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Kalaroga 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 Monday, August tenth, twenty twenty six. There is a
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courtroom in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where a judge named William Sullivan
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is presiding over the murder trial of Lindsey Clancy. The
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only real question in that trial is whether a mother
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who admits she killed her three children can be held
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criminally responsible for it. That is the whole case, not
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who did it, whether her mind belonged to her when
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she did. On Thursday afternoon, while that trial was in recess,
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the highest court in Massachusetts handed down a ruling about
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a different mother in a different case, convicted in the
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same county, sentenced by the same judge, and the ruling
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said Judge Sullivan got it wrong that he kept that
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thousands of pages of psychiatric records away from a jury
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that was being asked to decide the exact same question
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criminal responsibility. That conviction is now vacated. Latarsha Sanders, who
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stabbed her two little boys to death in Brockton in
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twenty eighteen, is entitled to a new trial, so on
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Friday morning, Judge Sullivan walked back into a courtroom where
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a defense attorney is fighting to put three medical experts
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in front of a jury, and the appellate court had
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just finished explaining to him in writing what happens when
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a judge gets that call wrong. Look, I'm gonna be
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honest with you. I have covered a lot of coincidences
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on this show. This is not a coincidence. This is
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the system talking to itself out loud in public, in
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real time, and everybody in that building heard it. We're
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going to walk through both cases today and then we're
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going to go to East Saint Louis, Illinois, where a
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seventy eight year old man named John Wesley Allen Senior
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was waiting for a bus, and the Internet decided the
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story was the costume. It wasn't, it was him. This
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is Daily Crime and Justice. The prosecution's best witnesses say
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she was a wonderful mother. Let's start where we always start,
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with the children. Cora Clancy was five years old, Dawson
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Clancy was three, Callen Clancy was eight months old. On
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the evening of January twenty fourth, twenty twenty three, in
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the basement of their home on Summer Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
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Their mothers strangled all three of them with exercise resistance bands.
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Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead that night. Callen held
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on for three days at Boston Children's Hospital before he died.
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Lindsey Clancy does not dispute any of that. She never has.
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Her attorney has said from the beginning that she did it.
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What she has pleaded is not guilty by reason of
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lack of criminal responsibility, which is what Massachusetts calls the
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the insanity defense. Her position is that she was in
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the grip of postpartum psychosis, made worse by a stack
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of psychiatric medications, and that she could not appreciate what
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she was doing or conform her conduct to the law.
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She is presumed innocent of first degree murder until a
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jury says otherwise. That presumption is real, and it applies
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here even though the killing is not in dispute, because
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the thing she is charged with is not the act,
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it's the mind behind the act. Now week three of
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this trial, and the prosecution has been building something very specific,
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and it is worth understanding how it works because it
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is counterintuitive. The Commonwealth has spent days calling witnesses who
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love Lindsay Clancy. Her nanny testified she was a wonderful
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mom who never showed a sign of being dangerous to
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her kids. Her children's pediatrician took the stand, so did
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their preschool teachers, and every one of them described a loving, attentive,
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present mother. On Thursday, prosecutors called her former father in law.
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Christopher Clancy is Patrick Clancy's father. He is the grandfather
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of those three children, and he told that jury that
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Lindsay was a loving and caring mother. He said he
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and his wife had been invited to dinner at that
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house on the night of January twenty fourth, they had
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other plans. They said they'd come Friday instead. There was
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no Friday. He also testified that he knew over the
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Christmas holidays in twenty twenty two that she was struggling,
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that she seemed distracted and quiet around Thanksgiving. Then a
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family friend testified about a dinner on January twenty second,
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two days before. He said it was a nice day out.
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He said Lindsay was quieter than normal, and then he
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said her behavior and demeanor appeared normal and he had
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no trouble talking with her. That is the prosecution's whole
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architecture right there in one sentence from a friend at
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a dinner party. She was quiet and she was normal.
