Aug. 5, 2026

Lindsay Clancy's Own Journal Read by Both Sides, Timothy Busfield's Bid to Toss His Indictment, a Psychologist on Chris Watts

Lindsay Clancy's Own Journal Read by Both Sides, Timothy Busfield's Bid to Toss His Indictment, a Psychologist on Chris Watts
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Jurors in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial heard her private journals read aloud Monday, with State Police and the Commonwealth using them to argue she was oriented and self-monitoring, and defense attorney Kevin Reddington reading from the same pages to argue she was a woman asking for help. Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the January 2023 deaths of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, at their Duxbury, Massachusetts home; she does not dispute causing their deaths and contests criminal responsibility. Jurors also heard from a Brigham and Women's forensic psychiatrist who evaluated Clancy two days after the killings. Also: actor and director Timothy Busfield goes before a New Mexico judge August 25 on a motion to quash the Bernalillo County indictment charging him with four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child under 13. Busfield has pleaded not guilty, denies the allegations, and is presumed innocent; his lawyers argue the grand jury proceeding was improperly conducted. And a look back at the 2018 Watts family murders in Frederick, Colorado, and one forensic psychologist's framework for what drove them — with a clear line between explaining a man and excusing him.

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WEBVTT

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Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning. I'm Garrett Fisher and this

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is Daily Crime Injustice from Calaroga Shark Media. It's Wednesday,

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August fifth, twenty twenty six. Before we start, a warning

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about today's show. We are going to talk about the

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deaths of small children, about strangulation, and about suicide. We

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are also going to talk about a criminal case involving

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allegations of sexual abuse of children. Nothing in this episode

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is graphic, and I'm not going to describe anything that

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does not need describing. But if that is not something

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you can carry with you this morning, skip this one

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and come back tomorrow. We will be here. Here's what

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we've got. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Lindsay Clancy trial spent

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its fifth day of testimony doing something I have rarely

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seen a trial do. The prosecutor read from Lindsay Clancy's

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private journal to prove she was in her right mind.

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Then the defense attorney picked up the same journal, turned

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to a different page, and read from it to prove

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she was not same handwriting, same woman. Two completely opposite arguments,

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and in between, a parade of doctors describing what a

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hospital does when three small children arrive not breathing. In Albuquerque,

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New Mexico, an Emmy winning actor you have watched on

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television for forty years is three weeks out from a

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hearing that could decide whether the child sex abuse case

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against him survives at all. Timothy Busfield says the grand

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jury that indicted him never got to hear his side.

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Prosecutors say the case is exactly what it looks like.

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A judge takes that up on August twenty fifth, and

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later in the show, we are going back to a

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case this feed has covered before. Chris Watts, Frederick, Colorado,

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August twenty eighteen. A forensic psychologist has just given a

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lengthy interview about what he believes was going on inside

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that man's head. And it is worth talking about as

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long as we are honest about what psychology can and

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cannot do, because there is a difference between explaining a

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man and excusing him. Let's get into it. Let's start

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in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, where the murder trial of Lindsay

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Clancy has now finished its fifth day of testimony. If

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you're new to this one, here is the shape of it.

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On January twenty fourth, twenty twenty three, in a house

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on Summer Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Lindsey Clancy strangled her

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three children with exercise bands. Cora was five, Dawson was three,

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Callen was eight months old. She then cut herself and

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went out a second story window. She survived. She is paralyzed.

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She uses a wheelchair. She has been held at Tewkesbury

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State Hospital since twenty twenty three. Her lawyers do not

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dispute that she killed her children, not one word of it.

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Kevin Reddington, her defense attorney, has been telling any one

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who will listen for three and a half years that

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his client was a devoted mother who was overtaken by

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postpartum psychosis and by an ever changing pile of psychiatric

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prescriptions that made her worse instead of better. His argument

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is not that she didn't do it. His argument is

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that she was not criminally responsible when she did. The

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prosecution's position is simpler and colder. Assistant District Attorney Shenan

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Buckingham put it plainly in her opening. This trial is

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not a public debate about women's mental health and how

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the medical system treats women. Her position is that Lindsey

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Clancy knew what she was doing, that she engineered the

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window of time to do it, and that the Commonwealth

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of Massachusetts holds people responsible for what they do. So

