Aug. 26, 2026
Killer Mom Trial: Final Day Of Testimony As Experts Battle “Moral Awareness” Vs Postpartum Psychosis
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RSS Feed It was another contentious day in court that once again, ended abruptly after the state’s rebuttal witness began to testify to children’s inherent “strong will to survive’. The defense immediately objected and, after a sidebar, the judge told the witness to step down and called it a day for the jury. This, after defense attorney Kevin Reddington continued to aggressively cross examine the prosecution’s expert witnesses who have testified Clancy was “morally aware” her actions were against the law and that she was NOT in a state of psychosis.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, August 26th, and this is expected to be the final day of testimony in the Lindsay Clancy triple murder trial. And then, yes, a jury is going to decide if she was criminally responsible for killing her three young children. With that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Can't Believe We're Here. Five weeks of this. Seemed like the end kind of snuck up on us to a certain degree, but, Ro, this is it. The jury's going to get... We could have potentially a verdict by the end of this week.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: That seems hard to imagine, but you're right.
00:00:37
Speaker 1: It is possible.
00:00:38
Speaker 2: The judge did predict that closing arguments will take place tomorrow, which is Thursday. And we believe that today will start off with the last prosecution rebuttal witness. Obviously, they could always call someone else, but we believe this is the final witness, and the prosecution is still in the middle of questioning that witness. And then we have what's been extremely entertaining and contentious, the cross-examination.
00:01:06
Speaker 1: And impressive.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: Yes, and impressive. That's a good way to put it because, look, this is what the defense needs to do. This has been, as we've talked about, a battle of the experts. And so with these rebuttal witnesses... who are one by one saying that Lindsay Clancy did not or was not suffering from postpartum psychosis. Yes, this is when the defense has to discredit these witnesses, has to question these witnesses, and at least leave an impression among jurors that they're wrong or they're confused or they don't have the expertise to actually be able to weigh in on whether or not Lindsay Clancy had postpartum psychosis. Uh.
00:01:45
Speaker 1: I have reasonable doubt about all of their credentials and all of their ability to accurately diagnose because of his cross-examination. He had some of these folks fumbling over what they're saying. And, Robes, what I've gotten out of this, really, and I wonder what's going to happen with the jury, it's hard to just blame these experts I've seen on the stand. Robes, it sounds like the entire field of study in this needs... To get up to speed.
00:02:13
Speaker 2: Is limited at best. Yeah.
00:02:15
Speaker 1: And so how is a juror going to take it? Is it, okay, this psychosis thing is some crazy mumbo jumbo that they don't even have a lot of study on. Am I supposed to believe that? Or do I go with what is already in that Bible of options for what was bothering her? Rose, which way? Maybe they're hearing this stuff differently than we are.
00:02:35
Speaker 2: It could work in either direction because to your point, yes, if it's so... little studied and unknown if it's so exceptional and rare that there is no real research or literature on it to the point where the experts are saying, yeah, we just don't see it. And when we do, it doesn't present like this. That could be effective for the prosecution. That could be landing with jurors.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: What did you say? What did you just say there at the end? Say it again.
00:03:04
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if I can repeat what I just said.
00:03:06
Speaker 1: But the... You put me in the place, well, this is a field of study that what I'm saying is, does it discredit possibly the experts? Because it seems like the entire industry doesn't know what to do. I can't trust you on psychosis. None of y'all know what to do with psychosis.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: Could it also make it seem like the defense is making this up, so to speak, that this isn't really something that they've ever seen before. And now they're just trying to say it's something that actually isn't even really well documented.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: See, and there's where I go to the next part. It's not well documented, sure. So that means you don't have a lot of experts in it. This guy's seen five people over a 40-year career who've had psychosis. So he's the expert. That's the best we got.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: It could work in either direction.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: I wonder how it's reading for that jury.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: So, yeah, we began Tuesday with Dr. Kirk Heilbrunn, who is a forensic psychologist. This is the one who almost caused the mistrial the day before by bringing in mortal sin and Catholicism. But the prosecution had him back up on the stand under redirect. And I thought this was interesting. He gave a new term that I hadn't heard before, that none of us had heard before. that he believes Lindsay Clancy was not suffering from psychosis. Instead, he said she had a paratraumatic disassociation. So now we're getting all of these scientific words that are confusing, and I don't really understand at what point is this something that you suffer from that would allow you to no longer be criminally responsible. That is where the confusion is. But I did think it was effective when Dr. Heilbrunn said... that there were just so many decisions that Lindsay Clancy had to make to accomplish killing three kids and then trying to kill herself within just 18 minutes. He said she had to decide who goes first, how to do it, why take them down to the basement. His quote was, she demonstrated such self-control throughout the day on January 24th. She retained control as to whether, when, and how she carried it out and including her children. I thought that was effective.
