Aug. 26, 2026
Killer Mom Trial: Final Witness Testifies Lindsay Clancy Knew Right From Wrong, As Attorneys Prep For Closing Arguments
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RSS Feed Testimony has wrapped in the case against Massachusetts mom, Lindsay Clancy, and closing arguments are set for Thursday. The final witness was one of three rebuttal witnesses called by the prosecution, all of whom testified that Clancy was not suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time she strangled her three young children to death. The defense spent hours attempting to discredit the senior forensic psychologist for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, who told jurors Clancy was in control and aware of the illegality of her actions.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: It is Wednesday, August 26th. The testimony is over. The defense has rested. The prosecution has rested. And the jury should get the case tomorrow and decide the fate of Lindsay Clancy, the woman who killed.
00:00:19
Speaker 1: Her three kids.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Five weeks, robes. What was this? 84, I think, is the official count of witnesses.
00:00:27
Speaker 1: And here we are. Tomorrow's it.
00:00:31
Speaker 3: Yes, and this is a significant day in terms of what the jurors have heard. This is, we've said it for quite some time now, a battle between the experts. And frankly, it's confusing because you have esteemed psychiatrists and psychologists that are testifying for the prosecution, and you have the same testifying for the defense. And they're all saying the exact opposite things.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: Well, they.
00:00:58
Speaker 2: They were esteemed before Kevin Reddington got a hold of them. This guy we keep talking about, and it's not just us. Everybody's talking about this guy. But Robes, yes, the last witness on the stand was an expert.
00:01:11
Speaker 1: Expert who had a pretty damn good, I mean, title. Yes.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: When you hear this, I'll sit up and listen to this guy.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: Yes, Dr.
00:01:17
Speaker 3: Gregory Sattop. He's the senior psychiatrist... with the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. And for those of you who don't know what that is, that is a prestigious group that studies serial killers and studies why and who commits crimes. They're the stuff that movies are made of. And this guy represents part of that organization. And there he was on the stand being taken down in moments by Kevin Reddington.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: Well, this was stunning because I thought, well, this is a good guy for them to... wrap up with uh he seemed pretty solid don't get me wrong i don't think he was the most charismatic guy up there but he seemed um like a guy who knew what he was talking about and was respectable robes um he was in you and i watched every day of this trial this was the first guy that i felt comfortable saying okay the prosecution made some headway he actually said a couple of things in the way he said it and solid and made you ask some questions to where hmm Maybe. On the last day with the last witness probes, they got to what we were waiting to hear for five weeks.
00:02:29
Speaker 3: I agree. So they got and this was in layman's terms. It was something we could all understand. Certainly the jurors could understand this as well. But he basically said she knew what she was doing. She was in control. from the beginning of that day to the end of that day and he went into detail about why she was deliberate how she planned how she was watching the time and this was all a very controlled decision from start to finish this wasn't a voice that told her to do something where she was out of her body and out of her mind she was very much he testified in control of her actions and her mind and that He said it very effectively and he stated it very simply. We actually have his exact quote here. He said, my opinion is that she did have the capacity to appreciate right from wrong. It is my opinion with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Miss Clancy was criminally responsible.
00:03:35
Speaker 1: Let's plain speak.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: We've heard a couple of other prosecution witnesses say that. The guy I'm thinking about, the one was before this, he said that. He was the psychologist?
00:03:43
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:03:44
Speaker 1: Am I right? Okay.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: He said the same thing. Robes, he was definitive in what he said. And it was the first thing that I felt completely landed her plane, the prosecution. And again, I'm not critical of putting on their case, but as a layperson, Robes, they connected the dots to where when she was going through this. He explained why and made you question.
00:04:07
Speaker 1: Well, hmm.
00:04:08
Speaker 2: And he gave the example, Robes, of as she's going through this and she's trying to kill her kids, Patrick Clancy called while he was out on the errands. She didn't answer the call. He said the fact that she called back is very telling.
