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Calaroga Shark Media. Good morning. This is Daily Crime and
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Justice from Calaroga Shark Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher.
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It's Friday, August 28th, 2026. We told you Thursday that
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a jury in Jacksonville had the Mario Fernandez-Saldana case and
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that we would have the verdict as soon as it came.
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It came Wednesday afternoon, and it was guilty. Both counts.
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First-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony in
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the death of Jared Breidegen. Automatic life. In Plymouth, the
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five-week Lindsay Clancy trial ended Thursday with closing arguments. And
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before those arguments, Judge William Sullivan made a ruling that
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reshapes everything. That jury is no longer choosing between murder
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and a psychiatric hospital. They now have a third door.
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And in Las Vegas, prosecutors rested their case against Dwayne
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Davis after 25 witnesses and about eight hours of recordings
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of the defendant. The last thing they showed that jury
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was a video of Davis holding up his own book
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and telling people to spend $ 20 on it. Let's get
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into it. On the night of February 16th, 2022, Jared
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Bridegan dropped his twins, Abby and Liam, at their mother's
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house in Jacksonville Beach after taking them out to dinner.
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He got back in his Volkswagen with his two-year-old daughter
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Bexley strapped in the back seat and started for home.
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On a dark one-way street, he found a tire lying
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across the road, stopped, and got out to move it.
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Four rounds were fired at him. Two of them hit him.
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He died on the asphalt while his daughter sat in
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her car seat a few feet away. And one correction
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from our Thursday show, I told you he was shot
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four times. Four shots were fired, he was struck twice.
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The detail matters and I want it right. Jared Breidegen
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was 33 years old, a senior design manager at Microsoft
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and a father of four. For months, police could not
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construct a motive. He had no enemies. His wallet was
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not taken, his watch was not taken. It took 11
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months to make the first arrest and four and a
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half years to seat the first jury. On Wednesday afternoon,
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that jury came back guilty on both counts. Mario Fernandez
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Saldana is 38. He faces an automatic sentence of life
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in prison, and he is due back in court on
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October 5th to be given a sentencing date. And I
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want to be precise about what that jury actually decided,
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because it is a bigger legal statement than the headline suggests.
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Nobody ever accused Mario Fernandez Saldana of firing a gun.
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The state's own case was that Henry Tennant pulled the trigger.
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What the state argued, and what this jury accepted, is
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that under Florida law, a person who encourages, assists, advises,
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or hires a killer is as guilty as the man
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who fires. They accepted that with no murder weapon. It
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has never been found. With no DNA belonging to Fernandez
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Saldana on anything tested. No surveillance, no fingerprints, no hair
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putting him in that truck or in Jacksonville Beach that night.
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The lead detective conceded every bit of that on the stand.
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So what did they have? Three checks. Roughly $ 10, 000 paid
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to Henry Tennant after the murder, written for landscaping, roof repair,
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and a business investment. One of them with a memo
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line that read, Kickstarter, good luck. A tire found at
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Fernandez Saldana's rental property matching the tire in the road.
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Dozens of phone contacts. GPS data showing Tennant driving Breitigan's
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exact route in the weeks before. And another correction from Thursday.
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The defense closing was delivered by Jesse Dreiser, not James Hill.
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Hill gave the opening. My error. Dreiser's argument was clean
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and I understand why he made it. He told the
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jury his client gained no benefit from the death of
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Jared Breitigan. and that nobody had testified that Fernandez Saldana
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ever said Breidgen deserved to die. The state's answer was
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the trust. Prosecutors told that jury Shauna Gardner comes from money,
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that her family had established a trust, and that she
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could only become trustee of it once every legal entanglement
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with Jared Breidgen was finished. Their theory was that Fernandez
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Saldana solicited a man who had been evicted and had
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nothing in his bank accounts, to solve a custody fight
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and unlock a trust fund. Assistant State Attorney Christina Stifler
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put the motive plainly. They wanted more of the decision-making.