00:05:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then Reddington gets up and he completely shoots all that stuff down. Robes, we keep hearing about one expert saying if she was in psychosis, she would be able to do this or wouldn't be able to do that. And then you hear another expert come up and say, well, she can still do both. Robes, I really do not know. Who are you supposed to believe? Who do you find most credible? And I don't find... Robes, I'll be honest. I'm getting to the point I don't find anybody credible. This is a very confusing line of... of study in the medical field that is just not, we don't know what's wrong with this lady. Robes, that's my conclusion, because none of them seem to have given her great quality of care. Nobody seemed to have, to be able to sit up there definitively and say, like passionately, she was hurting, she was this, she was that. All these prosecution witnesses, Robes, you know what turned me off about Halliburton? He's looking up for the answers. He sits there oftentimes, Robes, his eyes are going up towards the ceiling. He's finding an answer. If you're sitting in there with your cancer doctor and oncologist asking about what you should do next and how do I look, how are things, and they start looking up at the ceiling going, well, you know, Robes, well, they probably wouldn't call you Robes, but you get my point.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know what? It's interesting you say that because I have seen that with a friend who has stage four where they're trying to figure out how to battle something they don't know how to fix. And that does seem like what has been going on or what was going on with Lindsay Clancy. I think the one thing you can say, and the defense has been trying to hammer this home, is that every single person who has testified about Lindsay Clancy has testified to her being a great mother. So then what happened? And I thought this was effective when Kevin Reddington got back up and went after Heilbrunn. I want to know what you think, if this was deliberate or if this was an honest thing that he figured out. So he gets up initially to cross-examine, and he had Heilbrunn confirm that he hasn't written anything on postpartum psychosis other than something he wrote with his father five decades ago. So he sets this up. Hours go by. He keeps... cross-examining him. They take a break. He comes back and says, I need to make a correction. I went back and I looked at that paper you wrote with your father 49 years ago, and actually, it wasn't about postpartum psychosis. It was about schizophrenia. Mm-hmm. Did he know that all along or did he discover that because he wanted to point out? And it was very effective.
00:07:52
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: You actually haven't written anything about postpartum psychosis.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: I lean to it seemed in the moment because we watch Reddington a lot. It seemed like he wanted to come back and make the point. It seemed like he did. He missed it in the moment and he doesn't miss much. And here it is. He didn't miss it because he missed the first time. Make sure he came back and got it the second time. But Robes, he had spent so much time going over this guy's resume.
00:08:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: Showing.
00:08:15
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:08:15
Speaker 1: You wrote this. You wrote this paper. You've been to this many trials. You've studied this much. You've taught this many seminars. Like, he made the guy sound so impressive. And in all your impressive and studied and published resume and career, you got nothing having to do with the thing you're sitting here as an expert on. You have written nothing. And he pointed one thing out that was 45 years ago, and he was an assistant to his dad even on that one. And to have to come back and the guy flat out said, so yeah, no, I haven't written anything. Who am I supposed to listen to if the expert, the prosecution, the only one you can find has no experience in this thing?
00:08:59
Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy. And the other point that Reddington made very, very well, of course, so much of their defense has been on these just massive amounts of differing medications that doctors were just trying out and throwing at her And it led to, according to the defense, this moment where she became so psychotic, or at least these moments that led up to the killings, that the drugs and all of these drugs she was taking led to, obviously, that awful moment on January 24th. And so he was talking about all of the adverse reactions that to these drugs, including insomnia, which he did admit can lead to psychosis. If you have insomnia, it can lead to psychosis. So that was a big deal that he got him to admit that. And then he made this dramatic moment where he said, look at her, sir. Here you have Lindsay Clancy sitting there in a wheelchair. Do you believe she had adverse reactions? Of course, the prosecution objected. It was sustained. But ultimately, he was forced to answer the question. He just had to rephrase it. And he said, yes, forced.
00:10:09
Speaker 1: That goes to credibility. You're a doctor. All he's asking sometimes, Robes, and Avram Mack as well, he was a psychiatrist.
00:10:17
Speaker 2: This guy was a psychologist, but Avram Mack was a psychiatrist.
00:10:21
Speaker 1: Robes, he's asking them questions. This is basic stuff. Okay, there are 10 things that are considered symptoms of postpartum depression, da-da-da-da. Okay, you agree that, boom, this is one of the symptoms.
00:10:33
Speaker 2: That necessarily depends on the context.
00:10:36
Speaker 1: He wouldn't say yes or no. Roe, that goes to credibility. That looks like you're trying to be a homer. You're trying to help the prosecution by not even conceding a single point. That's basic. Like, if he would have said, sir, did you notice that it's Tuesday when you came in today? Well, what do you mean? Because in some... Some time zones, and in some places of the world, it has already changed over to Wednesday, where that is his answer. You idiot. I'm not calling this man an idiot, but I'm seeing you react to people this way, Roe. And I'm sitting there reacting, what is the jury? Like, bro, come on. He did so much of that. Avril Mack did so much of that. that I think that goes to credibility as well.
00:11:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be so interesting to see how that has affected or impacted the jury. And then this final witness, who we're going to see again today because he was just getting.
00:11:26
Speaker 1: Started, and it ended abruptly.
