin. Neither outlet says whether this is the sidebar the Boston Globe reported or the one Boston 25 timed at 2:54 p.m., and they are still recorded separately here.
14:58HOW THE ROOM TOOK THE PASSAGE THAT LED TO THE MOTION. NBC News, in a post filed at about 4:20 p.m. describing the scene in the courtroom, adds that when Heilbrun turned to mortal sin and Clancy’s Catholicism, Reddington was seen to throw down his pen on the table, and that Clancy and her parents did not appear to react to the testimony. NBC News alone on both, and it is the first account of how anyone in the room received the passage that led to the mistrial motion.
14:58THE WORDS THE WITNESS WAS SPEAKING WHEN THE OBJECTION CAME. WHDH’s 7News, in a story filed at about 5:27 p.m. by Jonathan Hall, is the first outlet to quote them. On its account Heilbrun began “When I said suicide isn’t a mortal sin,” and was interrupted by Reddington’s objection, and Judge William Sullivan then asked to speak with the prosecution. No other outlet gives the fragment, and WHDH’s form of it differs from the accounts already recorded here: it has the witness reporting what he had said to Clancy rather than the question the other outlets have him asking her. WHDH gives no time for it. That difference is part of the conflict logged in the evidence file over what he actually said, and is not resolved here.
15:04THE JUDGE SENT THE JURY OUT FOR A BRIEF RECESS, AND NO REASON WAS GIVEN. The Boston Globe reports at 3:04 p.m. that following a sidebar Judge William Sullivan sent the jurors out of the courtroom, and said they would be brought back in after a brief recess. The Globe reports that no reason was given for the break, and no other outlet has reported it. It interrupts Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s direct examination, which had not finished. Boston Globe alone. Whether the sidebar it followed is the one the Globe itself reported at 2:58 p.m. or the one Boston 25 timed at 2:54 p.m. is not stated by any outlet. CBS Boston, updating at 3:53 p.m., is the first outlet to give the sequence in one account: the objection and the sidebar came on the passage of testimony about Clancy’s Catholic upbringing, Sullivan then sent the jurors out of the room, there was a brief recess, and when the judge and the attorneys returned the defense moved for a mistrial. That is CBS Boston’s ordering of events rather than a set of times, and no outlet gives a courtroom clock for it.
15:20THE DEFENSE MOVED FOR A MISTRIAL. Boston 25’s Bob Ward posted at 3:20 p.m. that Kevin Reddington was calling for a mistrial. It is the first mistrial motion this compilation has recorded in the trial. It came while the jury was out of the courtroom on the recess the Boston Globe reported at 3:04 p.m., and with Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s direct examination unfinished. Boston 25 first; the Boston Globe, the Patriot Ledger, NBC Boston and NBC News all followed.
15:23WHAT THE MOTION WAS ABOUT: THE WITNESS BROUGHT UP THE DEFENDANT’S RELIGION. Boston 25 reports at 3:23 p.m. that the issue was the mention in court that the Catholic Church considers murder a mortal sin, that there had been a warning last week following the questioning of Susan Clancy, that the Commonwealth’s witness had just brought it up, and that the defense position was that it was intentional. The reference is to the exchange Boston 25 timed at 2:54 p.m., in which Heilbrun said he had asked Clancy, a devout Catholic, whether that was a mortal sin, and an objection and a sidebar followed. Boston 25 alone on the earlier warning; no other outlet reports it, and none gives what was said at that warning or in what terms.
15:24THE DEFENSE ARGUED THE MOTION, AND THE GROUND IT GAVE WAS INTENTIONAL MISCONDUCT. The Boston Globe reports at 3:24 p.m. that Judge William Sullivan came back to the bench and took argument on the defense motion. Reddington pointed to the moment before the jury left the courtroom when Heilbrun said he had put a question to Clancy, raised a Catholic, about what her church teaches against suicide, and said “I believe it was intentional misconduct” by prosecutors. Boston 25 reports the defense position in the same terms, and its written article, updated at 3:38 p.m., adds nothing beyond confirming that the motion was made over intentional misconduct and the injection of religion into witness testimony. The Patriot Ledger, in an account posted at 3:39 p.m., gives the argument at greater length. It quotes Reddington saying “I have to move for a mistrial” and giving as his reason “this is intentional misconduct on the part of the prosecution”, and reports that he told the court “I felt the court’s instructions were sufficient” on the earlier occasion while this one was “just over the top. It’s the same thing again — talking about religion. Talking about heaven.” CBS Boston, at 3:41 p.m., carries the same quotation with a longer tail — “talking about killing people and the impact it would have on Lindsay as well as her children” — and says this is the second time religion has been raised in the trial and that a previous question to a witness was struck from the record. boston.com’s recap, updated at about 5:21 p.m., gives the opening of it: “This has been, obviously, a long trial and a lot of work on the part of everybody involved, from the court to the staff to the prosecutors to myself and needless to say, the strain on Lindsay Clancy”, before “I have to move for a mistrial, reluctantly” and the ground of “intentional misconduct on the part of the prosecution”; it carries “This is just over the top” with the same tail CBS Boston reported. CNN’s account of the argument is shorter than the others and agrees with them: it reports the parties going immediately to sidebar, Reddington then moving for a mistrial and citing intentional misconduct on the part of the prosecution in injecting Roman Catholic faith into the trial. Hearst Connecticut’s day-19 recap, updated at about 4:52 p.m., gives the complaint in its own summary: that to bring Roman Catholic faith and mortal sin into the trial again, a week after the first time, went over the top. ABC News, in a post filed at about 5:02 p.m., is the first outlet to report Kevin Reddington’s own explanation of why the earlier incident did not draw a motion — he told the court that not moving for a mistrial on August 18 had been a “tactical decision” — and renders the rest of the complaint as religion again, heaven again, the killing of people and the effect it would have on Clancy as well as on her children, which matches the quotation CBS Boston and the Patriot Ledger carry. Los Angeles Magazine, filing in the evening, has him making the same point back: that while the court’s instructions had been sufficient on the earlier occasion, a second reference to Catholicism, heaven and sin crossed a line, which matches the accounts already recorded. WHDH’s 7News describes the complaint about the religious testimony as one of willful misconduct rather than intentional; it does not put the word in quotation marks, and every other account carries intentional.
15:24THE COMMONWEALTH’S ANSWER: NO QUESTION ABOUT RELIGION WAS PUT, AND NO HARM WAS MEANT. Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague answered that the question she asked had nothing to do with religion, and said Clancy had told Heilbrun she “had knowledge” of Catholicism treating suicide as a sin, and that the question went to whether Clancy knew the killings to be morally wrong. NBC News adds that prosecutors said the witness had not intended to be inflammatory and asked instead that the jury be instructed to disregard what he had said about her religion. Boston Globe and NBC News. On the Commonwealth’s side the Patriot Ledger quotes Sprague saying she did not ask about mortal sin and that the witness raised it as part of his account of his discussions with Clancy: “I didn’t ask a question about religion or a question that would invoke that kind of a response. There was no intentional misconduct on the part of the Commonwealth.” Hearst Connecticut quotes her saying “I don’t think the witness meant to do any harm.” ABC News gives the answer in fuller quotation than either of them: “There was no intentional conduct by the Commonwealth,” Sprague told the judge. “That was not where I intended to go with this questioning, and I don’t think that the witness intended to do any harm either, he was just explaining his rationale.” boston.com is fuller still, quoting her saying the question she had asked did not solicit any testimony about religion, Catholicism or mortal sin: “The witness was explaining his reasoning … I don’t think he was intentionally trying to inflame the jury or cause an issue in this case. I know I certainly wasn’t, because I didn’t ask a question about her religion or a question that would invoke that kind of response.” That is the same answer the Patriot Ledger, Hearst Connecticut and ABC News reported in shorter forms, and CNN carries it shorter again: that the remark was unintentional, that the prosecutors had not asked Heilbrun about religion, and that there was therefore no intentional misconduct on their part. Los Angeles Magazine gives the answer with one element no other account carries: on its rendering Sprague told the court she had not asked Heilbrun a question about religion, that Catholicism and mortal sin did not appear on the slide he was presenting from, and that she had not intended the questioning to go in that direction.
15:24THE GALLERY HAD TO BE QUIETED WHILE THE MOTION WAS ARGUED. NBC News, in a post filed at about 4:20 p.m. describing the scene in the courtroom, reports that as the mistrial argument went on the spectators in the gallery began whispering, and that a court officer told them court was still in session and they were to stay quiet. NBC News alone.
15:24THE EARLIER OCCASION THE DEFENSE POINTED BACK TO, AND AN OPEN CONFLICT OVER WHICH PROSECUTOR RAISED IT. The Patriot Ledger is the first outlet today to put the earlier incident on the record, reporting that earlier in the trial Sprague had mentioned mortal sin while questioning Patrick Clancy’s mother, Sue Clancy, and that Reddington objected then but did not move for a mistrial. It dates the incident only as earlier in the trial; Boston 25 put the bench’s warning on the subject last week, and neither is preferred here. NBC News, in a post at 3:51 p.m., puts the earlier occasion in the same terms and dates it: Reddington had objected to the injection of Catholic teaching about mortal sin when the prosecution cross-examined Clancy’s former mother-in-law last week, and Judge Sullivan instructed the jurors to strike it from the record then. That is the exchange this compilation records on August 18, the fifteenth sitting day, where the question put to Susan Clancy — an active Catholic — was whether she was aware that murder is considered a mortal sin, and where Sullivan called an immediate sidebar, struck the question and told the jury not to consider it for any reason or any purpose. NBC Boston, in an article published on August 19, gives that exchange in the fullest form yet: the prosecutor established that Susan Clancy is an active member of the Catholic church and then asked whether she was aware that murder is considered a mortal sin; she did not answer, Reddington objected at once, and the judge called counsel to sidebar before striking the question. That article does not name the prosecutor who asked it. The Patriot Ledger’s account today names Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague; the August 18 reporting has Shanan Buckingham conducting that cross-examination. Hearst Connecticut’s recap, updated at about 4:52 p.m., is the first outlet to set out the August 18 exchange word for word and name the prosecutor who conducted it. On its account Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham asked Susan Clancy whether she was an active member in the Catholic Church, Susan Clancy answered yes, and the prosecutor then asked whether she was aware that murder is considered a mortal sin, at which point Judge Sullivan shut the questioning down and directed the jury to strike what had been said. That agrees with the August 18 reporting compiled here and disagrees with the Patriot Ledger’s account today, which named Sprague. Hearst also frames the day as the second time in two weeks that prosecutors were admonished and the jury told to strike comments about Clancy’s Catholic faith. Two further filings on the evening of August 24 bear on which prosecutor put the August 18 question, and both name the same one. Boston 25, in a standalone article filed at about 5:42 p.m. by Bob Ward and separate from the live blog it ran all day, reports that the earlier occasion came as a prosecutor cross-examined Patrick Clancy’s mother the previous week, and names Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham as the questioner, quoting her asking whether she was an active member in the Catholic church and whether she was aware that murder is a mortal sin. WHDH’s 7News, filing at about 5:27 p.m., sets the same exchange out word for word and also names Buckingham: she asked the victims’ grandmother whether she was an active member in the Catholic church, the witness answered yes, and Buckingham then asked whether she was aware that murder is considered a mortal sin, at which Judge Sullivan cut in and asked to speak with Buckingham. WHDH also reports the judge as critical of the prosecution over that earlier exchange. Three outlets filing this evening — Hearst Connecticut, Boston 25 and WHDH — now name Buckingham, against the Patriot Ledger’s account of the argument, which named Jennifer Sprague and gave no quotation. ABC News’s account of the August 18 question attributes it to prosecutors without naming one; boston.com, which like the Patriot Ledger points the complaint back at the questioning of Sue Clancy and describes her as the defendant’s former mother-in-law, does not name the prosecutor either; and Los Angeles Magazine does not name one. None of the three bears on the conflict, which remains logged in the evidence file and is not resolved here. The Associated Press, in the wire story it rewrote at about 4:54 p.m., now carries the motion and the refusal as well; the version it filed at about 2:36 p.m. did not mention them.
15:32WHAT THE COURT SAID COMES NEXT. The Boston Globe reports at 3:32 p.m. that after instructing the jurors and sending them home Judge William Sullivan said he believes the prosecutors have one more witness to call after Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, that testimony will resume Tuesday, and that closing arguments in the case are expected on Wednesday. CBS Boston, at 3:41 p.m., gives the plan for Tuesday in the same terms — finish with Heilbrun, get through one more witness, and then take up where the trial goes next — and Hearst Connecticut, updating at 3:42 p.m., reports that Heilbrun’s testimony will be completed and the prosecution was then expected to put another rebuttal witness on the stand. Three outlets agree that one rebuttal witness remains after Heilbrun, which is consistent with the three the Commonwealth has been reported to have planned. The Wednesday date for closings is the Boston Globe alone and is attributed to the judge; Hearst Connecticut’s day-19 page still carries an unattributed line saying closings are expected Tuesday. That conflict is logged in the evidence file and is not resolved here. boston.com is a fourth outlet on the remaining witness, reporting that Sullivan indicated the prosecutors are expected to call one final rebuttal witness after Heilbrun, whose testimony is set to resume Tuesday. It gives no day for closing arguments, so it does not bear on that open conflict either. CNN is a second outlet to attribute the Wednesday date to the bench, and the first to record a qualification on it. It reports the judge saying the prosecution's final witnesses are likely to finish Tuesday and that closing arguments are expected to take place on Wednesday, and adds that he cautioned the timeline is subject to change. The Boston Globe had the same two days from the judge without the caution. Hearst Connecticut's unattributed Tuesday line still stands against them, so the conflict in the evidence file is not resolved by this. WHDH’s 7News, filing at about 5:27 p.m., reports that Reddington will cross-examine Heilbrun on Tuesday, in what it expects to be the last day of testimony, and that closing arguments are expected on Wednesday. It is a third outlet giving Wednesday, but unlike the Boston Globe and CNN it does not attribute the day to the judge, and it is the first to describe Tuesday as the expected last day of testimony. Both are the outlet’s expectations as filed and neither is reported as anything said from the bench.
15:32A SIDEBAR AFTER THE JURY HAD GONE. The Boston Globe reports that Judge Sullivan sent the jury home before calling the lawyers back to a sidebar, and reports nothing of what that sidebar concerned. Boston Globe alone.
16:34DEFENSE COUNSEL SPOKE TO REPORTERS AFTER THE ADJOURNMENT. This is not a courtroom event and nothing here was said in front of the jury. NBC News, in a post filed at about 4:34 p.m., reports Kevin Reddington speaking to reporters after the jurors had been sent home and his motion for a mistrial refused. He said he believes the jury will follow Judge Sullivan’s instruction to disregard the testimony about Lindsay Clancy’s Catholic faith as the case moves toward deliberations. On the trial as a whole he told reporters “It’s a trial, you never know — up and down, you’re happy, you’re not — who knows?”, and “it’s been a good trial. The evidence has come out and I feel pretty good about it.” Asked whether the struck testimony could give a ground for appeal he said he would rather not say, and NBC News notes that an appeal would require a conviction first, which Reddington said he would prefer did not happen. Of his client he said she “doesn’t have a mindset” at the moment and that she just listens and sits there. NBC News alone until after six o’clock, when Fox News Digital filed an account of its own. In a post by Adam Sabes carried as the page’s latest update at about 6:07 p.m., it reports Reddington saying he expected Judge Sullivan to deny his mistrial motion, and quotes him saying he has no doubt the jury will be able to overlook it — the outlet renders that sentence with an ellipsis inside it. That he expected the refusal is in no earlier account. Fox News Digital describes what prompted the motion as prosecutors again raising Clancy’s Catholic faith and sin; the courtroom accounts on this page have the witness bringing the doctrine up himself during the Commonwealth’s direct examination. It does not say where or when counsel spoke, and it does not say whether these are the remarks NBC News reported at about 4:34 p.m.