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They wanted more custody. And she told the jury it
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does not matter whether they were completely right about that
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custody dispute or completely wrong. You do not get to
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solve a family court problem with a hired gun. And
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I want to give you the shape of that trial
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because the numbers are striking. Seven days of testimony. The
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state rested Monday afternoon. The defense case took about half
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a day and consisted of two witnesses, both of them
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staff from the private school the twins attended, who testified
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that Fernandez Saldana was a friendly, involved parent who came
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to events and picked the children up and that everyone
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knew the marriage was ending. Mario Fernandez Saldana did not testify.
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That was his absolute right. And the jury was instructed
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they could not hold it against him. And I still
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think it was the correct legal call. Putting him on
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the stand would have handed prosecutors the one living person
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who could be cross-examined about those checks. But it does
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tell you what the defense believed. They were not trying
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to win by explaining. They were trying to win on
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the gap. And the gap was not enough. After the verdict,
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Kirsten Breidegen stood in front of cameras with her husband's
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family and the state attorney's office. She thanked law enforcement,
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the prosecutors, and the people who called in tips. She
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said that when this started, she felt like she was
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alone and that she quickly learned she was not. And
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then she said this, truth won today and justice has
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been served in part, in part. She said it deliberately
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because this is one of three. Shanna Gardner is 39.
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She has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and related charges,
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and she is presumed innocent. Jury selection in her trial
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begins Monday, three days from now, in the same county
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that just watched her husband convicted of murdering her ex-husband.
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Judge Kite refused to seal this verdict until her case
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was over. He said it comes out when the jury
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reaches it, and it did. Henry Tennant goes to trial
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next year. He pleaded guilty in 2023, then withdrew the
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plea and told the court his statements under it were false.
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So nothing he said under that agreement was used against
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anyone in this trial. Look, I'm going to be honest
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with you about what this verdict says because it is
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not really about one man. There is a version of
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this crime that almost worked. Hire a stranger. Stay miles away.
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Leave no DNA, no weapon, no witness. And then when
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they charge you, stand up and say there is no
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physical evidence. That is not a defense strategy. That is
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the product being delivered. You paid for distance and then
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you asked a jury to acquit you because the distance worked.
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Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi said it better than I
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can in his rebuttal. He told that jury the absence
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of physical evidence is not a hole in the case.
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It is why you hire somebody else in the first place.
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12 people in Duval County did not buy it. That's
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not a mistake. That's a choice. And they made the
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right one. And there is one more thing this verdict does,
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which almost nobody is talking about. Henry Tennant withdrew a
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guilty plea and said his own statements were false, which
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took the state's cooperating witness off the board entirely. Prosecutors
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went to trial without him and won anyway. That changes
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the arithmetic for everyone still charged in this case and
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it changes it four days before Shauna Gardner starts picking
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a jury. Jared Breidegen was 33 years old. He had
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four children. His two-year-old daughter was in the car and
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heard it happen, and afterwards she told an adult that
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something happened to her daddy. Four and a half years.
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One conviction. Someone has to say his name. When we
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come back, five weeks of testimony ended in Plymouth yesterday,
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and Lindsay Clancy's jury walked into that room with an
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option nobody expected them to have. On the evening of
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January 24th, 2023, Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children with
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exercise bands in the basement of their house in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
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Cora was five. Dawson was three. Callan was eight months old.
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Clancy then attempted to take her own life and has
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been paralyzed ever since. Yesterday, that case ended. First, a
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correction I owe you. I've been telling you this trial
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ran more than 40 witnesses. The final count is 84.
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74 for the prosecution, 10 for the defense, across 21
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days of testimony. I was off by half and you
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should have better from us. Now the ruling. On Wednesday
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after the jury went home, Judge William Sullivan held the
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charge conference. That is where the lawyers fight over what
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verdict options actually appear on the paper the jury takes
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into deliberations. It is boring, it is procedural, almost nobody
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covers it. And it may end up mattering more than
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every expert who testified in this case. Kevin Reddington asked
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for a manslaughter instruction. Prosecutor Shane and Buckingham objected, and
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her argument was that these children were strangled, which is
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not a manslaughter fact pattern. Sullivan gave it to the defense.