00:11:29
Speaker 2: This is a forensic psychologist, Gregory Sathoff. He is the senior psychologist for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, which is obviously a very famous unit. Very prestigious. He said he has treated thousands of cases of psychosis. He says he has studied postpartum psychosis. His issue, at least in terms of the defense, he saw Lindsay for 11 hours via Zoom. So look, that is difficult to be able to assess somebody when you actually aren't even in the room with him. He was talking and testified to his belief that once again, he does not believe that she was suffering from psychosis. He was questioning the fact that she had never spoken about hearing a voice before or after. He said that's highly unusual. We've heard plenty of other prosecution witnesses testify to that very thing. But there was a bizarre ending. So the prosecution is asking him questions. He starts talking about... Dude. So the prosecutor asks the significance of this voice. that she claimed she heard telling her to kill her kids, but not how to kill her kids. And he said he thought that was unusual, right? So he starts to say, children, you know, inherently have a strong will to survive. Objection from Reddington. Sidebar. We don't know what happened. And the judge just comes back, tells the witness, get off the stand, step down, sends the jury home. Boom. Boom.
00:13:03
Speaker 1: Robes, I'm going to go back and watch that. I actually listened to it a couple times yesterday. He didn't seem to be answering the question, first of all, and going off in some other direction. Robes, there was an awkward, extended pause. Like he was looking for words to say. No, no, no. If you were having a normal conversation with somebody and they just stopped talking for this long, you would think they were having a stroke. Like, what's going on with you? What's up?
00:13:28
Speaker 2: It seemed to me, I could be wrong. I don't know what you're... your reaction to it was, it seemed like he was about to say something so awful and so terrible. And he was going to describe something that nobody was prepared for in terms of these children's will to survive while their mom's trying to strangle them. I think he was so uncomfortable where he was about to go that he was pausing to try and figure out how to say it.
00:13:55
Speaker 1: See, and it came right off to me like he did know what to say. He almost got lost and forgot the question and he was piecing stuff together. He just sounded like, to me, again, to me, like he didn't know what he was talking about. The camera person, whoever's working the camera in that courtroom, good job. This is a trained journalist, Robes, not just a photographer. This is a photojournalist who knows where moments are happening and knows where emotion is and they keep moving around because we only got one camera. At this point, this guy's giving this answer at the end, The camera pans over to Reddington sitting in right next to Lindsay Clancy.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: He's about to explode.
00:14:30
Speaker 1: But he's sitting, Robes, this is the thing. We've seen him explode. He's sitting back like just chilling. Like he's at Thanksgiving and he's full. And he's waiting on this guy to answer. And Robes, he finally just kind of rolls his eyes and just, I'm going to object. I mean, he didn't even... It was almost he was giving the guy a chance to finish, and he objected while it was quiet because the guy wasn't talking. What was happening? And the judge, did he sound pissed to you? He wasn't polite in telling the guy, you're excused for the day.
00:15:04
Speaker 2: Yes, he sounded pissed. That's why it seemed abrupt. Something happened in that sidebar. Don't know if we'll have any indication of what that was. And perhaps when we see where he picks up on his testimony today, we'll know if he is going to continue down that line. There was another point I said to you because speaking to the cameraman who's there, who has done, or I say cameraman, it could be a camera woman, but whoever's behind the camera is doing such a good job. There was a point in which Reddington was forcing some of these witnesses to talk about what a good mom Lindsay Clancy was and that every single person, they panned to Lindsay and she started to breathe so heavily. Her whole body was heaving and you could see just how important it was to her or just it affected her emotionally to hear the confirmation that she was a good mom. That, that was, that landed on me. And I wonder how often the jury heard, The jurors are watching Lindsay Clancy's reaction to what's being said because it is fascinating to see and it does go into her state of mind. And I just, it's just, it's palpable. Her emotions are right there. Even though she's not speaking, you can feel it coming off her body.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: They see her the whole time after every answer is given. We only see it when the photographer decides it. So who knows, Robes, how they've been reacting to her. It could be a much different reaction in that courtroom. They could be feeling the emotion that the prosecution wants them to have, which is anger towards her for whatever. Maybe she's over there doing little drawings that we don't see. Maybe she's been smiling at times the jury didn't appreciate. Who knows?
00:16:39
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that yet, but in terms of the camera and catching moments and catching expressions, when we come back.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: The camera caught a person who was there on behalf of Vanity Fair right there in the front row alongside many other journalists, and her facial expression got her kicked out. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. Yes, there was a bit of a sideshow in the courtroom this week. A woman who was there on behalf of Vanity Fair, the camera pans over to her and what the camera captured suddenly became viral. So it was a court TV camera. And all of a sudden you see this row of journalists. And everyone has what you would expect, a somber look on their face. This is some of the most horrific testimony, one of the most horrific crimes that you could imagine covering. And here you see a young woman, her name is Brittany Romano, literally hamming it up with a smile. She even winks at the camera. It goes past her, comes back. She's still smiling, and she's literally looking directly at the camera, mugging for it. It was bizarre, and frankly, it was creepy. And you can only imagine the comments. You can even see the comments on the side of Court TV. There was immense online backlash, people calling her disgusting. People quickly found out it was a Vanity Fair person and started saying cancel Vanity Fair. It got heated and it was overwhelming because people were so appalled that she could be smiling and winking at a camera in the middle of this trial.
00:18:28
Speaker 1: Okay, but isn't this girl, I say this girl, this grown woman, she's a friend, right? A childhood friend?
00:18:34
Speaker 2: So we find out, yes, that Vanity Fair had basically given her credentials, credentialed her as a journalist because they wanted her to write a personal essay about growing up with Lindsay Clancy. I've even seen a picture, the two of them childhood friends. And so they put her in the front row. to basically bear witness to the trial and then be able to write a personal essay for them afterwards about what it was like growing up with lindsey clancy.