In evidence

Exhibits 0

The archive records no exhibits for this day.

As reported

Account

Compiled after the adjournment. The court sat through the day and rose early: the jury was sent home shortly after 3:30 p.m., following a defense motion for a mistrial, with the Commonwealth's second rebuttal expert still on his direct examination. Fourteen outlets carry something from today: the Boston Globe's live blog ran all day and has closed into a wrap-up, the Patriot Ledger filed from inside the courtroom, Boston 25 opened a day-19 blog of its own, NBC News ran a national live blog, CBS Boston carries a narrative without timestamps which includes Dr. Kirk Heilbrun's evidence, NBC Boston a livestream page which said three rebuttal witnesses are expected in all and has become a recap, boston.com a livestream page which became the fullest single account of the whole sitting, ABC News a national live file that carried nothing of the day until after five o'clock, Hearst Connecticut's News-Times an untimed file which is the fullest account of Heilbrun's direct outside the Boston outlets, Fox News Digital a national live blog, the Associated Press a wire account filed after the jury had gone, CNN a written story filed at about 4:35 p.m. which is the only account outside the live blogs to take a position on the name Heilbrun gave the killings, WHDH’s 7News a filed story of the mistrial ruling, and Los Angeles Magazine an untimed narrative of the whole sitting under a byline, filed in the evening. Boston 25 also filed a standalone article of its own on the ruling, separate from the live blog it ran all day. Kevin Reddington's cross-examination of the Commonwealth's rebuttal expert ended between 10:43 and 10:47 — NBC News is the only outlet to describe how it closed, on the question of a thyroid test her providers never ordered — the prosecution took him on redirect, and he stepped down at about 11:08. The jury returned from the morning recess at about 11:51 and the Commonwealth called Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, whose direct examination has covered his qualifications, the independence he says he keeps from whoever retains him, the roughly ten hours he spent with Clancy at Tewksbury Hospital in April, her history from childhood to the five days she spent at McLean Hospital at the start of January 2023, his own diagnosis of bipolar II, and, in the Patriot Ledger's account of the last minutes before the break, the psychological testing he ran and a review of her symptoms around January 24, 2023. Judge Sullivan sent the jury out for lunch just before 1 p.m., the jury was back at about 2:15, and the direct examination ran until the objection that ended the day. In the first half hour after the jury came back he gave the jury the result of his psychological testing and then, shortly after half past two, an opinion on why Clancy killed her children: a serious suicide attempt in which she took them with her, rather than acute psychosis with command hallucinations. His direct examination was unfinished when the sitting ended, and he has not been asked whether Clancy could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or conform it to the law on January 24.