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Because here is what the Commonwealth is arguing, and I
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want to be fair to it. If a woman is functioning,
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if she's having beach dinners and holiday visits and conversations
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that nobody flags is alarming. Then when she sends her
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husband out on a twenty five minute errand and locks
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in on what comes next, that is not psychosis. That
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is a decision, and a decision is what first degree
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murder is made of. The defense answer, and you're going
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to hear this from Kevin Reddington for weeks, is that
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postpartum psychosis does not look like a woman raving in
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the street. It is episodic, It comes in waves, It
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hides behind competence. A person can plan and speak and
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appear organized and still be operating inside a delusion. A
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forensic psychiatrist called by the prosecution actually conceded that point
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on cross examination last week. She agreed that someone can
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communicate and make plans while still in a state of psychosis.
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I am explaining that argument. I am not endorsing it.
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Twelve people in Plymouth gets to die whether it holds.
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But the prosecution has also been putting cracks in its
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own wall, and I don't think it has a choice,
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because the people who loved her also told the jury
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what she told them. A friend testified that in the
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days before January twenty fourth, Lindsay said she'd been on
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a medication that was giving her dark thoughts, that she
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was tapering off it and trying new ones. The friend
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said Lindsay never specified what those thoughts were. Another friend
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testified Lindsay told her she felt like a zombie. A
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coworker said she reported negative side effects from her medication.
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Nurses she'd worked with at mass General for years testified
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she told them she was in a difficult mental place,
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tired and anxious and getting psychiatric care, and a month
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before the killings in early January, she had been an
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impatient at McClain Hospital. When police searched that kitchen after
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the deaths, they found her discharge paperwork, a list of
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her prescriptions, a directory of community mental health resources and
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information she'd on postpartum depression and anxiety, and a the
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book called Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts. Her own journal
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was read aloud in that courtroom. One entry. I feel
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like I'm drowning every day. So the state's case is
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that she was fine, and the state's own evidence is
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that everybody around her knew she wasn't. One procedural note
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that matters more than it sounds. The defense has stipulated
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to a set of facts in this case, which is
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a lawyer's way of saying, we're not going to make
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you prove what nobody disputes. That's why this trial is
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running ahead of schedule. It's also a signal about where
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Reddington is spending his ammunition. He is not fighting about
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the resistance bands or the timeline or who was in
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that basement. Every hour he saves is an hour he
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gets to spend on her mind. Thursday was also the
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day the jury saw the autopsy photographs of Callan Clancy.
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The state medical examiner who performed that autopsy, was the
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first witness of the morning. Lindsey Clancy sat at the
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defense table with her head down, shaking, and at one
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point a court officer wheeled her out of the room
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while she sobbed. I want to say something careful here.
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Her crying is not evidence. The prosecution has already made
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a point of showing this jury a friend who visited
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her in the rehab hospital in March of twenty twenty
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three and testified that Lindsay never once brought up her children,
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never broke down about them. The defense got that witness
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to clarify that she'd been told in advance not to
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raise the subject, and that she assumed that came from
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Lindsay's doctors. So both sides are now using this woman's
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emotions as an exhibit. Her tears count when they're inconvenient
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and don't count when they're not. That's how this works,
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and neither side is above it. After the jury went
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home Thursday, the fight that actually matters started. Kevin Reddington
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wants to call three doctors as medical experts. He described
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them in his brief as central to her defense. Part
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of what they testify about is the legitimacy of Lindsey
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Clancy's suicide attempt, because the prosecution has been quietly suggesting
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she wasn't really trying to die when she cut her
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wrist and went out that second story window. Two different
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physicians have now called those cuts superficial. She hit the
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ground and severed function below her thoracic spine. She is
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paralyzed from the waist down. She has been held without
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bail at Tewkesbury State Hospital since her arrest, and she
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came into that courtroom in a wheelchair. Reddington's argument on
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that point was blunt. He compared the injury to the
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fall that paralyzed Christopher Reeve. Judge Sullivan heard the arguments
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Thursday afternoon and took the motion under advisement, meaning he
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had not ruled when we recorded this. Friday was scheduled
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to be a full day, and Reddington indicated the psychiatrists
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who actually treated Lindsay Clancy before the killings were expected
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to take the stand. Those are the doctors who prescribed
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the medications. Those are the people who saw her at McLean.