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that is the fight, not what happened why. And Monday

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was the day the jury started getting handed the raw

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material for both sides at once. State Police Trooper Corey

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took the stand and read from Lindsey Clancy's own journals

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the ones investigators pulled out of that house. And these

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are not vague entries. These are the private notes of

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a labor and delivery nurse, a woman who spent her

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working life helping other women through the exact thing that

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was destroying her, writing down that she was drowning, that

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she had, in her words, crazy brain fog, that she

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couldn't make a plan, that she was living moment to moment,

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waiting for the next nap. In a November entry, she

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wrote that she was so desperate for a break from

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taking care of everyone that her own mind was hunting

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for something physically wrong with her. She wrote about feeling

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guilty for not breastfeeding. She wrote about being frightened of

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going back to work. She wrote about feeling disconnected from

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her own children and from her own husband. Now Here

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is what I want you to sit with the prosecution.

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Put those journals in front of the jury the prosecution

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because from where the Commonwealth is standing, a woman who

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is doc documenting her symptoms in a notebook, tracking her

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prescriptions and her dosages by hand. Reading a book about

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postpartum anxiety is a woman who is oriented, who knows

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something is wrong, who is capable of monitoring herself. That

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is not They will argue a person untethered from reality.

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And then Kevin Reddington stood up and read from the

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same journal, because from where the defense is standing, those

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pages are a woman screaming for help in the only

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place she felt safe writing it down. One line he

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read out loud, I want help. I want to be well. Look,

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I'm going to be honest with you. I have watched

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a lot of trials and I have almost never seen

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a single piece of evidence do that much work for

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both sides. At the same time, that journal is going

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to be in the deliberation room, and twelve people are

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going to read it, and half of them are going

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to see a diary, and half of them are going

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to see a symptom log, and that argument is the

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entire case. The rest of Monday was medicine, and it

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was hard. Doctor Michael Snyder, who treated Cora at Beth

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Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Plymouth, told jurors that the

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five year old arrived with no heartbeat. He described bruising

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to her neck PATIKII, which is the pinpoint bleeding you

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see in the eyes, after strangulation, blood from her nose.

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They worked on her for thirty minutes, then they stopped

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because there was nothing left to do. Callin the baby

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lasted longer. He was transferred to Boston Children's Hospital. Doctor

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Andrew Caprero told the jury the infant arrived cold, limp,

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not making any movement on his own. Pupils fixed and

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dilated ligature marks around his neck. His brain had swollen

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past what the skull could hold. They got his heart

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beating on its own. That was all they got. Callan

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Clancy was declared brain dead and removed from life support

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on January twenty seventh, three days after his mother put

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her hands on him. I want to say Dawson's name

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here too, because the medical testimony Monday entered on his

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sister and his brother and the middle child. In a

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case like this can get lost in the record. Dawson

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Clancy was three years old. He liked the same thing's

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three year olds, like he is just as dead and

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he counts just as much. Then came the testimony about

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the defendant herself, and this is where the trial started

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to turn toward the question the jury actually has to answer.

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Doctor Kelly McDonough, an emergency physician at South Shore Hospital,

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testified that Clancy came in as a Level one trauma

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patient after a fall from height, breathing on her own

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at first, then intubated to protect her airway. Scans of

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her head showed nothing remarkable. She was moved to Brigham

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and Women's Hospital in Boston, where an ICU nurse testified

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that Clancy went into cardiac arrest, that the team did

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CPR and opened a massive transfusion protocol, and that it

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saved her life. By January twenty eighth, she was awake.

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She still had a breathing tube, so she communicated by

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writing on a whiteboard. She wrote that she was fused.

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She wrote that she couldn't feel her legs. The nurse

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described her as cooperative with a flat effect, and on

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February second weeks in, she wrote a question about her attorney.

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That nurse testified it was the first time Clancy referenced

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anything about the case at all. Doctor Segil Shaw, a

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psychiatrist at Brigham and Women's, testified that by January twenty ninth,

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Clancy was asking to change her health care proxy. She

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wanted it moved off her husband and onto her parents.