COURT OPENED ON TIME AND THE JURY WAS IN BY ABOUT 9:15. Judge William Sullivan questioned the jurors about staying clear of the weekend's coverage of the case. The Globe describes the largest crowd of the trial so far at Plymouth Superior Court, with press and public both competing for seats, and outside the building small groups in pink supporting Clancy and a smaller group in white calling for justice for Cora, Dawson and Callan.

THE CROSS-EXAMINATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH'S REBUTTAL EXPERT RESUMED AT ABOUT 9:18, AND IT RESUMED ON HIS QUALIFICATIONS. Dr. Avram Mack returned to the stand by video link, and Kevin Reddington picked up the attack he had been running when court broke on Friday afternoon. Asked how many times he had testified in court on criminal responsibility, Mack put it at one or two, which would make this case about his third. He allowed that he had formed opinions in comparable cases. He described himself as a generalist, with focuses including adolescent mental health and addiction — an answer to Reddington's suggestion on Friday that he has little experience treating postpartum patients. Reddington then put prior cases to him in which judges had questioned his qualifications; Mack said he did not recall those cases, or disagreed with the way Reddington characterized the rulings. By about 9:29 the cross had moved to an earlier Florida lawsuit over the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, in which Mack said he did not believe his testimony had been struck, and then to the mechanics of this evaluation: two days with Clancy at Tewksbury Hospital in April, psychological testing done by a colleague, and Mack himself staying at a private home in Wellesley. Where that line of questioning is going has not been reported.

BY A QUARTER TO TEN THE CROSS HAD TURNED TO BIAS AND TO MONEY. At about 9:36 Mack said he had spoken with the prosecutors by telephone before he evaluated Clancy, and described reviewing Department of Children and Families records from February 2023 that included an interview with Patrick Clancy and showed no earlier instance of Lindsay Clancy abusing her children. At about 9:38 Reddington drew out that Mack did not meet her until 2026, roughly three years after the killings, and that he earns several hundred thousand dollars a year from forensic evaluations; in the same minute he took Mack through confirmation bias, which Mack agreed he understood to mean gathering information that confirms an idea already held. Asked whether he had hoped to help the prosecutors who hired him, Mack said no. At about 9:41 he put the first interview at Tewksbury at four or five hours, conducted with a colleague, said Clancy did not ask for a break, and said they had discussed her catheter schedule as they questioned her. At about 9:46 he acknowledged knowing the tests Reddington raised for gauging whether a subject is answering truthfully, and said one of them measures personality and was not designed as a lie detector.

BEFORE TEN THE CROSS REACHED MALINGERING, AND MACK GAVE THE DEFENSE SOMETHING. At about 9:49 he agreed that a person indicted for murder is not necessarily motivated to fabricate mental health symptoms, and said the psychological testing his colleague administered effectively showed the procedure was valid — that Clancy was answering truthfully and was not malingering. At about 9:52 Reddington pressed him further on those tests, objected to him smiling on the video link and told him it was not funny, and asked whether he knew she had shown no indication whatsoever of exaggerating her symptoms. No source reports his answer to that last question.

BEFORE TEN THE DIAGNOSIS ITSELF WAS BACK IN FRONT OF THE JURY. At about 9:55 Mack said he was aware of symptoms of bipolar disorder in Clancy, and that the medical caution about prescribing SSRI antidepressants to patients with bipolar disorder has lessened in recent years. He put the second of his two sessions with her at about three hours and said he had concluded she had a major depressive disorder. Counsel were called to sidebar after that answer. At about 9:59, after the sidebar, he said he had determined she was in a major depressive episode at the time of the killings but retained the ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct, and noted that a colleague had diagnosed her with bipolar II — a diagnosis he described as carrying no history of a full manic episode. It is the opinion he gave on Friday. The Globe's entries do not say whether the questioning at this point was still Reddington's cross-examination or had moved to redirect.

AFTER TEN THE CROSS WENT TO THE ONSET WINDOW AND TO HER SLEEP. At about 10:05 — an entry the Globe describes as cross-examination, the first since the sidebar to say so — Reddington asked whether bipolar disorder is a precursor to postpartum depression. Mack said it depends on whether the patient has a mood disorder and on when the onset falls, and gave the guidelines as four weeks for the postpartum period and six weeks for postpartum psychosis; Reddington put longer periods to him from guidelines he cited in turn. Mack said Clancy has not demonstrated any signs of mania at Tewksbury Hospital. At about 10:08 he listed the medications she takes at Tewksbury now, which the Globe does not name, and said she had reported problems sleeping when a provider increased her dosage before the killings, describing her as having wanted to sleep and having tried hard to without being able to. Reddington put it to him that she had gone forty-eight hours without sleep after that increase; the Globe records the assertion but not his answer.

BY TWENTY PAST TEN THE ARGUMENT WAS OVER WHAT COUNTS AS POSTPARTUM. At about 10:11 Reddington ran through the mental health clinicians who have diagnosed Clancy with bipolar disorder, before and after the killings, and asked whether that was a strong indicator that a person could be suffering from postpartum depression. Mack said the question confused him. The questioning then turned to how long the postpartum period runs for diagnostic purposes: Mack held to four weeks from the birth, and the Globe notes that other experts have rejected that definition and put the period at a year or longer. Reddington told him postpartum is not a disease and that every woman who has given birth remains postpartum. Mack held to major depressive episodes without psychosis. At about 10:20 he agreed that the guidelines give a decreased need for sleep as one element of mania, but said that in his view Clancy desperately wanted to sleep. He confirmed she had major depressive episodes after the birth of her third child, and when Reddington put to him that her score on one depression scale was nearly off the charts he acknowledged she was in distress. He gave an inability to laugh as an indicator of major depression, and said she had reported anxiety, worry without an apparent cause and feeling overwhelmed to her providers. At about 10:30 he said that making a diagnosis in psychiatry requires an authority and that he uses the DSM for it; the Globe's entry in that minute gives his DSM figure for the postpartum period as four months after the birth, where its own entries at 10:05 and 10:11 gave four weeks. The two do not agree, and the conflict is recorded rather than resolved.

THE PATRIOT LEDGER FILLS IN NAMES THE GLOBE LEFT OUT. The colleague who went with Mack to Tewksbury Hospital, sat through the first interview of four or five hours and carried out the psychological testing is Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, himself an expert witness for the Commonwealth. The colleague who diagnosed bipolar II is the same Dr. Heilbrun. In a post published at 10:07, overlapping the Globe's entries on either side of it, the Ledger has Mack describing bipolar disorder — flights of ideas, distractibility, engagement in pleasurable activities with painful consequences, pressured speech, grandiosity — and then answering no when Reddington asked directly whether he had concluded that Clancy suffered from a major mental disease or defect, namely bipolar II. What he concluded, he said, was a major depressive episode as part of a major depressive disorder. Told that she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at Tewksbury, he asked to be shown where. The clinicians Reddington had listed are, on the Ledger's account, nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta, who raised the possibility, and Dr. Paul Zeizel, Dr. Margaret Spinelli and Dr. Phillip Resnick, all of whom evaluated Clancy and diagnosed bipolar disorder. The Ledger also gives the substance of the Florida case: Mack had testified for the state that beneficiaries of state aid should be drug tested, Reddington characterized that as resting on needy people being more inclined to violence, drug use and suicide, and Mack said that was not the correct conceptualization.

AFTER TWENTY-FIVE PAST TEN THE CROSS REACHED PSYCHOSIS ITSELF. At about 10:25 Mack said Clancy had also indicated she had thoughts of harming herself, said he could not answer when asked whether postpartum depression can be followed by postpartum psychosis, and said that hearing voices would be psychosis. At about 10:31 he said he had come across a period in his review of the records in which Clancy worried that people could hear her thoughts; he said she was suffering, and that she at times felt that things were not real, or felt uncomfortable. Reddington asked whether he believed postpartum psychosis was a legitimate disease. The Globe records him answering that the presence of psychosis is always concerning and that psychiatric guidelines give a time frame for its onset after a birth, and does not report him answering the question yes or no. He has not withdrawn the opinion he gave on Friday.

BY TWENTY TO ELEVEN HE HAD SAID THE RECORD SHOWS NO PSYCHOSIS AT ALL. At about 10:37 Mack said he found no evidence of psychosis in Clancy's record. He allowed that she had reported intrusive thoughts and had indicated that at times things did not feel real, and said that neither necessarily amounts to psychosis; nor, he said, does appearing composed between mood episodes. Asked whether a severe loss of sleep indicates postpartum psychosis, he said he could not answer the question as it was put to him. At about 10:39 Judge Sullivan intervened from the bench to tell him how the questioning works — that a witness answers rather than asks, and that if he cannot answer a question as posed the court can have Reddington rephrase it. At about 10:40 Mack said he took no position on the standard of care Clancy received from her providers, noted that she had reported suicidal ideation, said he was not certain whether she lacked awareness of her own condition, and said blood work can be required before certain psychiatric medications are prescribed.