00:04:22
Speaker 3: Yes, because she was buying time. He said she made a decision. Now, he said if she were hearing voices and being... told what to do by this male voice for her to stop and call Patrick Clancy back because he was saying that she knew if she didn't, he might come home soon and interrupt what she was planning to do. And so she had the wherewithal and the control to call him back to tell him about whatever thing he needed to pick up at CVS so he would stay on his errands and not come home early to him That was a major sign that she was not psychotic, that she was in control.
00:05:03
Speaker 1: Was that enough?
00:05:05
Speaker 2: Was that enough to convince 12 people she was sane, right? After all we've heard, and again, there have been some other testimony from experts. I think this was their best guy. I mean, Avram Mack was taken down completely by Reddington. The guy before this was, is it Hal Kirk, Hal Halepin, whatever his name, the guy, the psychologist was the next to the last witness. He didn't have a good showing. I mean, we almost had a damn mistrial because of that guy.
00:05:30
Speaker 3: Yes, he was very hesitant, second-guessing himself when Reddington had his way with him.
00:05:37
Speaker 2: So this is the guy then, isn't it, Rogue? Did he do enough? Did he say enough to convince you that she was sane? And I got to believe this guy over this other guy from the defense.
00:05:51
Speaker 1: Was that enough, baby?
00:05:53
Speaker 3: I have to say, for the first time... I think in a long time after hearing Dr. Satov testify today, I thought, wow, man, the jury might actually find her criminally responsible because he just was so logical. He appealed to just the basics, the fact that she was so methodical, that she was so calculated, that she was so controlled, that she didn't. seemed like she was out of her mind. And I know that we've heard other witnesses for the defense say that you can have the ability to function and appear normal while still being in a state of psychosis. But just the way he described it, that phone call, that really was eye-opening to me. And I just, I wonder if that really landed the way it did for us, for jurors who were listening.
00:06:47
Speaker 1: It still didn't land for me medically.
00:06:49
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a consensus in the medical field about postpartum psychosis, postpartum depression. That's the impression I'm getting. So why am I, as one of a 12-member juror, why do I need to figure this out? Y'all tell me what's wrong with her. And y'all need to come to a consensus. Well, it's the the literature is so confusing. I don't know what's the right thing to do.
00:07:10
Speaker 3: It's confusing and it's minimal. And that's the other thing. I do think that was something that the defense has been incredibly effective at trying to poke holes in this concept or this notion that these very learned men who have gotten up there and have decades of experience in this field have all had to acknowledge and admit that they haven't really had that much, if any, hands-on experience with women in and postpartum psychosis.
00:07:36
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you think about that question to answer the jurors? Do we go with what the current literature says, or do we go with the direction the literature is going, but not quite there?
00:07:48
Speaker 1: Right?
00:07:48
Speaker 2: Because all we know to go with, we don't have enough to say whether this lady was in psychosis. They can't agree on it. The literature is minimal. But we've heard plenty of evidence, Robes, that they're working on updating the handbooks, that they're doing all these things, and it's becoming.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: More of an area of study. Now, So what do you go with as a juror?
00:08:07
Speaker 2: I got to stick with all we got here, or do I? Am I supposed to make the decision about what they should be judging her based on?
00:08:15
Speaker 1: What the hell?
00:08:16
Speaker 3: And I think that's why jury instructions are going to be so important for the jurors in terms of what they can consider, because I think it's been fairly demonstrated, actually, from both the prosecution and the defense witnesses that Lindsay Clancy loved her children. That is not in question.
00:08:33
Speaker 1: Okay, that's not. Okay.
00:08:35
Speaker 3: That is not in question.
00:08:36
Speaker 2: So what does that do for you as a juror in determining the likelihood of her being out of her mind?
00:08:41
Speaker 3: Well, I say this because they did do, I think the prosecution did an effective job of trying to show this woman who loved her children fiercely and maybe even too much to the point where she felt like she was the only one who could take care of her children. And I do believe they made it very clear she did want to kill herself. She wanted... She wanted to end her life, and I do think it is reasonable to think that it's possible. Probable? Beyond a reasonable doubt, I don't know. But certainly possible and maybe even probable that she didn't trust anyone else to take care of her children and that if she was going to leave this earth, she wanted her children to go with her.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: Does that sound like a sane woman to you?