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Shaw testified that they did not get into why, and

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then the witness the prosecution really wanted. Doctor jillim Biswass,

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a forensic psychiatrist at Brigham and Women's who sat with

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Lindsay Clancy on January twenty sixth, twenty twenty three, less

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than forty eight hours after the killings. Biz Was testified

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that Clancy was awake and oriented intubated so she gestured

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for paper and a pen. Asked about her mood, she

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wrote one word horrified, She wrote, Do I have an attorney?

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She asked if her body was broken, She asked if

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her legs were straight. She asked where her family was

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and whether she could have visitors. And here is the

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piece the Commonwealth is going to hammer. This was testified

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that she documented that Clancy was not showing the sign

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she was screening for, not disorganized, not responding to voices,

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not paranoid, not delusional. This was testified she found Clancy

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capable of making her own decision about surgery, and that

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Clancy's answers were relevant to the questions asked. That's the

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prosecution spear. Two days after, a forensic psychiatrist looked for

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psychosis and wrote down that she didn't find it. Reddington's

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cross was the obvious one, and it landed where you'd expect.

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He got Biswis to confirm she saw Lindsay Clancy exactly once,

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for something like twenty to thirty minutes. He got her

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to acknowledge she has treated many patients who hear voices,

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including patients experiencing command hallucinations, the kind that tell you

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to do something, and he got her to say that

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the duration of a psychotic episode absolutely depends on the patient,

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which is the whole defense. In one sentence, psychosis is

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not a permanent condition. It has a beginning, and it

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has an end. And whether it had already ended by

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the afternoon of January twenty sixth in a hospital bed

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in a woman who had just been through a massive

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blood transfusion and who could only answer with a pen

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is not something One twenty minute visit settles. There is

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one more date in this case that I cannot stop

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thinking about, and it hasn't come into evidence in front

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of this jury yet. According to Clancy's own civil lawsuit,

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her psychiatrist saw her on January twenty third, twenty twenty three,

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the day before, for seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes for a

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woman on a rotating shelf of psychiatric medications who had

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checked herself into a psychiatric hospital on New Year's Eve,

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who had been discharged from a postpartum program after a

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single day. Now, the providers who have responded to those

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lawsuits deny the allegations and dispute that she ever clearly

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told them she intended to harm the children. That is

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their right, and I am telling you their position. But

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if that seventeen minute number holds up in evidence, somebody's

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going to have a very bad day in a civil courtroom,

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and it will not be a jury of twelve deciding it.

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There's a playbook for this, by the way, not for

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the killing, for the aftermath. A system that hands out

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prescriptions faster than it hands out appointments and then acts

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stunned when the person on the other end of those

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prescriptions comes apart where the trial stands right now. Court

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was dark on Tuesday, which has been the pattern in

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this trial. Testimony is set to resume Wednesday morning in

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front of Judge William Sullivan, and the witnesses coming up

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are expected to move deeper into the mental health evidence

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at the center of the case. That means dueling experts,

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and that means this is where the verdict actually gets

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to defy. The math is stark. If the jury convicts

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on murder, Lindsey Clancy goes to prison for life with

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no parole. If the jury finds her not criminally responsible,

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she does not walk out the door. She is committed

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to a state mental health facility. Those are the two roads.

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There is no version of this where she goes home,

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and whatever that jury decides, the arithmetic that matters most

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doesn't change. Cora Clancy was five years old, Dawson Clancy

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was three, Callan Clancy was eight months old and had

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been alive for less than a year. Their mother killed them.

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Whether the law calls that murder or calls it illness,

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three children who should be seven, five and three years

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old right now are not. Someone has to say their

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names coming up. An Emmy winning actor four felony counts,

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and a grand jury that asked to hear from his

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witnesses and was told it would have to come back

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another wei. That hearing is three weeks out. Stay with me,

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welcome back. I'm Garrett Fisher. This is daily crime and justice,

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and I want to handle this next one carefully because

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it involves children, and it involves a man who has

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not been convicted of anything. Timothy Busfield, you know the face,

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even if the name takes a second Emmy winner. He

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was Elliott on thirty something. He was Danny Kohnkanon on

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the West Wing. He was Kevin Costner's brother in law

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in Field of Dreams. He has been directing and producing

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television for decades. He is married to Melissa Gilbert, who

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most of America met as Laura Ingalls on Little House

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on the Prairie. In February of this year, a grand

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jury in Bernolillo County, New Mexico, indicted Busfield on four

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counts of criminal sexual contact of a child under thirteen.