00:19:00
Speaker 1: Does she have to be in there for that that's a i mean really because i've seen the whole trial too um obviously they are getting to be able to give some context to it that we don't have by from sitting in there but I mean, you could have had aâ that's a seat forâ A journalist, right? I mean, fine. They wanted to go about this. I guess that's fine.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple of things came out of it. First of all, she lost her credentials because Vanity Fair announced on Tuesday it planned to stop working with her given all the backlash. She was asked directly about why were you smiling? Why did you do that? She said her dad had seen her in court because she'd been in court for all of these days and she would inadvertently get caught with the court TV camera. And her dad told her, stop looking so sad. You look so sad. So she said she was doing that for her dad. Like she, I, How she didn't recognize that that was going to come off the way it did.
00:19:54
Speaker 1: She looked awkward and uncomfortable. And somebody who's not used to being on camera is what I saw, right? How many times we've had live audiences and get ready when the camera comes, just make sure you smile. And then they come and they look, that's what it, she looked like a deer in the headlights with a camera coming by and didn't know how to look.
00:20:09
Speaker 2: In her defense, she's not a journalist. She has never covered a trial like this. And I think by that, perhaps alone, she wasn't prepared for the attention, for the importance of tone, that she was representing not just herself and looking at her dad, but she was representing Vanity Fair in that moment. And that just wasn't tenable for the magazine.
00:20:30
Speaker 1: Probably didn't make, I don't want to be, I don't know what's going on with her. And for an awkward, uncomfortable moment, I don't want to. be too hard on her, Vanity Fair, why not? I mean, maybe they talk to her, maybe they're getting too much heat. You said, I don't know why.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: Well, they put out a statement.
00:20:43
Speaker 1: I can read it for you.
00:20:45
Speaker 2: They said, we were interested in the prospect of a personal essay by Brittany Romano and her experience growing up with Lindsay Clancy. Yesterday, after clear conflicts with our editorial standards and processes, we informed Romano that we were not moving forward with her essay and informed the court that she is no longer credentialed by Vanity Fair. Okay. So they have ended their relationship with her.
00:21:09
Speaker 1: Their standards, they said.
00:21:10
Speaker 2: Standards and processes.
00:21:12
Speaker 1: I mean, what else was there? I don't know. I don't know about that, babe. You lose the gig because you smiled. I don't know. That's what happened. The wink thing is even a little awkward. It didn't look like she was being seductive or something to me. It was very awkward. She looked awkward. And they're standing, right? Because they had to stand. I guess somebody's coming in to judge at the jury. And the camera is panning. And Rob, she's just... You're required to stand. A camera's in front of you. What do you do?
00:21:38
Speaker 2: She just got.
00:21:39
Speaker 1: She looked like she froze.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: She got nervous. Yes. And she remembered her dad told her she looked too sad, and she just did something stupid and awkward. And look, it probably was just a strange, bizarre, knee-jerk reaction. She's not used to being in front of a camera. She's not used to having the spotlight on her. I actually feel bad for her. She's probably a good person, a decent person, who just got caught in an awkward moment, and now her name's everywhere. Yeah.
00:22:02
Speaker 1: Okay, wait a minute. I'm looking at it as we're talking ropes. There is somebody clearly a row behind who whispers something to her, who is smiling and says something and says some joke. I'm sure it has to do with the camera. Look at this nut here. I'm sorry. I don't mean to call folks.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:22:19
Speaker 1: She is about to speak to your girl.
00:22:21
Speaker 2: Right. Okay. And I hadn't even noticed that.
00:22:23
Speaker 1: So she leans back and she grins there. And I know there's another pan that goes, but even the wink seemed like an awkward moment.
00:22:30
Speaker 2: Twitch or something. It's so awkward. It actually looked like kind of a bizarre scene out of a movie. It didn't even seem real.
00:22:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, smile and smile too.
00:22:38
Speaker 2: It did kind of look like that. Or the girl from Obsession was also popped into my head. Just this weird kind of awkward, creepy smile with a wink.
00:22:47
Speaker 1: It was strange. You know what? I say smile. It's a misplaced facial expression.
00:22:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right?
00:22:53
Speaker 1: When there's terror or horror around. If you haven't seen those movies, that's the part of it. It's so creepy because it is not supposed to be in this environment.
00:23:00
Speaker 2: You know what I was just thinking? For anyone who has awkwardly laughed when you shouldn't have, laughed at a funeral, laughed when maybe you should have been crying because you get those two things, they're actually very closely related. I feel bad for her. I hope this blows over quickly. This is tough, and you never want to make yourself suddenly the story when clearly we need to be focused on what's going on in that courtroom and not her face.
00:23:27
Speaker 1: I wish we'd have gotten a chance. I mean, I just hate when people don't get a chance to actually explain themselves or say something. It's just knee-jerk. It's quick. I don't know. Vanity Fair could have talked to her and she didn't like her answer. I don't know. But if it's just because we're getting heat, we are going to abandon somebody who's already getting that heat because we don't want that heat either. I guess that's good business, Robes, but... It's tough.