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If you want to know where this trial turns, that's
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wh where we recorded before that session finished. We'll have
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Friday's testimony and everything that comes next. And if a
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judge deciding whether to let a jury hear from three
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defense medical experts, sounds like a small procedural question to you.
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Hold that thought, because on Thursday, the Supreme Judicial Court
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of Massachusetts published an opinion about exactly that. About this
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judge and about another mother. Their names were Edson Brido
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and Lasonbrido. Edson went by Marlin he was eight years old,
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Lawson was five. In February of twenty eighteen, in an
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apartment on Prospect Street in Brockton, Massachusetts, their mother stabbed
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both of them to death. Latarsha Sanders admitted it. The
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Plymouth County District attorney said the boys died in what
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he described as a ritualistic incident and that Sanders practice voodoo.
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That word did a lot of work in the coverage
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of this case in twenty eighteen, and I want to
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be careful with it because voodoo is a real religion
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practiced by millions of people who have never heard anybody.
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And the version of it that made headlines here came
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out of the mouth of a woman whose own doctors
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would later determine she had been living with untreated paranoid
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schizophrenia for decades. Those are two different things. Only one
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of them killed those boys. Sanders went to trial in
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December of twenty twenty two. Her defense was insanity. Her
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lawyer argued she lacked criminal responsibility. The jury deliberated for
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about four hours and convicted her on two counts of
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first degree murder, which in Massachusetts carries one sentence and
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only one life without the possibility of parole. She has
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been in a state prison ever since. Here is what
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that jury never saw. While Sanders was awaiting trial, held
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in custody, and then in a state psychiatric hospital, evaluated her.
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They documented hallucinations. They diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia that the records
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described as undetected and untreated for decades. Thousands of pages
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of medical records, all of it generated after the killings,
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all of it going directly to the question of what
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was happening inside her head. The trial judge, William Sullivan,
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would not let the defense put those records in front
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of the jury. On Thursday, the Supreme Judicial Court vacated
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her conviction, and the language of that opinion is worth
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hearing because the court did not go soft on what
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she did. The justices wrote that there is no doubt
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the defendant committed these incomprehensible crimes. They said the sole
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issue in front of that jury was whether she lacked
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criminal responsibility, and they held that excluding her relevant medical
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records about the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness was
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prejudicial error, and that quote, the defendant is entitled to
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a new trial. That's not a technicality. A technicality is
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a form filed late. This is an appellate court saying
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that the single question the jury was impaneled to answer
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was decided without the evidence that answered it. Now some housekeeping,
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because there's been some loose reporting on this over the weekend.
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The Plymouth County District Attorney's office has not announced a retrial.
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What it has said is that it is reviewing the
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opinion and determining next steps. A spokesperson said it is
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the office's duty to be a voice for victims of
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crime like Marlin and las Son Brito, and that they
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will continue to do so in their memory. So anybody
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telling you there's a new trial on the calendar, or
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predicting what she'll plead at it is guessing she's not
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going free. Nobody has suggested she's going free. And if
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a future jury does find her not criminally responsible, that
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doesn't open a door either. It means a locked psychiatric
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facility instead of a locked prison with periodic reviews for
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as long as it takes. That's what an insanity verdict
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actually is in this country. It is not a get
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out of jail card. It's a different building. And now
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the part that makes your neck prickle. Latarsha Sanders was
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convicted in December of twenty twenty two. Lindsey Clancy killed
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her three children in January of twenty twenty three, one
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month later, same county, same courthouse, same judge. I have
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no idea whether Lindsay Clancy knew about the Sanders verdict.
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Nobody has testified to that, and I'm not going to
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invent it. But somebody in Massachusetts should be asking a
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bigger question, which is how many women in that state
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were sitting in a psychiatric crisis in the winter of
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twenty twenty two while a very public trial demonstrated exactly
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how little the system was willing to hear about it.