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All four are third degree felonies, each one carries up

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to six years. He pleaded not guilty on February tenth,

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and he has denied the allegations at absolutely every opportunity

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say that part again, because it matters. He has pleaded

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not guilty, He has not been convicted, and under the

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law and under the standards of this show, he is

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presumed innocent unless and until a jury says otherwise. The

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district attorney who brought the case, Sam Bregman, said that

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himself in the statement announcing the indictment. The allegations come

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out of the New Mexico set of a Fox drama

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called The Cleaning Lady, where Busfield worked as an actor,

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a director, and an executive producer. The accusers are twin

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boys who appeared on the show as child actors. They

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are identified in court records only by initials. We are

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not naming them, we are not describing them, and we

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are not going into the specifics of what is alleged

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beyond the legal language, which is that the indictment accuses

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Busfield of touching the intimate parts of one of the

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boys over his clothing on dates in October of twenty

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twenty two and September of twenty twenty three. That is

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all you need. That is all anybody needs now. The

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reason this case is in the news right now is

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a hearing on the calendar for August twenty fifth, and

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to understand what that hearing is, you have to understand

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how this case got here, because the road is genuinely strange.

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It starts in November of twenty twenty four with a

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phone call to Albuquerque police from a pediatrician who had

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just examined the twins. The parents had raised concerns about

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how Busfield interacted with their sons. The doctor also told

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police his exam found no signs of misconduct and that

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neither boy had disclosed anything to him directly. Officers interviewed

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the boys separately that night. Both of them denied being

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touched inappropriately. No charges. Case closed. In February of twenty

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twenty five, two anonymous complaints about Busfield came into a

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sag Aftra hotline. Neither one alleged sexual touching. The Union

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forwarded them to Warner Brothers, the studio behind the show,

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which hired an outside attorney to investigate. That investigation could

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not corroborate either complaint. Witnesses said they'd see nothing. Busfield

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went back to work. Then, in July of twenty twenty five,

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a draft civil complaint arrived on behalf of the twins,

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and the allegations got much broader. Warner Brothers brought the

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investigator back. That second inquiry ended up incomplete because the

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boys and their parents were not made available to be interviewed.

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And then September of twenty twenty five, one of the twins,

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in a therapy session, said for the first time that

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Busfield had touched him. That was the first documented allegation

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of sexual contact in the entire file, and it came

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almost a year after both boys had told police the opposite.

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Forensic interviews followed on October thirty first. Busfield was arrested

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in January of this year. The grand jury indicted him

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in February. So you've got a timeline where the first

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accounts in the later account don't match. And this is

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exactly the place where two things are true at once,

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and I need you to hold both of them because

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the whole case lives in that space. Thing one delayed

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disclosure by children is real. It is one of the

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most thoroughly documented phenomena in the entire field. Kids who

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have been abused frequently do not say so the first

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time an adult in a uniform asks them, especially if

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they like the adult they'd be accusing, especially if they're

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worried about what happens to everyone if they talk. Prosecutors

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argue that is precisely what happened here, that the boys

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later gave consistent accounts to multiple professionals, and that no

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specialists raised a concern about coaching thing two. A delayed

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disclosure is also structurally the hardest kind of evidence to test,

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and the defense has built its entire case on that,

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plus a claim about how the indictment was obtained, which

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brings us to August twenty fifth. On June eighteenth, Busfield's

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lawyers filed a motion to quash the indictment not emotion,

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to declare him innocent, emotion, to throw out the grand

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jury's action on the grounds that the process was so

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defective the indictment shouldn't stand at all, and the transcripts,

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which have since been reported on are the reason this

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motion is not frivolous. At the grand jury, the prosecutor

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called exactly one witness before Bussfield himself was brought in. Busfield,

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who chose to testify in his own defense, told the

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grand jurors that he had brought witnesses with him to

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the courthouse people who had been on that set ready

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to testify that they had never seen anything inappropriate. The

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grand jurors asked about hearing from them. They were told

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that to do that, the panel would have to vote

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unanimously to subpoena the witnesses and then come back another

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week to hear them. The grand jurors did not do that.

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They returned a true bill on four counts. They also

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declined to indict on additional child abuse counts prosecutors had sought.