00:23:48
Speaker 2: It does seem to be the way of the world, certainly the business world. The moment things are a distraction, quote unquote, they cut ties out of fear of backlash. And that is what it looks like happened in the courtroom this week. But anyway, we will continue to watch to see what will most likely be the final day of testimony in the Lindsay Clancy triple murder trial. And with that, everyone, thank you for listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, August 26th, and this is expected to be the final day of testimony in the Lindsay Clancy triple murder trial. And then, yes, a jury is going to decide if she was criminally responsible for killing her three young children. With that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Can't Believe We're Here. Five weeks of this. Seemed like the end kind of snuck up on us to a certain degree, but, Ro, this is it. The jury's going to get... We could have potentially a verdict by the end of this week.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: That seems hard to imagine, but you're right.
00:00:37
Speaker 1: It is possible.
00:00:38
Speaker 2: The judge did predict that closing arguments will take place tomorrow, which is Thursday. And we believe that today will start off with the last prosecution rebuttal witness. Obviously, they could always call someone else, but we believe this is the final witness, and the prosecution is still in the middle of questioning that witness. And then we have what's been extremely entertaining and contentious, the cross-examination.
00:01:06
Speaker 1: And impressive.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: Yes, and impressive. That's a good way to put it because, look, this is what the defense needs to do. This has been, as we've talked about, a battle of the experts. And so with these rebuttal witnesses... who are one by one saying that Lindsay Clancy did not or was not suffering from postpartum psychosis. Yes, this is when the defense has to discredit these witnesses, has to question these witnesses, and at least leave an impression among jurors that they're wrong or they're confused or they don't have the expertise to actually be able to weigh in on whether or not Lindsay Clancy had postpartum psychosis. Uh.
00:01:45
Speaker 1: I have reasonable doubt about all of their credentials and all of their ability to accurately diagnose because of his cross-examination. He had some of these folks fumbling over what they're saying. And, Robes, what I've gotten out of this, really, and I wonder what's going to happen with the jury, it's hard to just blame these experts I've seen on the stand. Robes, it sounds like the entire field of study in this needs... To get up to speed.
00:02:13
Speaker 2: Is limited at best. Yeah.
00:02:15
Speaker 1: And so how is a juror going to take it? Is it, okay, this psychosis thing is some crazy mumbo jumbo that they don't even have a lot of study on. Am I supposed to believe that? Or do I go with what is already in that Bible of options for what was bothering her? Rose, which way? Maybe they're hearing this stuff differently than we are.
00:02:35
Speaker 2: It could work in either direction because to your point, yes, if it's so... little studied and unknown if it's so exceptional and rare that there is no real research or literature on it to the point where the experts are saying, yeah, we just don't see it. And when we do, it doesn't present like this. That could be effective for the prosecution. That could be landing with jurors.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: What did you say? What did you just say there at the end? Say it again.
00:03:04
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if I can repeat what I just said.
00:03:06
Speaker 1: But the... You put me in the place, well, this is a field of study that what I'm saying is, does it discredit possibly the experts? Because it seems like the entire industry doesn't know what to do. I can't trust you on psychosis. None of y'all know what to do with psychosis.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: Could it also make it seem like the defense is making this up, so to speak, that this isn't really something that they've ever seen before. And now they're just trying to say it's something that actually isn't even really well documented.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: See, and there's where I go to the next part. It's not well documented, sure. So that means you don't have a lot of experts in it. This guy's seen five people over a 40-year career who've had psychosis. So he's the expert. That's the best we got.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: It could work in either direction.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: I wonder how it's reading for that jury.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: So, yeah, we began Tuesday with Dr. Kirk Heilbrunn, who is a forensic psychologist. This is the one who almost caused the mistrial the day before by bringing in mortal sin and Catholicism. But the prosecution had him back up on the stand under redirect. And I thought this was interesting. He gave a new term that I hadn't heard before, that none of us had heard before. that he believes Lindsay Clancy was not suffering from psychosis. Instead, he said she had a paratraumatic disassociation. So now we're getting all of these scientific words that are confusing, and I don't really understand at what point is this something that you suffer from that would allow you to no longer be criminally responsible. That is where the confusion is. But I did think it was effective when Dr. Heilbrunn said... that there were just so many decisions that Lindsay Clancy had to make to accomplish killing three kids and then trying to kill herself within just 18 minutes. He said she had to decide who goes first, how to do it, why take them down to the basement. His quote was, she demonstrated such self-control throughout the day on January 24th. She retained control as to whether, when, and how she carried it out and including her children. I thought that was effective.