BEFORE A QUARTER TO ELEVEN THE CROSS TURNED TO WHAT HER PROVIDERS NEVER TESTED. At about 10:43 Mack said he did not recall seeing records showing that Clancy's providers had taken blood work to gauge how she was reacting to the medications she was prescribed, and agreed when Reddington put it to him that the testing was not done. He said checking thyroid levels is important for psychiatric patients. It was, on the reporting so far, the last ground the cross covered.

THE CROSS ENDED ON A QUESTION ABOUT A TEST HER PROVIDERS NEVER ORDERED, AND THE COMMONWEALTH SET ABOUT REPAIRING ITS WITNESS. The Globe's entry at about 10:47 is the first to describe the questioning as redirect examination, which puts the end of Reddington's cross between 10:43 and 10:47. No outlet gives the moment a courtroom time, but NBC News's national live blog reports how it closed: Reddington's last question was whether Clancy's thyroid should have been checked by blood work while her doctors were prescribing her a number of psychiatric medications over the course of a few months, Mack agreed in general terms but said he was not sure that specifically answered the question, and Reddington answered "I don't care" and told the judge he was finished with the witness. On redirect Mack said he does not regard his role as that of an investigator, that he was retained to analyze Clancy's mental state working in part from her medical records, that he was formally retained by the government in early 2025, and that he is paid for his time and work whatever opinion he reaches. At about 10:51 ADA Shanan Buckingham — his direct on Friday was taken by ADA Jennifer Sprague — had him say it again and took him to Park Dietz and Associates, the retention firm through which the Plymouth district attorney's office engaged him. At about 10:52 he said he had not met the colleague who ran the psychological testing before the two of them evaluated Clancy, that she was offered breaks more than once and declined, and that the interviews were videotaped; Judge Sullivan called counsel to sidebar as the prosecution moved the tape into evidence. Boston 25 reports the same motion in the same minute, describes the tape as a video interview recorded at Tewksbury State Hospital in April, and at 11:00 has the redirect still running. No ruling on the motion is reported. NBC News, posting at 11:20 and covering the close rather than that minute, adds that the Commonwealth spent its final minutes with Mack seeking to reaffirm that Clancy had been diagnosed with postpartum depression and not postpartum psychosis, that Mack said he had had a difficult time seeing Clancy himself while she was hospitalized, and that Reddington interjected to ask whether he was suggesting the defense had had any control over that; Mack said he did not know whether Reddington's office had been involved and imagined it was aware but did not know. The judge then dismissed him.

AFTER THE SIDEBAR THE FLORIDA CASE CAME BACK, AND HIS ANSWER ON IT MOVED. At about 10:59 the Globe reports Mack acknowledging that a Florida court struck his opinion in a separate case: Florida had retained him as an expert in a civil case about a welfare program, and the court there ruled he was not qualified to testify to expertise in addiction treatment. Under cross at about 9:29 he had said he did not believe that testimony was struck. Both answers are on this page as reported, and no outlet says whether the second came on the Commonwealth's redirect or on a further cross.

HE STEPPED DOWN AT ABOUT ELEVEN, ON THE SAME DIAGNOSIS HE CAME WITH. His last answers, at about 11:08, described bipolar disorder as a disorder of mood comparable to major depressive disorder and restated the major depressive episode he concluded Clancy had, listing what such an episode can carry: an inability to take pleasure in things, depression, guilt, a fixation on death or suicide, problems sleeping and eating, agitation and difficulty concentrating. Mack then left the stand and Judge Sullivan called the morning recess; Boston 25 reports the end of his testimony and the break together at 11:07. He had been a witness since Friday afternoon, by video link for all of Monday, and a day and a half of cross-examination did not move him off the opinion he gave on direct. Boston 25 also offered its own reading of the morning at 11:03 — an extensive and challenging cross over his credentials, his findings and the DSM definitions, with jurors engaged and several taking notes — which is that outlet's observation and not anything said in the room.

NO RULING ON THE VIDEOTAPE HAS BEEN REPORTED, AND THE WITNESS IS GONE. The Commonwealth offered the recording of his two interviews with Clancy at about 10:52 and Judge Sullivan took counsel to sidebar; neither the Globe nor Boston 25 reports what he decided, and Mack finished his evidence a quarter of an hour later without any outlet saying whether the tape was admitted.

NBC NEWS'S NATIONAL LIVE BLOG IS A SIXTH OUTLET, AND IT CARRIES A MORNING THE OTHERS ONLY PARTLY RECORDED. Read for the first time in this compilation, it names the instrument behind the sharpest exchange of the morning — the K Scale, which Mack described as a test providers use to determine whether patients are exaggerating or lying about their symptoms, and which Reddington was pressing him on when he smiled over the video link. It reports Judge Sullivan telling Mack to listen to the question and answer the question after Reddington had pressed him on how much he earns in a year, and directing him again during the exchange in which Reddington told him that postpartum simply means a woman has had a child and that postpartum is not a disease. It has the Commonwealth objecting that Mack had answered a question repeatedly, Reddington answering "Really?", and the judge urging Reddington to move on — filed in the same minute as the Globe's entry on the judge instructing the witness, with no outlet saying whether the two describe one moment or two. And it has Mack repeatedly falling back on having said something on Friday, with Reddington pressing him to say it again. No outlet reports a sanction against the witness.

THE SECOND REBUTTAL EXPERT WAS CALLED BEFORE NOON, AND HE IS THE MAN WHO RAN THE TESTING. Jurors came back shortly after 11:50, and at about 11:54 the Commonwealth called Dr. Kirk Heilbrun. He is not a new name: on Mack's cross-examination this morning he was identified as the colleague who went to Tewksbury Hospital in April, sat through the first interview of four or five hours, carried out the psychological testing that Mack said showed Clancy was not malingering, and diagnosed her with bipolar II — the diagnosis Mack declined to adopt. The Globe puts him at Drexel University, in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and, on his biography, directing a forensic assessment clinic there; Boston 25 says he interviewed Clancy at Tewksbury alongside Mack. Boston 25 renders the name Heilburn, the Globe and the Patriot Ledger Heilbrun.

HIS DIRECT HAS COVERED HIS QUALIFICATIONS AND THE WORK HE DID. At about 12:01 he set out his background and training and put his output at some 240 writings on mentally disordered adult offenders and related subjects; the Patriot Ledger renders the same answer as more than 240 articles, book chapters and books, including publications on risk assessment and forensic mental health assessment. He said he does not treat a person he is evaluating as a patient, the forensic evaluator's role being different from a treating therapist's — on the Ledger's account, because evaluators aim at accuracy where therapists aim to help. At about 12:04 he put his appearances at about 330 in cases involving mental health issues in adults and juveniles, primarily for the defense and about a quarter of the time for prosecutors, and said he would not evaluate one of his own patients. At about 12:05 Boston 25 has him agreeing that he tells a prosecutor who hired him when he finds a defendant not criminally responsible; the Ledger has him saying he has done so, and that a conclusion will sometimes favor whoever asked for the evaluation and sometimes will not. At about 12:07, answering Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague, he said he keeps an independent perspective and that not specializing gives him an advantage, because it lets him keep an open mind. At about 12:08 he defined retention bias and confirmation bias and said he guards against both — the Commonwealth putting the defense's line to its own witness before any cross-examination. At about 12:13 he described the evaluation: about ten hours with Clancy over multiple days in April, interviews with her former husband and her former mother-in-law, a sister who declined, and a documentary record he has been reading since January 2025. Boston 25 puts the April sessions at three days at Tewksbury State Hospital, the first and the third with Mack and all of them videotaped, and his time on the case at 180 hours; the Patriot Ledger gives both figures in one sentence — about 180 hours in all, of which about 10.5 were interviews with Clancy — so the two numbers measure different things and there is nothing to reconcile. At about 12:15 he said though they interviewed her together, he and Mack filed reports of their own and reached different diagnoses, and the Globe records the same answer at 12:17.

BY HALF PAST TWELVE THE DIRECT HAD REACHED HER HISTORY, AND IT DATES THE TROUBLE TO SEPTEMBER 2022. At about 12:17 he said he and Mack asked Clancy about her thinking, her feeling and her behavior in the period leading up to the killings, and that he concluded she had a fairly limited mental health history before September 2022: some anxiety related to achievement, in a straight-A student who had been anxious in nursing school, over each of her three pregnancies and about going back to work after each birth. She did not like to leave her children, he said, and that was an important consideration for her. At about 12:22 he described her as hardworking and high-achieving growing up, said her anxiety before that autumn did not impede her ability to function, and said she reported neither witnessing nor experiencing abuse or trauma of any kind as a child. From September 2022, on his account, the prospect of leaving her third child, Callan, and returning to the labor and delivery floor left her badly anxious and at times low; Callan was not taking his bottle, which made her particularly anxious about returning to the night shift. She was later prescribed Zoloft and started taking it in October 2022, and things started getting very difficult at that point. Boston Globe for that whole stretch. It is the Commonwealth's own expert placing the prescription and the deterioration in the same answer, and what he attributes the deterioration to has not been reported. He has still given no opinion on her mental state on January 24.