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The defense motion further argues prosecutors already had material that

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undercut the accusations before the grand jury ever met, including

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the Warner Brothers investigation and a polygraph bus Field says

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he passed. His attorney, Larry Stein, has said flatly that

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his client is innocent and has accused the State of

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suppressing exculpatory evidence. Prosecutors have not conceded any of that,

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and a polygraph, i'll remind you, is not admissible at

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trial in most American courtrooms for exactly the reasons you'd expect.

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Here's what I actually think about August twenty fifth, and

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I want to be precise because this is one of

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those situations where people are going to read. Whatever result

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comes out as a verdict, and it is not one.

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If the judge quashes that indictment, it does not mean

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Timothy Busfield is innocent. It means a grand jury proceeding

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was run badly and prosecutors can go get a new

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indictment and do it right. If the judge lets the

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indictment stand, it does not mean Timothy Busfield is guilty.

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It means the case proceeds to a trial, currently set

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for May of twenty twenty seven, expected to run three weeks,

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where twelve people will actually weigh the evidence. There's one

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more piece, I'll mention only because leaving it out would

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be dishonest, and then I'm leaving it alone. The defenses

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argued the allegations are financially motivated, pointing to the boy's parents.

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Prosecutors reject that framing, and their answer is the correct

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one on the law. Whatever an adult's financial history is,

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it does not determine whether a child was harmed. Separately,

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older allegations against Busfield from decades ago, involving adults, surfaced

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after this case became public. Those never resulted in criminal charges.

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They are not part of the new Mexico case. And

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the judge at January's detention hearing said he gave them

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little weight. So I am not going to relitigate them here.

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What I'll say is this, two boys made an accusation.

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A man says it never happened, and has said so

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under oath. Somewhere in there is a truth that matters

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enormously to a small number of people, and it is

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going to take until at least next spring to get

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at it. In the meantime, the only responsible thing any

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of us can do is refuse to decide it for them.

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Accountability doesn't have a legal department, but it does have

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a courtroom, and that courtroom hasn't opened yet. When we

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come back, Chris Watts, a forensic psychologist, read on what

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was going on inside that man's head and the difference

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between explaining somebody and excusing them. Welcome back one more time,

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last story today, and it's won. This feed has been

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to before. Longtime listeners will remember we opened our Labor

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Day family Massacre run with Chris Watts. Frederick Colorado, the

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Facebook Dad, the man who stood on his own front

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lawn doing television interviews begging for his family to come

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home while he knew exactly where they were, because as

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he had put them there. The reason we're back is

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that on July twenty ninth, The Daily Mail published a

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long interview with doctor Gary Bruccato as part of a

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new investigation into the case. Brucato is not a tabloid

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rent a quote. He is a clinical psychologist formerly at

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Colombia's Medical Center, co creator of the Columbia mass Murdered database,

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and co author with doctor Michael Stone, of a book

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called The New Evil, which is used as a textbook

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in forensic training programs. When he talks about the architecture

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of violent crime, it is worth listening. Let me renchor

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the facts first, because they are not in dispute, and

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they never have been. August thirteenth, twenty eighteen, Chris Watts

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strangled his wife Shanan in their home. Shanan was thirty

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four years old and fifteen weeks pregnant with a son

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the family had already named Nico. He then drove his

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two daughters, Bella, who was four, and Celeste, who was three,

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out to an oil site operated by the company he

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worked for, with their mother's body in the vehicle. He

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killed both girls there and disposed of their bodies. He

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buried Shannan in a shallow grave nearby. Then he went

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home and played the frantic husband on camera for the

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better part of a week. On November sixth, twenty eighteen,

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he pleaded guilty. On November nineteenth, Weld County District Judge

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Marcelo Kopcow sentenced him to three consecutive life sentences without

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the possibility of parole, plus two more life sentences running concurrently,

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plus forty eight consecutive years for the unlawful termination of

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a pregnancy, plus twelve years on each of three counts

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of tampering with a deceased human body. The judge called

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it the most inhumane and vicious crime he had presided

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over in thousands of cases. Prosecutors took the death penalty

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off the table in exchange for the plea, and they

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did that after asking Shannan's family what they wanted. So

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that's the record. Now here's Brucado's read, and I want

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to walk you through it because I think it's useful,

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00:23:56.759 --> 00:23:59.079
and then I want to tell you exactly where I

402
00:23:59.119 --> 00:24:03.960
think it stops being useful. His starting point is compartmentalization.