00:05:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then Reddington gets up and he completely shoots all that stuff down. Robes, we keep hearing about one expert saying if she was in psychosis, she would be able to do this or wouldn't be able to do that. And then you hear another expert come up and say, well, she can still do both. Robes, I really do not know. Who are you supposed to believe? Who do you find most credible? And I don't find... Robes, I'll be honest. I'm getting to the point I don't find anybody credible. This is a very confusing line of... of study in the medical field that is just not, we don't know what's wrong with this lady. Robes, that's my conclusion, because none of them seem to have given her great quality of care. Nobody seemed to have, to be able to sit up there definitively and say, like passionately, she was hurting, she was this, she was that. All these prosecution witnesses, Robes, you know what turned me off about Halliburton? He's looking up for the answers. He sits there oftentimes, Robes, his eyes are going up towards the ceiling. He's finding an answer. If you're sitting in there with your cancer doctor and oncologist asking about what you should do next and how do I look, how are things, and they start looking up at the ceiling going, well, you know, Robes, well, they probably wouldn't call you Robes, but you get my point.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know what? It's interesting you say that because I have seen that with a friend who has stage four where they're trying to figure out how to battle something they don't know how to fix. And that does seem like what has been going on or what was going on with Lindsay Clancy. I think the one thing you can say, and the defense has been trying to hammer this home, is that every single person who has testified about Lindsay Clancy has testified to her being a great mother. So then what happened? And I thought this was effective when Kevin Reddington got back up and went after Heilbrunn. I want to know what you think, if this was deliberate or if this was an honest thing that he figured out. So he gets up initially to cross-examine, and he had Heilbrunn confirm that he hasn't written anything on postpartum psychosis other than something he wrote with his father five decades ago. So he sets this up. Hours go by. He keeps... cross-examining him. They take a break. He comes back and says, I need to make a correction. I went back and I looked at that paper you wrote with your father 49 years ago, and actually, it wasn't about postpartum psychosis. It was about schizophrenia. Mm-hmm. Did he know that all along or did he discover that because he wanted to point out? And it was very effective.
00:07:52
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: You actually haven't written anything about postpartum psychosis.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: I lean to it seemed in the moment because we watch Reddington a lot. It seemed like he wanted to come back and make the point. It seemed like he did. He missed it in the moment and he doesn't miss much. And here it is. He didn't miss it because he missed the first time. Make sure he came back and got it the second time. But Robes, he had spent so much time going over this guy's resume.
00:08:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: Showing.
00:08:15
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:08:15
Speaker 1: You wrote this. You wrote this paper. You've been to this many trials. You've studied this much. You've taught this many seminars. Like, he made the guy sound so impressive. And in all your impressive and studied and published resume and career, you got nothing having to do with the thing you're sitting here as an expert on. You have written nothing. And he pointed one thing out that was 45 years ago, and he was an assistant to his dad even on that one. And to have to come back and the guy flat out said, so yeah, no, I haven't written anything. Who am I supposed to listen to if the expert, the prosecution, the only one you can find has no experience in this thing?
00:08:59
Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy. And the other point that Reddington made very, very well, of course, so much of their defense has been on these just massive amounts of differing medications that doctors were just trying out and throwing at her And it led to, according to the defense, this moment where she became so psychotic, or at least these moments that led up to the killings, that the drugs and all of these drugs she was taking led to, obviously, that awful moment on January 24th. And so he was talking about all of the adverse reactions that to these drugs, including insomnia, which he did admit can lead to psychosis. If you have insomnia, it can lead to psychosis. So that was a big deal that he got him to admit that. And then he made this dramatic moment where he said, look at her, sir. Here you have Lindsay Clancy sitting there in a wheelchair. Do you believe she had adverse reactions? Of course, the prosecution objected. It was sustained. But ultimately, he was forced to answer the question. He just had to rephrase it. And he said, yes, forced.
00:10:09
Speaker 1: That goes to credibility. You're a doctor. All he's asking sometimes, Robes, and Avram Mack as well, he was a psychiatrist.
00:10:17
Speaker 2: This guy was a psychologist, but Avram Mack was a psychiatrist.
00:10:21
Speaker 1: Robes, he's asking them questions. This is basic stuff. Okay, there are 10 things that are considered symptoms of postpartum depression, da-da-da-da. Okay, you agree that, boom, this is one of the symptoms.
00:10:33
Speaker 2: That necessarily depends on the context.
00:10:36
Speaker 1: He wouldn't say yes or no. Roe, that goes to credibility. That looks like you're trying to be a homer. You're trying to help the prosecution by not even conceding a single point. That's basic. Like, if he would have said, sir, did you notice that it's Tuesday when you came in today? Well, what do you mean? Because in some... Some time zones, and in some places of the world, it has already changed over to Wednesday, where that is his answer. You idiot. I'm not calling this man an idiot, but I'm seeing you react to people this way, Roe. And I'm sitting there reacting, what is the jury? Like, bro, come on. He did so much of that. Avril Mack did so much of that. that I think that goes to credibility as well.
00:11:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be so interesting to see how that has affected or impacted the jury. And then this final witness, who we're going to see again today because he was just getting.
00:11:26
Speaker 1: Started, and it ended abruptly.
00:11:29
Speaker 2: This is a forensic psychologist, Gregory Sathoff. He is the senior psychologist for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, which is obviously a very famous unit. Very prestigious. He said he has treated thousands of cases of psychosis. He says he has studied postpartum psychosis. His issue, at least in terms of the defense, he saw Lindsay for 11 hours via Zoom. So look, that is difficult to be able to assess somebody when you actually aren't even in the room with him. He was talking and testified to his belief that once again, he does not believe that she was suffering from psychosis. He was questioning the fact that she had never spoken about hearing a voice before or after. He said that's highly unusual. We've heard plenty of other prosecution witnesses testify to that very thing. But there was a bizarre ending. So the prosecution is asking him questions. He starts talking about... Dude. So the prosecutor asks the significance of this voice. that she claimed she heard telling her to kill her kids, but not how to kill her kids. And he said he thought that was unusual, right? So he starts to say, children, you know, inherently have a strong will to survive. Objection from Reddington. Sidebar. We don't know what happened. And the judge just comes back, tells the witness, get off the stand, step down, sends the jury home. Boom. Boom.