BY A QUARTER TO ONE HE HAD WALKED THE JURY FROM THE ZOLOFT TO McLEAN, AND DRAWN A LINE ON PSYCHOSIS. At about 12:25 he said Patrick Clancy told him his then-wife's anxiety got worse while she was taking Zoloft, with trouble sleeping and increased stress, and that in November 2022 she texted her mother-in-law — herself a labor and delivery nurse — from an emergency room, having a great deal of difficulty with the thought of leaving the baby. Her own view, he said, was that the medications were giving her these adverse reactions. At about 12:30 he described December 2022: feeling disconnected from her body while on the medication, numb and zombie-like, losing weight, hopeless, and experiencing what she called horrible intrusive thoughts about harming herself and at times about harming her children — that her brain was damaged, that she needed to kill herself. She did not describe them as auditory hallucinations from a voice that was not there, he said; she said they were like her own thoughts. Boston 25 has the same answers at 12:29 and then, at 12:31, has him telling the jury why the point matters: if the voice had been outside her head it would likely be a psychotic symptom. It is the same ground on which Mack said this morning that he found no evidence of psychosis in her record, and it is the first time the test itself has been put to the jury by a Commonwealth expert. At about 12:34 he said Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island told her in late December that she did not meet the criteria for its postpartum program, as she appeared to show signs of general anxiety, and offered her other programs she could enroll in; she then admitted herself to McLean Hospital on January 1, 2023, and what got her there, he said, was suicidal thinking. Boston 25 adds at 12:37 that she left McLean cooperative and pleasant, with no psychosis and no suicidal or homicidal thinking, and that the suicidal thinking came back a week later; no outlet reports the discharge date. He has given no diagnosis and no opinion on January 24.

BY A QUARTER TO ONE HE HAD REACHED THE DIAGNOSES IN HER RECORD, AND ONE OF THEM WAS POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS. At about 12:37 the Globe's Lea Skene has him drawing the distinction he had given in the abstract a few minutes earlier and aiming it at the defense case: between the intrusive thoughts she described in the weeks before January 24 and the voice the defense says she heard while she strangled the children. She said they were not hallucinations but her own thoughts, intrusive and unwelcome, and that difference is important, he told the jury. He said she denied delusions and suicidal thoughts during her admission to McLean. At about 12:38 he put that admission at five days, said insomnia was her primary complaint there and that she told staff that her children and her mother were the reason she would not kill herself, described her mood as numb, and said she had complained in late 2022 that the medication was making sleep a real difficulty and leaving her emotionally numb. At about 12:43 he said Clancy had put it to her providers that the medications were making her worse, and that between the fall of 2022 and January 2023 she had multiple providers and multiple diagnoses — generalized anxiety, sleep deprivation, postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. Dr. Avram Mack told the same jury at about 10:37 that he found no evidence of psychosis in her record; the Commonwealth's second expert has now named postpartum psychosis among the diagnoses in it, and no outlet reports him being asked who made those diagnoses or whether he adopts any of them. He also said she stopped exercising in October 2022 and later took it up again. The Patriot Ledger, in a second account posted at 12:46, fills in the autumn: she had stopped breastfeeding Callan and feared he would not take the bottle on a night shift; after starting Zoloft she had significant insomnia and stress and could not make a return to work work out; she went to the emergency room at South Shore Hospital in mid-November with racing thoughts and insomnia that ran into late November; her concerns about the medications started in mid-October, because she had wanted her anxiety to improve and instead it got worse; and the horrible intrusive thoughts began in early December and continued through December and January. He has still given no diagnosis and no opinion on January 24.

THE COMMONWEALTH'S SECOND EXPERT GAVE THE JURY A DIAGNOSIS, AND IT IS NOT THE ONE ITS FIRST EXPERT GAVE. At about 12:49 Heilbrun said he diagnosed Clancy with bipolar 2 disorder: mood swings, a period of depression, and manic periods. Boston 25 filed the same diagnosis a minute later and the Patriot Ledger at 12:54. He said it took him a while to get there because he could not find a manic episode in her history before the killings — the references to her and her then-husband clearing out their garage, he said, fell well short of mania — and that the absence of any manic incident is why he settled on bipolar 2 rather than the more severe bipolar 1. The Patriot Ledger sets out the bipolar 1 criteria he was measuring against, and writes that he did not diagnose bipolar 1 because he did not see a clear example of manic behavior until January 24, 2023; the Globe's rendering of the same answer stops at her history before the killings, and nobody reports him being asked about that day. What convinced him, he told Sprague on the Globe's 12:54 account, was that Clancy is now being treated for bipolar disorder at Tewksbury Hospital — the diagnosis of record there, on the Ledger's account, at a hospital he said is very careful about what it prescribes — and that taking her off a mood stabilizer had produced a response in her straight away. Asked whether there is any way to tell if she always had the disorder, he said it typically emerges in a person's twenties or thirties; Clancy is 36. He said he was focused on evaluating whether she had criminal responsibility for the killings, and at 12:57 described psychological testing that examined her response style and checked for hallucinations, delusions and a lack of focus. He had not been asked for his conclusion about January 24 when the court broke. Dr. Avram Mack, who interviewed Clancy alongside him in April, told the same jury this morning that he found a major depressive episode and not bipolar 2.

NBC NEWS ALSO CARRIES A STRETCH OF HEILBRUN'S DIRECT THE OTHER OUTLETS DID NOT. It has him telling the jury he runs two clinics at Drexel University — one conducting psychological evaluations for courts and attorneys, and one it names as the Reentry Project, providing evaluation and treatment to people involved in the federal prison system. On the autumn of 2022 it reports him recounting difficulty sleeping, racing thoughts and loss of appetite through the fall as Clancy sought treatment from a number of doctors and medical centers, describing panic symptoms and a concern that she was addicted to or dependent on benzodiazepines, and saying that by late fall she was, in her own phrase, near the end of her rope. It dates the horrible intrusive thoughts about harming herself to late November, continuing into December, and reports that in January she began to have thoughts about harming her children — where the Boston Globe places both in December 2022 and the Patriot Ledger dates the onset to early December, with thoughts occasionally about the children through December and January. CBS Boston, publishing later in the day, gives a fourth version, putting the thoughts about harming herself in late November and early December and leaving the thoughts about the children undated. Those four datings are logged in the evidence file and left unresolved. On the diagnosis, NBC News gives the fullest account of his reasoning: bipolar II is a classification of the disorder not associated with mania, and he found it a difficult diagnosis because Clancy had depressive episodes but described nothing that seemed to him like mania — the periods in which she was higher in energy looked to him like her simply feeling good, feeling close to her husband and her children and getting back into exercise. Its description of hypomania, and its account of what mania is, are NBC News's own and are not recorded here as testimony. NBC News also describes two interviews with Clancy before trial, where Boston 25 and the Patriot Ledger both have three days at Tewksbury in April; both accounts stand as reported.

THE LAST MINUTES BEFORE THE BREAK NAME THE TESTS, AND REACH JANUARY 24. In an account posted at 1:28 p.m., after the court had already risen, the Patriot Ledger gives the stretch of direct examination the other outlets summarized only in general terms. Asked by Sprague what psychological testing he administered, Heilbrun said he screened Clancy's response style for exaggeration, minimization or fabrication of symptoms, and named that instrument as the MMPI; a second test, he said, measured tangential speech and cognitive disorganization. He then reviewed her symptoms around January 24, 2023, including depression and suicidal thinking, and Judge Sullivan called the recess at that point. It is the first report of his direct reaching the day of the killings, and no outlet reports him being asked what he concluded about her mental state that day. No outlet reports what either test showed. CBS Boston, updated at 1:29 p.m., carries his evidence for the first time: her history before September 2022 in terms close to the Globe's, the Zoloft dated to mid-October, and a quotation that she immediately began to have difficulty after starting it, which puts a second outlet behind NBC News's rendering of that answer. CBS Boston also describes his roughly 330 appearances as cases about competency to stand trial, where the Globe puts the same number on cases dealing with mental health issues in adults and juveniles, and dates the intrusive thoughts about harming herself to late November and early December — a fourth dating of the same passage.

NO RULING ON THE VIDEOTAPE, AND NO SCHEDULE FROM THE BENCH. The Commonwealth's motion to put the recording of Mack's interviews in evidence was taken to sidebar at about 10:52 and no outlet reports what was decided. Judge Sullivan told the jury this morning that the Commonwealth would finish its rebuttal and that closing arguments and the charge would follow, but gave no dates; the Globe's standing summary says jurors are expected to begin deliberating this week and puts closings as early as Tuesday, which is the outlet's expectation rather than anything fixed on the record. Boston 25 counted two rebuttal witnesses to come after Mack and NBC Boston three in all; on either count at least one more remains after Heilbrun. The Patriot Ledger reads the Commonwealth's list as leaving Dr. Gregory Saathoff and Heilbrun, which would make Saathoff the last, but that is its reading of a witness list and not a call from the bench. boston.com's page is a livestream, updated at 1:26 p.m. to record the court in recess for lunch until about 2 p.m. with Heilbrun on the stand, and carrying no testimony.