00:09:28
Speaker 3: It sounds like somebody who is desperate and somebody who feels out of control and is trying to get some control back and who loves her children so much she doesn't want to be without them and she doesn't want them to be without her. I think that is possible. that jurors could come to that conclusion. And if that is what they determine is what happened, she would be criminally responsible.
00:09:51
Speaker 2: Okay, she loved her kids a lot. What have you seen that she's so controlling that it steps outside the bounds of what you know of motherhood? That's another thing. How many, what are the breakdown women and men on the 18? It's 18. We don't know who's who yet, but.
00:10:06
Speaker 3: I believe I thought it was, it was 18. I thought it was 12 women and six men.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: So we don't know what the ultimate breakdown is going to be on the final jury, but And frankly.
00:10:14
Speaker 3: I don't know who would be more likely to side with her. And I think it just so depends on each person's experience because that's what you will be willing to accept or believe. And even though I know you're supposed to just look at the facts, it's impossible not to separate your own experience or what you know to be true or what you believe to be possible. And if you're a woman and you're a mother, you're going to have a certain perception about what is believable and not. I actually think maybe men would be more likely to be like, yeah, she probably was psychotic. I feel like she would be better off with men believing psychosis rather than women because if a woman has given birth and maybe even experienced postpartum depression, might even think she understands and think, nah, there's no way.
00:11:06
Speaker 2: But does she understand getting up to that point and just not acting on all this stuff?
00:11:11
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I've been frustrated too. I've seen doctors too.
00:11:15
Speaker 3: I've considered suicide too. That thought has popped in my head.
00:11:18
Speaker 2: But then, Ropes, where do you leave room for? And this is the part that pushes back on that. Ropes, this woman has documented history of mental illness. Doesn't mean she's not guilty. That is the line I'm trying to figure out, baby. How mental ill... before you're no longer responsible.
00:11:38
Speaker 3: Correct, and I think that's a huge, massive, gray, fuzzy area. What the hell?
00:11:43
Speaker 1: That's impossible, baby.
00:11:44
Speaker 3: I tend to think, and I could be wrong, but I think as a human, as a juror, whatever you feel like seems more believable based on your personal experiences, you have an expert who has taken the stand who has validated how you feel. And if that expert wasn't completely eviscerated by Kevin Reddington... You might feel, I feel like the prosecution gave you justification with enough experts. If you don't think it's possible or you don't think it's likely that she was in a state of psychosis for whatever reason, there have been multiple experts who validate that point of view. Then if you actually think, wow, no mother, no loving mother could actually do this to her kids unless she was in a state of psychosis. The defense gave you expert witnesses who will validate that line of thinking. I actually am going to be so fascinated to see how long this jury deliberates. If they're able to come to a unanimous decision and how long it's going to take. And I have, honestly, at this point, I have no idea.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: They're not supposed to discuss it ahead of time, right?
00:12:52
Speaker 3: They are not supposed to discuss it with anyone, certainly not each other.
00:12:56
Speaker 2: No deliberation has taken place yet. So they are essentially going to walk in there tomorrow, presumably, to start jury deliberations and look at each other for the first time and say, what do you think?
00:13:04
Speaker 1: What do you think? I wonder what's that going to be. What if you had 12 people that are in agreement? I think that's impossible.
00:13:12
Speaker 3: I cannot imagine. But yes, I do think the prosecution scored some points today with Dr.
00:13:20
Speaker 1: Satov. Some common sense points. Yes.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't understand all this, the postpartum, this and that, and psychiatry and psychiatry.
00:13:28
Speaker 1: I don't.
00:13:29
Speaker 2: But I do understand him making the point that, okay, she's in psychosis and a voice is talking to her and the phone rings.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: She doesn't answer.
00:13:37
Speaker 2: But then the voice stops talking to her long enough to say, why don't you go ahead and make that call, and I'll be back when you get done.
00:13:43
Speaker 1: Exactly. Like, that's a plain speech kind of thing, right? The robes that I can understand.