403
00:24:04.839 --> 00:24:07.799
Some people, he says, are genuinely capable of running two

404
00:24:07.880 --> 00:24:10.640
separate lives at once, and the people inside the first

405
00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:14.440
life have no idea the second one exists, which explains

406
00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:17.880
something that has bothered everybody about this case since day one.

407
00:24:18.319 --> 00:24:21.400
How the friends, the neighbors, the family, all of them

408
00:24:21.559 --> 00:24:25.960
were completely fooled. Brushato's answer is that being fooled was

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not a failure on their part, it was the design.

410
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Then he gets into the affair. Chris Watts was involved

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00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:36.200
with a coworker, Nicol Kessinger at the time of the murders.

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Brusato's argument is that the affair was never really about Kessinger,

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it was about who Watts got to be when he

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00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:46.880
was with her. He describes a man who felt diminished

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in his marriage and found a relationship where he felt

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in control, wanted, and in Brucato's word, viral. Watts didn't

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00:24:56.160 --> 00:24:59.720
want a different woman. He wanted a different version of himself,

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00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:03.559
and that, Brucchado says, is where the family stopped being

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00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:07.519
a family and started being an obstacle. He has a

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00:25:07.640 --> 00:25:12.440
term for this elimination murder. It's when somebody is killed

421
00:25:12.519 --> 00:25:15.440
not out of rage at that person specifically, but because

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00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:20.920
they are standing between the killer and something he wants romance, money, freedom,

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00:25:21.160 --> 00:25:24.920
a blank page. Bruciado notes that this shows up both

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00:25:24.920 --> 00:25:28.319
in people he'd call emotionally immature, who want to tear

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00:25:28.359 --> 00:25:30.160
the old chapter out of the book and move on,

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00:25:30.759 --> 00:25:34.519
and in people who are psychopathic, where there's less impulsivity

427
00:25:34.559 --> 00:25:37.440
and less feeling of any kind. And he makes the

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00:25:37.480 --> 00:25:40.480
point that the frightening version of that second type is

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00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:44.200
that they lack compassion but have plenty of surface charm.

430
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Everybody thinks they're wonderful right up until they treat human

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00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:51.240
beings like pieces on a board. He also draws a

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00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:54.240
distinction between how Watts killed his wife and how he

433
00:25:54.319 --> 00:25:56.880
killed his daughters. And this is the part that is

434
00:25:56.960 --> 00:26:01.279
stayed with me. Strangling somebody takes time, It is close.

435
00:26:01.680 --> 00:26:05.759
It requires you to be in their face. Brucado reads

436
00:26:05.799 --> 00:26:09.799
that as rage directed at a specific person. The girls,

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00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:11.960
he says, were killed in a way that let their

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00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:15.079
father avoid looking at them. His read is that the

439
00:26:15.079 --> 00:26:18.400
primary hostility was aimed at Shanan, and the children were,

440
00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:22.240
in the coldest possible sense, in the way. And then

441
00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:25.759
there's the drive. Brucado says he has often wondered about

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00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:28.440
that car ride a man behind the wheel with his

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dead wife in the vehicle and his two living daughters

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in the back working out logistics. What do I tell

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00:26:34.279 --> 00:26:37.680
them what happens when one of them sees that is

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00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:40.079
not a man in the grip of an impulse, that

447
00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:44.279
is a man doing arithmetic. All right, here's where I

448
00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:47.599
get off the bus. Briuccado himself is careful about this,

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and I'll give him full credit for it. He says

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00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:53.680
explicitly that he cannot diagnose Chris Watts from a distance.

451
00:26:53.920 --> 00:26:57.039
He has never examined him. Nobody quoted in that article

452
00:26:57.079 --> 00:27:00.440
has What he is offering is a framework, and a

453
00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:03.119
framework is not a finding. And I want to be

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00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:05.400
blunt about the reason we keep going back to this

455
00:27:05.559 --> 00:27:08.599
case seven and a half years later looking for a

456
00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:12.839
psychological key. It's because we want there to be a switch.