TWO OUTLETS THAT HAD NOT BEEN READ BEFORE TURN OUT TO CARRY EVIDENCE NOBODY ELSE HAS. Hearst Connecticut's News-Times, filing from the state Clancy is from and running Patriot Ledger photographs from inside the courtroom, updated its day-19 file at 1:08 p.m.; Fox News Digital's day-19 live blog posted its account of Heilbrun's direct at 1:07 p.m. Between them they add: that Heilbrun does independent contractor work for Park Dietz Associates, the same retention firm through which the Commonwealth engaged Mack; that Clancy had about six months of treatment for anxiety during nursing school and was a competitive cheerleader; that she received the Zoloft prescription from Dr. Jennifer Tufts but did not start taking it until October; that the intrusive thoughts were to the effect that her brain was damaged and that she needed to kill herself, and that a voice other than her own would have pointed to a different diagnosis; that by mid-December she felt hopelessness and a loss of pleasure; that she went to McLean because of thoughts of killing herself, was hopeful on discharge because she had been weaned off some medication, and relapsed within a week; and that he settled on bipolar II because that was the diagnosis of Tewksbury Hospital, which he said is very careful about what it prescribes. Hearst Connecticut also states in terms that the court broke for lunch before he gave any conclusion on criminal responsibility. On Mack, Fox News Digital has him conceding on cross that the World Health Organization uses a postpartum window different from the DSM's four weeks and that a proposed revision to the DSM uses six, and Hearst Connecticut is the only account of the redirect on the diagnosis itself — the specifiers, the importance of forming your own opinion, and his definition of a major depressive episode — as well as the only report that the videotape of his interviews with Clancy was entered in evidence, which it gives without a ruling from the bench.

THE AFTERNOON HAS BEGUN TO BE FILED, AND THE FIRST OF IT IS THE TESTING RESULT. Court came back in from the lunch recess and the jury was in the box by about 2:15 — NBC News timed the return at 2:14 p.m. and put the break at about an hour, the Boston Globe at 2:15 p.m., and Boston 25's Bob Ward at 2:20 p.m., who says Heilbrun is on the stand and still on direct examination. At about 2:21 p.m. the Globe reports the first result from the psychological testing he had described before the break: it showed Clancy had a slight tendency to underreport her symptoms, and he called her a bright woman. Before the recess the Patriot Ledger had him naming the MMPI and saying the screening was for exaggeration, minimization or fabrication of symptoms; what it found, on this account, runs the other way. He also said the testing showed she was and remains at risk for suicide, and the Globe describes her as being on one-to-one suicide protections at Tewksbury Hospital, where Boston 25 has him telling the jury the one-to-one suicide watch has run three years and still does. The Globe's post also carries a line that she reported no adverse childhood events, ground his direct had already been over before lunch. He has still not been reported giving an opinion on her mental state on January 24, 2023.

HE GAVE THE JURY TWO EXPLANATIONS AND CHOSE THE ONE THAT IS NOT PSYCHOSIS. At about 2:25 p.m. NBC News has him putting Clancy's one-to-one suicide risk at the highest level, running three years and continuing, and calling her a bright woman likely to underreport what is really wrong with her; Boston 25's Bob Ward, in the same minute, has him telling the jury the killings were out of character, that the children were not spanked, that discipline in the house was not hands-on and that she and Patrick Clancy felt bad when they yelled at them. At about 2:30 p.m. the Boston Globe reports him describing what Clancy did in January 2023 as a serious suicide attempt, made when she felt highly depressed and hopeless and felt something was wrong with her mind as she struggled to focus, and saying she had been trying very hard since October 2022 to control what she was experiencing without it working. Then, at about 2:33 p.m., the opinion the Commonwealth called him to give began to arrive. He told the jury that the ordinary motives for killing did not fit Clancy, that acute psychosis with command hallucinations is one possible explanation in such a case, and that people also sometimes kill their children when they are about to end their own lives and believe they are protecting them from further suffering. He placed Clancy in the second category — even though, the Globe records, she told him a voice had told her to kill her children and herself. Boston 25 filed the same answer at 2:30 p.m. and quotes him saying she wanted the children to be with her so they would not suffer when she was gone; NBC News quotes him framing it as two possible explanations for why she did what she did and reports him reaching for the Holocaust as a hypothetical to explain the second. Three outlets agree on the substance. It is the first thing he has said that bears on January 24, and it is the opposite of what Dr. Phillip Resnick told the same jury for the defense. He has still not been reported being asked whether Clancy could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or conform it to the law that day; the Patriot Ledger's 2:26 p.m. entry is a video clip captioned as him explaining the legal standards for criminal responsibility, posted with no text, and no outlet reports in words what he said about them.

boston.com TURNS FROM A LIVESTREAM INTO THE FULLEST SINGLE ACCOUNT OF THE MORNING. Its page carried nothing from the sitting all morning; updated at 2:24 p.m. it carries two long untimed narratives by Abby Patkin, stamped noon and 1:30 p.m. On Dr. Avram Mack they add the names of the medications Clancy is treated with at Tewksbury Hospital now — Zyprexa, clonidine, trazodone and occasional propranolol, which the Boston Globe recorded him listing at 10:08 without naming — his answer that he did not think it was necessarily the conclusion of the Department of Children and Families report that there were no records of Clancy abusing her children, which does not sit with the Globe's rendering of the same exchange and is logged as a discrepancy, his answer that he was not sure he understood the context when Reddington put it to him that postpartum psychosis waxes and wanes, his note that it is not a standalone illness in the DSM-5, and a sustained objection to the moment Reddington told him this was not funny. On Dr. Kirk Heilbrun they add that he interviewed Patrick Clancy and Patrick's mother Sue and tried to interview Clancy's sister Allison Ozga; the exchange behind the garage, in which Patrick Clancy told him it was not all her filling twenty trash bags and that he was definitely a part of it; a quotation that what really convinced him was that Clancy has been at Tewksbury for more than three and a half years with bipolar disorder as the diagnosis of record; that she was forced off a mood stabilizer for medical reasons and responded immediately; that she tried several times in December 2022 to get back into exercising at the Kingsbury Club; and the full list of what her providers diagnosed between the autumn of 2022 and the end of January 2023, together with a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis made since the killings that no other outlet reports.

HE GIVES THE JURY HIS REASONS FOR NOT BELIEVING THE VOICE. Between about 2:35 and 2:50 p.m. Heilbrun's direct examination turned from why he thinks Clancy killed her children to why he does not accept the command hallucination the defense case rests on, and four outlets carry it. She heard the voice, on his account, only across the 18 minutes or so the killings took, having never heard it before that night and never since — a pattern he called, to put it mildly, very, very unusual. She told different people different versions of what it said: the Boston Globe and NBC News have her reporting that it repeatedly told her this was her last chance to kill the children so she could kill herself, and separately that it said they would suffer without her, or that she had to take them with her, which the Globe places in an account she gave a hospital staffer. The more inconsistency there is, he said, the harder it becomes to credit any one account of an auditory hallucination. He added that genuine psychotic hallucinations can be intermittent where hers was constant, and that Clancy never reported trying to stop the voice or distract herself from it, which he said people in the throes of psychosis often do. NBC News and the Patriot Ledger both have him saying he treats with caution a symptom said to have appeared only while an offense was being committed, since that timing conveniently reduces the blame; neither reports him saying in terms that he thought Clancy was doing that. Against all of it, NBC News reports him allowing that if she truly did hear the voice as described, that would be a command hallucination and a symptom of psychosis — his objection, on that account, is to the pattern and not to the content.

A MOTIVE NOBODY AT THIS TRIAL HAS ADVANCED, AND A THIRD FIGURE FOR THE WATCH. The Boston Globe at 2:36 p.m. reports him saying he also weighed whether Clancy feared her children would be taken from her, and that as a mandated reporter herself she knew she could lose them if she disclosed thoughts of harming them; Hearst Connecticut has the same ground as a concern that someone would take the children away, which he said was not a paranoid thought because child protective services may have intervened had she said so. Neither reports what he made of it. Hearst Connecticut, updated 2:46 p.m., is also a fifth account of the two explanations and has him leaning toward the suicide-attempt explanation rather than placing Clancy in it, adds that she was having vivid thoughts and was concerned people could hear them, and puts the one-to-one watch at three and a half years where Boston 25 and NBC News give three; that conflict is logged. The Patriot Ledger's 2:42 p.m. account is the only one to report the question behind the two explanations — Sprague asking whether he had considered evidence against psychosis — and it is a second outlet, with NBC News, on the Holocaust hypothetical. The Boston Globe's 2:50 p.m. post carries one more figure for the postpartum window, this time from the second expert: medical guidelines, he said, put the onset of postpartum symptoms at one to two months after the birth. He has still not been reported answering the criminal responsibility question itself.