00:13:50
Speaker 3: And several of their last, well, the three last rebuttal witnesses all had this same through line. This was a consensus that they did not... by this notion that this male voice had never spoken to her before and had never spoken to her since, but chose that very specific 18-minute window of time to go ahead and tell her to do this. They said that that was very unusual, and I believe one of them, if not all of them, said they've never seen that before.
00:14:20
Speaker 2: Okay, and there you go, Robes. It goes, as we're listening, like, okay, he's making some good points, and then here comes Reddington. And Reddington once again dresses this guy down regarding his resume is where he starts. So, Rose, we listened to this very credible guy and about all his experience. He's got 40 plus years in doing this thing. He works for the FBI Behavioral Unit. He says he has treated thousands of people in his years.
00:14:45
Speaker 3: Thousands.
00:14:46
Speaker 1: Over time. Oak, he's legit.
00:14:48
Speaker 2: Robes, and then he needed to explain to us and Reddington exposed.
00:14:53
Speaker 1: Who were his patients?
00:14:55
Speaker 3: Prisoners.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: He works in prisons. Dealing with prisoners.
00:15:01
Speaker 3: Criminals.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: Who possibly are trying to do a fake freaking insanity defense. That's who he deals with and treats. So the person, Robes, now I'm listening to him. I don't like that. Okay, I'll keep listening. I'm just going to give him a shot because you know what, Robes? He says some legit stuff. And he's got a great resume. Man, it says FBI on his business card. And then he gets asked the question that Reddington has asked every prosecution expert. Hmm.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: All right.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: Then how many women have you treated in that 40 year history robes and all that career?
00:15:36
Speaker 1: How many women have you treated with postpartum psychosis?
00:15:41
Speaker 3: Two or three, I believe, was his answer, which actually was worse. If he had just said two, if he had said three, but two or three, he wasn't sure.
00:15:49
Speaker 1: Don't know. These didn't stand out to me.
00:15:53
Speaker 3: That made me question. First of all, it's obviously two or three is is is. Hard to imagine that's going to give you the expertise to testify specifically about a woman whose defense is that she has postpartum psychosis and you've seen or treated two or three women. Rubs.
00:16:15
Speaker 1: Rubs.
00:16:16
Speaker 2: He didn't think about this plenty before he testified. He didn't know he was going to get asked that question. This is the thing. So many of the prosecution experts are acting like homers. You can't just be straight, be honest. You look like you're trying to hide something or trying to make yourself sound better. That's the part that ends up discrediting them.
00:16:34
Speaker 1: Not his resume.
00:16:36
Speaker 2: It's how he's coming off and trying to fool us into thinking he's something he's not. That's, excuse me, and I'm just saying he's not, I'm saying he's doing that. I'm saying it comes off ropes.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: Two or three.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: How many is it? They don't stand out to you? You've only done this And how many times have you been married?
00:16:52
Speaker 1: It was four or five.
00:16:56
Speaker 3: And the point being is these are learned men who have incredible degrees and wonderful resumes and make them experts on mental health. but specifically postpartum psychosis, it didn't seem as though any of them were actually experts on that.
00:17:13
Speaker 2: And it seems nobody really is, and Robes, that is gonna sit with the jury as well. Who are we supposed to listen to or believe? Who is smarter, who is more experienced, who is better, who is, we just don't know. But that is where Reddington started with this guy, but he was not done. Stay here, we'll explain the rest of the cross-examination from Reddington, that might have you questioning, might have the jury questioning, who they should believe.
00:17:39
Speaker 1: Stay here.
00:17:49
Speaker 3: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. Testimony is wrapped, but man, it ended with a bang because, yes, Reddington did his thing. He closed his cross-examination of the state's final rebuttal witness by reading the prosecution's opening statement to the witness. That might sound dangerous. Why would you want to repeat the prosecution's opening statement? Why would you want to repeat what the prosecution says your client did? Well, it was damn effective.
00:18:25
Speaker 2: We didn't know where he was going when he was doing this. We didn't, but you ultimately robes have the prosecution's star witness, most important witness, because it's their final witness, on the stand. And the last thing he said under cross-examination was to cut completely down the prosecution's argument that they made in their opening statement. That is what happened. He made their star witness admit that, yeah, what they said in the opening was bullshit.