457
00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:16.400
We want there to be a mechanism, a broken part,

458
00:27:16.599 --> 00:27:19.920
a diagnosis, something that explains it in a way that

459
00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:22.839
makes it a category of event rather than a decision

460
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:26.359
a man made. If there's a switch, then the rest

461
00:27:26.440 --> 00:27:29.279
of us are safe, because our switch is fine. There

462
00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:32.480
is no switch. Chris Watts made a series of choices

463
00:27:32.519 --> 00:27:35.039
over a period of hours, and every single one of

464
00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:37.359
them had an exit ramp he did not take. He

465
00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:40.240
could have left, He could have filed for divorce. He

466
00:27:40.279 --> 00:27:42.319
could have been the guy who blew up his marriage

467
00:27:42.359 --> 00:27:44.480
and lived with what people said about him at the

468
00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:48.680
grocery store. Millions of people do exactly that every year,

469
00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:52.599
and their children stay alive. That's not a mistake, that's

470
00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:55.960
a choice. One more thing before we close this out,

471
00:27:56.200 --> 00:27:59.319
on the record and on the level. The Daily Mail's

472
00:27:59.319 --> 00:28:02.400
new package on this case includes other material about Watts

473
00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:06.640
and about correspondence from prison that we have not independently corroborated,

474
00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:09.200
and I'm not putting it on air. What I've given

475
00:28:09.240 --> 00:28:12.200
you today is the court record and one credentialed expert's

476
00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:15.680
professional read of it. That's it, And Brucado ends his

477
00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:18.240
own interview in the right place, which surprised me for

478
00:28:18.319 --> 00:28:21.480
a tabloid piece. He says the emphasis has to stay

479
00:28:21.559 --> 00:28:25.559
on Shanan, on Bella, on Celeste, that the whole point

480
00:28:25.599 --> 00:28:28.200
of what Watts did was turning people into objects that

481
00:28:28.240 --> 00:28:30.880
could be disposed of, and that we don't have to

482
00:28:30.920 --> 00:28:34.839
go along with it. He's right, So let's not. Shanan

483
00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:37.759
Watts was thirty four years old, she had a personality

484
00:28:37.759 --> 00:28:39.640
that filled a room and a phone full of videos

485
00:28:39.640 --> 00:28:43.400
of her kids. Bella Watts was four, Celeste Watts was three.

486
00:28:43.839 --> 00:28:46.680
Niko Watts never got a birthday. They were killed by

487
00:28:46.680 --> 00:28:48.799
a man who had promised to protect all four of

488
00:28:48.839 --> 00:28:51.359
them for a reason so small and so selfish it

489
00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:54.559
insults them to even say it out loud. Nobody was

490
00:28:54.559 --> 00:28:57.200
paying attention to her when Shenan told her friends she

491
00:28:57.319 --> 00:29:00.240
was afraid her marriage was ending. Somebody should have been.

492
00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:07.559
Someone has to say your name. That's the show for Wednesday,

493
00:29:07.599 --> 00:29:11.160
August fifth. If this episode gave you something worth thinking about,

494
00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:13.319
do me a favor and send it to one person,

495
00:29:14.039 --> 00:29:17.119
Text it to a friend who follows these cases. Word

496
00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:19.559
of mouth is genuinely how this show grows, and it

497
00:29:19.599 --> 00:29:23.319
costs you about nine seconds. And if you're listening on Spotify,

498
00:29:23.559 --> 00:29:26.039
drop a comment. Here's what I want to know today,

499
00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:28.519
and I want a real answer, not a hot take.

500
00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:31.440
In the Clancy case, the jury has to decide whether

501
00:29:31.480 --> 00:29:35.720
Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible, but there's a second question.

502
00:29:35.759 --> 00:29:38.680
The criminal trial can't touch whether a system that gave

503
00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:41.559
a woman in crisis a seventeen minute appointment the day

504
00:29:41.559 --> 00:29:45.359
before bears any of the weight. Where do you land?