THE VOICE, HE TOLD THE JURY, WAS MORE LIKELY A THOUGHT. After about 2:55 p.m. Heilbrun stopped listing reasons to doubt the command hallucination and offered the jury something in its place. The Boston Globe reports him saying his assessment suggested Clancy was describing exaggerated or fabricated hallucinations, and NBC News gives the count behind it: about three points on which her account more closely resembled an exaggerated or fabricated hallucination, one on which it looked more genuine, and one mixed. The point in her favor, on NBC News's account, was that she described the voice as external rather than as something in her own mind. Against it were the absence of any accompanying delusion, which he put at about 88 percent of command hallucinations — the Patriot Ledger is a second outlet on that figure — the brevity of the episode, and her failure to report any attempt to stop it; the Patriot Ledger adds what he said that attempt usually looks like, praying or listening to music. The mixed point was that the voice was an unfamiliar male one where hallucinations are typically familiar, which he said he was not counting either way. What he put in place of the voice was an intrusive thought: four outlets have him saying that an unwelcome intrusive thought about killing the children and herself would be consistent with the thoughts she had been reporting for months, and the Patriot Ledger dates those to December 2022. The Boston Globe and the Patriot Ledger both report him using her own words to Patrick Clancy as a test — asked what she had done, she said she had tried to kill herself, where someone acting on a command hallucination would more likely have said something vague about having done what she had to do, or what the voice said.

PAIN, SUFFERING, AND WHAT SHE SAID TO THE CHILDREN. The Boston Globe's 2:58 p.m. post has him saying months of thoughts and impulses preceded a serious suicide attempt, that she was in pain, was suffering and was, he thought, even desperate, all of it common among people who kill themselves, and that she was convinced her children would suffer without her; Hearst Connecticut and the Patriot Ledger carry the same evidence in their own terms. Two outlets report him telling the jury that Clancy said “Go to God” to each child during the killings, expecting that they would be reunited in heaven. The Patriot Ledger states his conclusion flatly — a suicide attempt rather than a psychotic episode. One line in the Globe's 2:58 p.m. post touches the legal test for the first time: Clancy told him the wrongfulness of what she was doing had not been in her mind at all during the killings. That is her statement as he reported it, not his opinion, and he has still not been reported being asked whether she could appreciate wrongfulness or conform her conduct to the law. The lawyers were called to a sidebar after that answer.

A NAME FOR THE KILLINGS, AND TWO OUTLETS ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF IT. At 3:00 p.m. the Boston Globe reports Heilbrun telling the jury that his evaluation showed “suicide combined with altruistic filicide,” which he glossed as killing your kids out of love — a highly lethal and very serious suicide attempt, preceded by months of thoughts and impulses about harming herself, in which the decision to kill the children was in all likelihood meant to spare them the suffering of being left with no one to care for them, and in which the evidence he pointed to was that she was known to worry about leaving them for date night or school or going back to work. At 3:07 p.m. NBC News reports the same witness saying that Clancy telling her husband she had tried to kill herself, without mentioning the voice or the children in the basement, pointed him away from altruistic filicide, and that what it looked like instead was an extreme attempt at suicide. The two cannot both be right and neither is preferred here; the conflict is logged and left open. Boston 25 became a third outlet on what she said to her husband, a fourth on his account that she was in pain, suffering and desperate, and a third on “Go to God.” It also carries something no one else has: at 2:54 p.m. it reports him saying he had asked Clancy, a devout Catholic, whether that was a mortal sin, and that an objection and a sidebar followed. At 3:04 p.m. the Globe reports that after a sidebar Judge Sullivan sent the jury out for a brief recess with no reason given, leaving the direct examination unfinished and the criminal responsibility question still unasked. The sitting then ended on a mistrial motion. At 3:20 p.m. Boston 25 reported Reddington calling for a mistrial over the Commonwealth’s witness bringing up Clancy’s Catholic faith; the Boston Globe reports the argument at 3:24 p.m., with Reddington calling it intentional misconduct by prosecutors and Sprague answering that her question had nothing to do with religion. Judge Sullivan denied the motion and said he would instruct the jury instead. NBC News reports at 3:33 p.m. that he told the jury the defendant’s religious upbringing is an absolutely inappropriate area of testimony, that it is stricken and not to be considered, and that the witness’s understanding of Catholic teaching is irrelevant and immaterial. The jury was sent home for the day and returns Tuesday, with Heilbrun’s direct examination unfinished, the criminal responsibility question still unasked and cross-examination not begun. The fuller accounts filed after the adjournment add the argument in the words the lawyers used and the judge’s own characterization of what had happened: on the Patriot Ledger’s account Sullivan said the witness had testified that Clancy was raised as a Catholic and had then given an opinion on the Catholic conception of heaven, asked “How is any of that proper?”, and said he was not going to declare a mistrial at this time. Reddington told the court that Sprague had raised mortal sin earlier in the trial while questioning Sue Clancy and that he had not moved for a mistrial then; Sprague said she had asked no question about religion and that there was no intentional misconduct by the Commonwealth. CBS Boston published the passage of testimony itself, in which Heilbrun told the jury Clancy expected to be reunited with her children in heaven, that she was raised Catholic, that as he understood Catholic considerations that is not necessarily what happens, and that he had asked her whether suicide is a mortal sin, before an objection and a sidebar cut him off. The Boston Globe reports at 3:32 p.m. that Sullivan said the Commonwealth has one more witness to call after Heilbrun and that closing arguments are expected on Wednesday, and that he called the lawyers back to a sidebar after the jury had gone.

AFTER THE ADJOURNMENT, THE WIRE AND A SECOND PUBLICATION OF THE PASSAGE. The Associated Press filed its account of the sitting after the jury had gone, leading on the diagnosis rather than on the mistrial motion, which that version did not carry. It reports Heilbrun testifying that Clancy has bipolar disorder and was anxious, depressed, sleepless and suicidal in the weeks before the killings, and quotes him on the difficulty of the diagnosis and on his search for a manic episode he could not find. NBC News, at 3:51 p.m., became the second outlet to publish the passage of testimony that ended the sitting, in the same terms as CBS Boston. NBC News also dated the earlier religion incident — the prosecution’s cross-examination of Clancy’s former mother-in-law last week, struck by the judge at the time — which is the exchange this compilation records on August 18, though today’s Patriot Ledger and the August 18 reporting name different prosecutors as having asked the question.

THE LAST HOUR OF FILING ADDED ONE THING. Fox News Digital, which had run four posts during the day, added a fifth at about 4:10 p.m. on the mistrial motion and the refusal, and is the only outlet to report Judge Sullivan calling the testimony “problematic”. Otherwise the outlets have been consolidating rather than adding: the Boston Globe’s live blog closed and its page became a wrap-up, NBC Boston’s blog ended and became a recap, and the Patriot Ledger rewrote the top of its day-19 file around the mistrial motion. Nothing in any of them adds to Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s evidence, which is where it stood at the adjournment: his direct examination unfinished, the criminal responsibility question neither put to him nor answered, and no cross-examination begun. The one filing after that is a description of the room rather than of the evidence. NBC News, at about 4:20 p.m., reports Reddington throwing his pen down on the table as the witness began speaking about mortal sin and Clancy’s Catholicism, Clancy and her parents not appearing to react, and the gallery whispering through the mistrial argument until a court officer told the spectators that court was still in session. The last filing of the day so far is not from the courtroom at all: NBC News reports at about 4:34 p.m. that Kevin Reddington spoke to reporters after the adjournment, saying he believes the jury will follow the instruction to disregard the testimony about Clancy’s faith, that it has been a good trial and the evidence has come out, and declining to say whether the episode could give a ground for appeal.

THE WIRE WAS REWRITTEN, AND HEARST CONNECTICUT TURNED ITS FILE INTO A RECAP. The Associated Press replaced its 2:36 p.m. story at about 4:54 p.m. with a longer one, still by Michael Casey, which leads on the conclusion rather than the diagnosis — that Clancy was not acutely psychotic when she killed the three children, and that she took their lives so they would not “suffer” once she had taken her own — and which, unlike the earlier version, carries the mistrial motion, the refusal and the instruction to the jury. It states plainly the reason Heilbrun gave for ruling out acute psychosis with command hallucinations: he did not believe her account of the voice. Hearst Connecticut turned its day-19 file into a recap two minutes earlier. That recap quotes the instruction at greater length, is the first account to say which prosecutor the judge told to speak to the witness, and gives the August 18 mortal sin exchange word for word — naming Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham as the prosecutor who asked it, where the Patriot Ledger’s account today named Jennifer Sprague. The conflict over who asked it is logged in the evidence file and is not resolved here. Nothing in either filing bears on where Dr. Kirk Heilbrun’s direct examination stopped: it was unfinished when the jury went home, the criminal responsibility question has still not been put to him, and cross-examination has not begun.