00:13:03
Speaker 1: Robes, I'm going to go back and watch that. I actually listened to it a couple times yesterday. He didn't seem to be answering the question, first of all, and going off in some other direction. Robes, there was an awkward, extended pause. Like he was looking for words to say. No, no, no. If you were having a normal conversation with somebody and they just stopped talking for this long, you would think they were having a stroke. Like, what's going on with you? What's up?
00:13:28
Speaker 2: It seemed to me, I could be wrong. I don't know what you're... your reaction to it was, it seemed like he was about to say something so awful and so terrible. And he was going to describe something that nobody was prepared for in terms of these children's will to survive while their mom's trying to strangle them. I think he was so uncomfortable where he was about to go that he was pausing to try and figure out how to say it.
00:13:55
Speaker 1: See, and it came right off to me like he did know what to say. He almost got lost and forgot the question and he was piecing stuff together. He just sounded like, to me, again, to me, like he didn't know what he was talking about. The camera person, whoever's working the camera in that courtroom, good job. This is a trained journalist, Robes, not just a photographer. This is a photojournalist who knows where moments are happening and knows where emotion is and they keep moving around because we only got one camera. At this point, this guy's giving this answer at the end, The camera pans over to Reddington sitting in right next to Lindsay Clancy.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: He's about to explode.
00:14:30
Speaker 1: But he's sitting, Robes, this is the thing. We've seen him explode. He's sitting back like just chilling. Like he's at Thanksgiving and he's full. And he's waiting on this guy to answer. And Robes, he finally just kind of rolls his eyes and just, I'm going to object. I mean, he didn't even... It was almost he was giving the guy a chance to finish, and he objected while it was quiet because the guy wasn't talking. What was happening? And the judge, did he sound pissed to you? He wasn't polite in telling the guy, you're excused for the day.
00:15:04
Speaker 2: Yes, he sounded pissed. That's why it seemed abrupt. Something happened in that sidebar. Don't know if we'll have any indication of what that was. And perhaps when we see where he picks up on his testimony today, we'll know if he is going to continue down that line. There was another point I said to you because speaking to the cameraman who's there, who has done, or I say cameraman, it could be a camera woman, but whoever's behind the camera is doing such a good job. There was a point in which Reddington was forcing some of these witnesses to talk about what a good mom Lindsay Clancy was and that every single person, they panned to Lindsay and she started to breathe so heavily. Her whole body was heaving and you could see just how important it was to her or just it affected her emotionally to hear the confirmation that she was a good mom. That, that was, that landed on me. And I wonder how often the jury heard, The jurors are watching Lindsay Clancy's reaction to what's being said because it is fascinating to see and it does go into her state of mind. And I just, it's just, it's palpable. Her emotions are right there. Even though she's not speaking, you can feel it coming off her body.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: They see her the whole time after every answer is given. We only see it when the photographer decides it. So who knows, Robes, how they've been reacting to her. It could be a much different reaction in that courtroom. They could be feeling the emotion that the prosecution wants them to have, which is anger towards her for whatever. Maybe she's over there doing little drawings that we don't see. Maybe she's been smiling at times the jury didn't appreciate. Who knows?
00:16:39
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that yet, but in terms of the camera and catching moments and catching expressions, when we come back.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: The camera caught a person who was there on behalf of Vanity Fair right there in the front row alongside many other journalists, and her facial expression got her kicked out. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. Yes, there was a bit of a sideshow in the courtroom this week. A woman who was there on behalf of Vanity Fair, the camera pans over to her and what the camera captured suddenly became viral. So it was a court TV camera. And all of a sudden you see this row of journalists. And everyone has what you would expect, a somber look on their face. This is some of the most horrific testimony, one of the most horrific crimes that you could imagine covering. And here you see a young woman, her name is Brittany Romano, literally hamming it up with a smile. She even winks at the camera. It goes past her, comes back. She's still smiling, and she's literally looking directly at the camera, mugging for it. It was bizarre, and frankly, it was creepy. And you can only imagine the comments. You can even see the comments on the side of Court TV. There was immense online backlash, people calling her disgusting. People quickly found out it was a Vanity Fair person and started saying cancel Vanity Fair. It got heated and it was overwhelming because people were so appalled that she could be smiling and winking at a camera in the middle of this trial.
00:18:28
Speaker 1: Okay, but isn't this girl, I say this girl, this grown woman, she's a friend, right? A childhood friend?
00:18:34
Speaker 2: So we find out, yes, that Vanity Fair had basically given her credentials, credentialed her as a journalist because they wanted her to write a personal essay about growing up with Lindsay Clancy. I've even seen a picture, the two of them childhood friends. And so they put her in the front row. to basically bear witness to the trial and then be able to write a personal essay for them afterwards about what it was like growing up with lindsey clancy.