505
00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:48.119
Can both things be true at the same time, or

506
00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:51.319
does one cancel the other out? I'll read those I

507
00:29:51.359 --> 00:29:55.000
always do. I'm Garrett Fisher. This is Daily Crime Injustice

508
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:58.240
from Calaroga Shark Media. Take care of the people around

509
00:29:58.279 --> 00:30:00.160
you today, and if you're the one who need that's

510
00:30:00.200 --> 00:30:05.480
taken care of, let somebody. We'll talk tomorrow. A few

511
00:30:05.480 --> 00:30:09.720
notes before we go. This episode covers active criminal proceedings.

512
00:30:10.079 --> 00:30:13.160
Timothy Bussfield has pleaded not guilty to all charges and

513
00:30:13.319 --> 00:30:16.720
is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a

514
00:30:16.759 --> 00:30:20.279
court of law. Lindsay Clancy has pleaded not guilty and

515
00:30:20.359 --> 00:30:23.720
her trial is ongoing. Nothing in this episode should be

516
00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:27.480
taken as a prediction of any verdict. The Lindsay Clancy

517
00:30:27.519 --> 00:30:30.440
trial was in session Monday, August third, and was not

518
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:35.000
sitting on Tuesday, August fourth. Testimony was scheduled to resume

519
00:30:35.039 --> 00:30:39.240
Wednesday morning before Judge William Sullivan. Any developments after our

520
00:30:39.319 --> 00:30:43.880
recording are not reflected here. Outlets covering Monday's Clancy testimony

521
00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:47.640
differ on some details. Which hospital transferred eight month old

522
00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:52.079
Callan Clancy to Boston Children's, which physician described, which injuries,

523
00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:55.240
and whether doctor Jill M. Biswass is described as a

524
00:30:55.240 --> 00:30:59.519
forensic psychiatrist or a forensic psychologist. We have used the

525
00:30:59.559 --> 00:31:03.880
most consistently reported version in each case. The seventeen minute

526
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:07.960
psychiatric appointment on January twenty third, twenty twenty three comes

527
00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:12.200
from the Clancy's civil lawsuits, not from trial testimony. The

528
00:31:12.200 --> 00:31:15.720
providers named in those suits deny the allegations and dispute

529
00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:18.279
that Clancy told them she intended to harm her children.

530
00:31:19.160 --> 00:31:22.519
Reporting on the Timothy Busfield case includes material drawn from

531
00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:26.279
police reports, court filings and investigative records reviewed by The

532
00:31:26.359 --> 00:31:30.640
Daily Mail that we could not independently verify the charges.

533
00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:33.599
The not guilty plead, the grand jury's refusal to indict

534
00:31:33.640 --> 00:31:37.720
on additional counts, the June eighteenth motion to quash, the

535
00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:40.480
August twenty fifth hearing date, and the May twenty twenty

536
00:31:40.519 --> 00:31:44.240
seven trial date are corroborated by wire and court reporting.

537
00:31:44.799 --> 00:31:47.960
The reported ages of the two boys vary across filings

538
00:31:47.960 --> 00:31:52.400
and news accounts. All charges involve a child under thirteen.

539
00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:56.359
Busfield's own age has been reported as both sixty eight

540
00:31:56.440 --> 00:32:00.359
and sixty nine during the case. The psychological analysis of

541
00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:03.440
Chris Watts in our final segment reflects the professional opinion

542
00:32:03.480 --> 00:32:06.640
of doctor Gary Bricado, who has stated he has not

543
00:32:06.799 --> 00:32:11.079
examined Watts and cannot diagnose him from a distance. Additional

544
00:32:11.119 --> 00:32:14.799
claims appearing in the same publication regarding Watson prison correspondence

545
00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:18.480
are single sourced and were not aired. If you are

546
00:32:18.519 --> 00:32:20.880
someone you know is struggling, the nine eight to eight

547
00:32:21.039 --> 00:32:24.680
Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available around the clock by caller.

548
00:32:24.799 --> 00:32:29.240
Tax for pregnancy and postpart of mental health, Postpartum Support

549
00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:32.279
International can be reached at one eight hundred nine four

550
00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:35.799
four four seven seven three, and their helpline offers support

551
00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:39.720
in English and Spanish. To report suspected child abuse or

552
00:32:39.759 --> 00:32:42.400
to talk to a counselor about a child's safety. The

553
00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:45.680
child Help National Child Abuse Hotline is one eight hundred

554
00:32:45.720 --> 00:32:47.839
four two two four four five three