00:19:02
Speaker 3: It was remarkable. It was brilliant, to be honest. And it was scary when he started doing it. Because you even said when we started hearing him, we missed. Wait, who was he quoting? Why is he saying these things?
00:19:13
Speaker 1: Where is he going with this?
00:19:13
Speaker 3: And then it all made sense. So Kevin Reddington says, on January 24th of 2023, Lindsay made a calculated decision.
00:19:21
Speaker 2: And again, this is completely him quoting Lindsay. The prosecutor's words they used in the opening statement.
00:19:27
Speaker 3: Yes. She was a woman who no longer liked the life she thought she wanted. It was getting harder and harder for her to control. And when she saw the opportunity to escape, she made the selfish choice to take it and to take Cora, Dawson, and Callen first before attempting to take her own life. She chose to manipulate her providers. seek out a quick and easy fix when she was feeling depressed and anxious. And when she didn't get what she expected, she chose the alternate route. She would seek a different doctor. She would change medications after days. She disengaged from treatment that she didn't like the plan. And after only four months in treatment, she made a choice. a deliberate and intentional decision that she didn't want to try anymore. And because no one could take care of her kids the way she wanted them to, she had to take them with her too. Would you agree that the evidence, in your opinion, supports that contention, sir?
00:20:27
Speaker 2: And he answered, I think that statement that you read really minimizes what she was going through.
00:20:33
Speaker 1: Damn. Drop the mic. And Robes, that statement.
00:20:38
Speaker 2: We have listened to testimony that flies in the face of that. It's almost like, wow, you kind of lied to us off the bat. That clearly is not what happened with this woman.
00:20:48
Speaker 3: And that was remarkably effective by the defense because every single person who took that stand said that Lindsay Clancy was begging for help, begging to go to the hospital, begging to be included in programs that she wasn't qualified for because it had been too long since she had given birth.
00:21:06
Speaker 1: So she didn't.
00:21:06
Speaker 3: Qualify as postpartum. She was not getting help that she was desperately seeking. So that all flies in the face of what the prosecution told jurors at the beginning of the trial. And when you can prove that the prosecution was overreaching, that they were fine lying to the jurors to try and make Lindsay Clancy look like an even bigger monster, that erodes trust.
00:21:33
Speaker 2: Forget, I mean, this is, you can't, they're human beings, Robes, on that jury. So emotion plays into this. And it's a motion directed at Lindsey Clancy. It's a motion having to do with the kids. It's a motion towards the attorneys. But Robes, it's also, they.
00:21:47
Speaker 1: Don't feel like, they don't feel good.
00:21:50
Speaker 2: And there have been several moments, we've pointed out, like you feel like the prosecution was trying to get over on us. Trying to pull a fast one. Trying to do something. That felt dishonest. I mean, he, excuse me, let me just say, he performed in such a way at the end of this cross-examination that might have been effective. And doing that, Roe, was to make the prosecution seem like they haven't really been on the up and up.
00:22:14
Speaker 1: And from the very beginning, they said this.
00:22:16
Speaker 2: And they're closing with their experts saying that that statement they made at the beginning, he doesn't agree with it.
00:22:23
Speaker 3: Even though he testified that he thought Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible, he still, that last moment was everything. And look, this will be fascinating to hear closing arguments because it's, I feel like so many people online, everyone's back and forth, up in arms, this side or that. But you talked about this in a previous episode, that sometimes justice is mercy. Because I think people are looking at it, should we give her mercy or should we give the kids justice? And it's one or the other. But is there an avenue in which mercy is justice? And that, I bet you, I would imagine that is going to be how Kevin Reddington threads this needle because for all of those people, jurors included, who do feel a responsibility to those three kids to make sure that they are providing justice for them and they're fighting for them, that you can do that and at the same time give mercy to their mother. It will be fascinating to watch.
00:23:27
Speaker 2: So as we sit here, as we're recording... They are still in their charge conference, as they call it, but they're deciding what the jury instructions are going to be. The jury is back tomorrow morning, expected to get those instructions. And Robes, they'll be deliberating before lunchtime, based on all that we have seen. How long this will take, it'll be on a Thursday. Always curious when it bumps up against a Friday, Robes, when it comes to jury deliberations.