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He said he was inclined to give a single manslaughter
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instruction rather than parsing between voluntary and involuntary. And that
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is what he did. So here is what changed. For
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five weeks, this jury was looking at a binary that
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a lot of jurors find unbearable. Either you convict a
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woman of first-degree murder and she dies in prison, or
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you find her not criminally responsible and she goes to
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a state psychiatric hospital. Nothing in between. Now, there is
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something in between. If this jury cannot agree that the
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Commonwealth proved first-degree murder, they have somewhere to go that
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is not an acquittal. Reddington's theory for it was not insanity.
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He argued that even if jurors reject the full defense,
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that a mental disease or defect could still have affected
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Clancy's ability to think, to react, to understand what she
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was doing, enough to reduce murder to manslaughter. That is
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a much lower bar than the one he has been
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trying to clear all month, and Sullivan just handed it
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to him. The defense did not get everything. Sullivan refused
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a Bowdoin instruction, which would have told jurors they could
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weigh the shortcomings of the police investigation. And Reddington had
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spent Wednesday calling that investigation horrific, pointing at blood inside
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the house, a window screen, and powder found in a
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wine tumbler. None of it ever tested. Buckingham countered that
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police documented the scene and that witnesses explained why certain
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items were not tested, though she did acknowledge medications found
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in a drawer were never flagged. Then came Thursday, one
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hour aside. Jennifer Sprague closed for the Commonwealth, and she
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made a choice that I think is going to define
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how people argue about this case for years. She went
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at the privilege. She told the jury Lindsay Clancy had
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health insurance that covered multiple doctors, access to specialty programs,
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18 weeks of maternity leave, a nanny who helped with
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the housework, support at home, and then she said it.
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This was not a woman suffering from a lack of
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care or a lack of resources. That is a hard,
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effective argument, and it is aimed squarely at the crowd
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in pink outside that courthouse. The entire public conversation around
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this case has been that the system failed Lindsay Clancy.
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Sprague stood up and said the system gave this woman
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more than most people in this country will ever get.
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I understand the argument. I also want to say something
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about it. Access is not the same as adequacy. You
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can see six providers and still have every one of
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them miss the thing that is killing you. The counter-argument
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is not that she had no help. It is that
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she had a great deal of help and it did
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not work, which is a more frightening thought, not a
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less frightening one. Reddington closed by going back to the
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man he built his case on. He reminded the jury
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that Dr. Philip Resnick, who testified in both Andrea Yates' trials,
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is a leading authority on malingering, on detecting people who
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fake mental illness, and that the prosecution's own expert agreed
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he is a leading authority. Then he pointed out that
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this expert on faking looked at Lindsay Clancy and said
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she had a horrific mental disease or defect when she killed,
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in his words, her beautiful children. That is the move.
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You brought me three men who say she is faking.
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Here is the country's expert on faking, and he says
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she is not. And Reddington had one more thing working
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for him, which is the sheer weight of what the
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defense experts described. Not one of them said Lindsay Clancy
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was a healthy woman who snapped. They described a mental
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state deteriorating over months, made worse by a rotating set
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of prescriptions, ending in postpartum psychosis, which is an uncommon
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but real psychiatric emergency in which a new mother loses
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contact with reality. That is not a fringe theory invented
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for a courtroom. It is a recognized medical crisis, and
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the argument between these experts was never whether it exists.
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It was whether she had it on January 24th. There
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is one more thing from Wednesday I want you to hear,
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because it is the most human moment of this entire trial,
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and it came from the prosecution's side. Reddington was cross-examining Dr. Sathoff,
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the FBI psychiatrist. He walked him through everything Lindsay Clancy
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did before January 24th. The internet searches about postpartum depression,
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the visits to multiple maternal and mental health providers, telling
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her mother she was suicidal, telling her husband she was
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afraid she would hurt the children, calling a suicide hotline.
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And then Reddington asked him essentially whether he believed Clancy
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killed her children because she no longer liked the life
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she had chosen, whether it was a selfish choice by
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a woman manipulating her providers for a quick fix. Sathoff
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would not take it. He told the courtroom that framing
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minimizes what she was going through. That is the Commonwealth's