A NATIONAL OUTLET FILED ITS OWN ACCOUNT AFTER FIVE O’CLOCK. ABC News, which had carried nothing of day 19 until this evening, posted at about 5:02 p.m. It is the first outlet to report why the August 18 mortal sin question did not draw a mistrial motion at the time — Kevin Reddington told the court that not moving then had been a “tactical decision” — and the first to give Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague’s answer to today’s motion whole. Its account of the direct examination adds Dr. Kirk Heilbrun on the brief January 2023 inpatient stay, which he said left Clancy with “a small shred of hope” before she worsened again, and his own statement of why the diagnosis was difficult. It also quotes a stretch of the morning’s cross-examination of Dr. Avram Mack that no other outlet has published, and it gives the time the sitting resumes: 9 a.m. Tuesday, with Heilbrun still on the stand.

boston.com BECOMES THE FULLEST ACCOUNT OF THE AFTERNOON, AND IT SUPPLIES THE QUESTION BEHIND THE ONE LINE THAT TOUCHES THE LEGAL TEST. Its page, which had been a livestream through the morning and a two-part narrative of the morning at 2:24 p.m., was rewritten at about 5:21 p.m. by Abby Patkin into a recap of the whole sitting, with a section headed as a 4:30 p.m. update on the afternoon. Most of what it carries is already on this page from the Boston outlets, but five things are new. It gives the question that produced the answer the Boston Globe recorded at 2:58 p.m.: Heilbrun put to Clancy the question whether, in the moment, she knew what she was doing to be unlawful or wrong, and quotes her answer as he reported it — that she was not thinking about it at all, “No thoughts, no decisions, none of that. It was just all action.” It is still her account and not his opinion, and he has still not been reported being asked or answering the criminal responsibility question. It quotes his choice between the two explanations in his own words, that most of the evidence he saw supported the second and not the first, and quotes his definition of altruistic filicide; that goes to the open conflict over whether he adopted or rejected the term, which is not resolved here. It carries the psychological testing in fuller form, including a scale no other outlet names. It gives the mistrial argument at greater length than any other account, on both sides. And it quotes the judge's reason for sending the jury home early — that he did not want the last thing they heard to be this witness's understanding of Catholic teaching. CBS Boston restamped its page at 5:31 p.m. with a topper and a video and added nothing in substance; the Associated Press, the Boston Globe, the Patriot Ledger, Boston 25, NBC News, NBC Boston, Hearst Connecticut, Fox News Digital and ABC News have not moved. CNN's story, by Eric Levenson and Nicki Brown, was published at about 4:35 p.m. and is the twelfth outlet on the sitting. Most of what it carries was already on this page from the Boston outlets, but it bears on both of the day's open conflicts. It has Heilbrun describing the killings as altruistic filicide, and it reaches that description from the same evidence — what Clancy said to her husband when he found her — that NBC News reported him using to rule the term out, which sharpens the conflict rather than settling it. It is also the second outlet to attribute Wednesday to the judge for closing arguments, and the first to report him cautioning that the timeline could change.

A further check at about 6:25 p.m., after two hours in which none of the twelve tracked pages moved in substance, found two more filings, both outside the tracked set. WHDH’s 7News published a story by Jonathan Hall at about 5:27 p.m. and is the thirteenth outlet on the sitting; Boston 25 filed a standalone article by Bob Ward at about 5:42 p.m., separate from the live blog it ran all day. Almost everything in both was already on this page. Three things were not. WHDH is the only outlet to quote the words the witness was speaking when the objection came: it has Heilbrun beginning “When I said suicide isn’t a mortal sin,” before Reddington cut him off, and Judge Sullivan then asking to speak with the prosecution. Both filings name Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham as the prosecutor who put the mortal sin question on August 18, and WHDH sets that exchange out word for word, so three outlets filing this evening now name her against the Patriot Ledger’s Sprague; the conflict is still logged unresolved. And Boston 25’s own filed story describes the testimony that prompted the motion as questions Heilbrun asked Clancy about suicide being a mortal sin, where its live blog had put the doctrine on murder — the outlet whose account was the outlier on that point has now published the other version. WHDH also reports that Reddington will cross-examine Heilbrun on Tuesday in what it expects to be the last day of testimony, and gives Wednesday for closing arguments, though it does not attribute the day to the bench as the Boston Globe and CNN do.

Index terms

Topics 135

Commonwealth rebuttal
cross-examination of Mack
expert qualifications challenged
criminal responsibility
closing arguments expected
verdict slip unresolved
postpartum psychosis contested
redirect examination of Mack
videotaped interviews offered in evidence
postpartum psychosis and the DSM
no metabolic testing of her medications
second rebuttal witness called
forensic evaluation distinguished from treatment
closing arguments anticipated as early as Tuesday
expert independence and bias
separate reports by the Commonwealth's experts
what the Commonwealth's experts reviewed
Clancy's history before September 2022
Zoloft prescribed October 2022
onset dated to September 2022
childhood history and trauma
intrusive thoughts described as her own
auditory hallucinations denied
McLean Hospital admission January 1, 2023
postpartum program criteria not met
medication side effects reported by Clancy
postpartum psychosis among the diagnoses in the record
McLean Hospital five-day admission
South Shore Hospital emergency room, November 2022
intrusive thoughts contrasted with the defense's account of January 24
exercise routine discontinued October 2022
bipolar II diagnosed by the Commonwealth's expert
manic episode not found in her history
Tewksbury Hospital treatment and diagnosis of record
response to withdrawal of a mood stabilizer
psychological testing of the defendant
the K Scale
directions from the bench during the cross-examination
close of the cross-examination of Mack
benzodiazepine dependence reported
onset of the intrusive thoughts contested
hypomania distinguished from mania
the Drexel clinics and the Reentry Project
the MMPI and response-style testing
symptoms around January 24 reviewed on direct
malingering screened for by the Commonwealth's expert
Park Dietz and Associates
the Zoloft prescriber named in the rebuttal evidence
the World Health Organization postpartum window
the Tewksbury diagnosis as the reason for bipolar II
the intrusive thoughts quoted
the courtroom during the sitting
six months of treatment during nursing school
response-style testing results
underreporting of symptoms
one-to-one suicide watch at Tewksbury
two explanations offered for the killings
acute psychosis with command hallucinations weighed and rejected
the killings described as a serious suicide attempt
conduct described as out of character
current medications at Tewksbury named
the child protection records and prior abuse
every diagnosis in the record listed
post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosed after the killings
the garage and hypomania
legal standards for criminal responsibility explained
the voice heard only during the killings
inconsistent accounts of what the voice said
a symptom reported only during the offense
no attempt to stop or distract from the voice
evidence against psychosis considered on direct
fear that the children would be taken
the defendant's own mandated reporter status weighed as a motive
duration of the one-to-one suicide watch contested
postpartum onset put at one to two months
exaggerated or fabricated hallucinations
the voice explained as an intrusive thought
command hallucinations and accompanying delusions
coping mechanisms not reported
what the defendant said to her husband on January 24
wrongfulness not in her mind, on her account to the expert
“Go to God” and an expectation of reunion
the postpartum connection doubted
the intermittency of a genuine hallucination contested
sidebar after the afternoon testimony
suicide combined with altruistic filicide
whether the expert adopted or rejected altruistic filicide
mortal sin and the defendant’s faith
objection and sidebar during the afternoon direct
jury sent out for a brief recess
defense motion for a mistrial
mistrial denied
the defendant’s religion as evidence
testimony struck and the jury instructed
what the expert said about Catholic doctrine contested
jury sent home for the day
closing arguments expected Wednesday
a further rebuttal witness still to be called
religion raised earlier in the trial
prosecution reprimanded
the Associated Press account of the sitting
the bipolar II diagnosis in his own words
the mortal sin question of August 18
who put the earlier mortal sin question
the judge’s word for the struck testimony
the courtroom during the mistrial motion
defense counsel outside the courtroom
the wire account rewritten after the adjournment
who asked the August 18 mortal sin question
the prosecutor the judge addressed
the ABC News account of the sitting
why no mistrial was sought on August 18
a small shred of hope after the January admission
testimony to resume at 9 a.m. Tuesday
the question that produced the wrongfulness answer
importance and control of thoughts
the symptoms reviewed for January 2023
whether the fear about the children was a delusion
the mistrial argument in fuller quotation
the judge’s reason for sending the jury home early
the boston.com account of the sitting
the CNN account of the sitting
altruistic filicide reached from the husband's question
closing arguments cautioned as subject to change
the jurors' reaction to the instruction
how rare a symptom confined to the offense is
the words spoken when the objection came
the WHDH account of the sitting
a second Boston 25 article on the ruling
Tuesday expected as the last day of testimony
the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale
the PowerPoint the rebuttal psychologist presented from
the Beck and Columbia suicide assessments
the obsessional beliefs questionnaire
the Commonwealth's answer to the mistrial motion

Reporting relied on

Sources 22

Sources: globe-day-19, ledger-day-19, boston25-day-19, globe-final-days, herald-closings-week, cbs-day-19, nbcnews-day-19, nbc-day-19, boston-day-19, ap-defense-rests, cnn-rebuttal-begins, wfsb-winding-down, globe-day-18, hearst-ct-day-19, fox-day-19, ap-day-19, nbc-mortal-sin-aug19, abc-day-19, cnn-day-19, whdh-day-19, boston25-mistrial-story, lamag-day-19

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].