00:19:00
Speaker 1: Does she have to be in there for that that's a i mean really because i've seen the whole trial too um obviously they are getting to be able to give some context to it that we don't have by from sitting in there but I mean, you could have had aâ that's a seat forâ A journalist, right? I mean, fine. They wanted to go about this. I guess that's fine.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple of things came out of it. First of all, she lost her credentials because Vanity Fair announced on Tuesday it planned to stop working with her given all the backlash. She was asked directly about why were you smiling? Why did you do that? She said her dad had seen her in court because she'd been in court for all of these days and she would inadvertently get caught with the court TV camera. And her dad told her, stop looking so sad. You look so sad. So she said she was doing that for her dad. Like she, I, How she didn't recognize that that was going to come off the way it did.
00:19:54
Speaker 1: She looked awkward and uncomfortable. And somebody who's not used to being on camera is what I saw, right? How many times we've had live audiences and get ready when the camera comes, just make sure you smile. And then they come and they look, that's what it, she looked like a deer in the headlights with a camera coming by and didn't know how to look.
00:20:09
Speaker 2: In her defense, she's not a journalist. She has never covered a trial like this. And I think by that, perhaps alone, she wasn't prepared for the attention, for the importance of tone, that she was representing not just herself and looking at her dad, but she was representing Vanity Fair in that moment. And that just wasn't tenable for the magazine.
00:20:30
Speaker 1: Probably didn't make, I don't want to be, I don't know what's going on with her. And for an awkward, uncomfortable moment, I don't want to. be too hard on her, Vanity Fair, why not? I mean, maybe they talk to her, maybe they're getting too much heat. You said, I don't know why.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: Well, they put out a statement.
00:20:43
Speaker 1: I can read it for you.
00:20:45
Speaker 2: They said, we were interested in the prospect of a personal essay by Brittany Romano and her experience growing up with Lindsay Clancy. Yesterday, after clear conflicts with our editorial standards and processes, we informed Romano that we were not moving forward with her essay and informed the court that she is no longer credentialed by Vanity Fair. Okay. So they have ended their relationship with her.
00:21:09
Speaker 1: Their standards, they said.
00:21:10
Speaker 2: Standards and processes.
00:21:12
Speaker 1: I mean, what else was there? I don't know. I don't know about that, babe. You lose the gig because you smiled. I don't know. That's what happened. The wink thing is even a little awkward. It didn't look like she was being seductive or something to me. It was very awkward. She looked awkward. And they're standing, right? Because they had to stand. I guess somebody's coming in to judge at the jury. And the camera is panning. And Rob, she's just... You're required to stand. A camera's in front of you. What do you do?
00:21:38
Speaker 2: She just got.
00:21:39
Speaker 1: She looked like she froze.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: She got nervous. Yes. And she remembered her dad told her she looked too sad, and she just did something stupid and awkward. And look, it probably was just a strange, bizarre, knee-jerk reaction. She's not used to being in front of a camera. She's not used to having the spotlight on her. I actually feel bad for her. She's probably a good person, a decent person, who just got caught in an awkward moment, and now her name's everywhere. Yeah.
00:22:02
Speaker 1: Okay, wait a minute. I'm looking at it as we're talking ropes. There is somebody clearly a row behind who whispers something to her, who is smiling and says something and says some joke. I'm sure it has to do with the camera. Look at this nut here. I'm sorry. I don't mean to call folks.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:22:19
Speaker 1: She is about to speak to your girl.
00:22:21
Speaker 2: Right. Okay. And I hadn't even noticed that.
00:22:23
Speaker 1: So she leans back and she grins there. And I know there's another pan that goes, but even the wink seemed like an awkward moment.
00:22:30
Speaker 2: Twitch or something. It's so awkward. It actually looked like kind of a bizarre scene out of a movie. It didn't even seem real.
00:22:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, smile and smile too.
00:22:38
Speaker 2: It did kind of look like that. Or the girl from Obsession was also popped into my head. Just this weird kind of awkward, creepy smile with a wink.
00:22:47
Speaker 1: It was strange. You know what? I say smile. It's a misplaced facial expression.
00:22:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right?
00:22:53
Speaker 1: When there's terror or horror around. If you haven't seen those movies, that's the part of it. It's so creepy because it is not supposed to be in this environment.
00:23:00
Speaker 2: You know what I was just thinking? For anyone who has awkwardly laughed when you shouldn't have, laughed at a funeral, laughed when maybe you should have been crying because you get those two things, they're actually very closely related. I feel bad for her. I hope this blows over quickly. This is tough, and you never want to make yourself suddenly the story when clearly we need to be focused on what's going on in that courtroom and not her face.
00:23:27
Speaker 1: I wish we'd have gotten a chance. I mean, I just hate when people don't get a chance to actually explain themselves or say something. It's just knee-jerk. It's quick. I don't know. Vanity Fair could have talked to her and she didn't like her answer. I don't know. But if it's just because we're getting heat, we are going to abandon somebody who's already getting that heat because we don't want that heat either. I guess that's good business, Robes, but... It's tough.
00:23:48
Speaker 2: It does seem to be the way of the world, certainly the business world. The moment things are a distraction, quote unquote, they cut ties out of fear of backlash. And that is what it looks like happened in the courtroom this week. But anyway, we will continue to watch to see what will most likely be the final day of testimony in the Lindsay Clancy triple murder trial. And with that, everyone, thank you for listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk soon.