00:23:51
Speaker 1: Don't know if that'll factor in. I would be shocked at a short, at a quick verdict. Shocked.
00:23:58
Speaker 3: I would be shocked, too, but we've seen crazy things before, and as you point out, it lands now. It looks as though the jury will begin deliberating Thursday afternoon. They'll have all day Friday. You know they have been sitting in that courtroom for five full weeks. The idea of a weekend free of a courtroom, the idea of going back to their lives, their jobs, that will be enticing, and it will be motivating.
00:24:24
Speaker 2: This weighs, though, man. I mean, this is consequential. This ain't like the Diddy jury, right? This is consequential, what they do with this lady. Man, I don't know what they're feeling there, but I do not envy the position that they are in.
00:24:37
Speaker 1: But yeah, folks, this is wrapping up.
00:24:39
Speaker 2: You'll see probably a, and we have noticed, Robe, certainly this week, but I think starting at the end of last week, an increased intensity and coverage for this story.
00:24:47
Speaker 3: Because this is the impact, or I guess the The verdict in this case could have far-reaching implications going forward for mental health awareness, certainly for mothers out there. This is beyond just Lindsay Clancy. This is something that so many people are paying attention to because it's something that we haven't paid enough attention to. And if anything that was highlighted in this trial, we need to know more about postpartum health, postpartum depression, and yes, this little known disorder called postpartum psychosis.
00:25:22
Speaker 2: And Rose, as we are doing this, some stuff is starting to come out from the charge hearing.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: This is a big deal.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: They have now apparently given the okay to consider manslaughter.
00:25:37
Speaker 3: And we were wondering about that.
00:25:38
Speaker 1: They gave an option.
00:25:39
Speaker 3: That is going to be huge.
00:25:45
Speaker 1: Oh, we'll be able to consider manslaughter. That is huge. It's giving them almost a way out.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: Like we can have it, but we can still hold her responsible for it, but not fully and understand that she was going through something.
00:25:57
Speaker 3: Well, the question is, does she belong in prison or does she belong in a hospital?
00:26:04
Speaker 1: Consider evidence involving mental impairment. Oh, my gosh.
00:26:07
Speaker 2: And the other thing here, the update ropes, is the timing of it. They will have this thing by lunchtime. Closing arguments are going to be, Reddington said he only needs about a half hour.
00:26:18
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:26:19
Speaker 2: The judge said you can both have an hour. He said you only have, the prosecution said, up to an hour. So we got an hour and a half of closing tomorrow. And jury instruction, and that's it. Can't believe we're here.
00:26:30
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:26:30
Speaker 3: Wow. We will be watching. We know you've been listening, so we always appreciate that and you. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We will talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: It is Wednesday, August 26th. The testimony is over. The defense has rested. The prosecution has rested. And the jury should get the case tomorrow and decide the fate of Lindsay Clancy, the woman who killed.
00:00:19
Speaker 1: Her three kids.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Five weeks, robes. What was this? 84, I think, is the official count of witnesses.
00:00:27
Speaker 1: And here we are. Tomorrow's it.
00:00:31
Speaker 3: Yes, and this is a significant day in terms of what the jurors have heard. This is, we've said it for quite some time now, a battle between the experts. And frankly, it's confusing because you have esteemed psychiatrists and psychologists that are testifying for the prosecution, and you have the same testifying for the defense. And they're all saying the exact opposite things.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: Well, they.
00:00:58
Speaker 2: They were esteemed before Kevin Reddington got a hold of them. This guy we keep talking about, and it's not just us. Everybody's talking about this guy. But Robes, yes, the last witness on the stand was an expert.
00:01:11
Speaker 1: Expert who had a pretty damn good, I mean, title. Yes.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: When you hear this, I'll sit up and listen to this guy.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: Yes, Dr.
00:01:17
Speaker 3: Gregory Sattop. He's the senior psychiatrist... with the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. And for those of you who don't know what that is, that is a prestigious group that studies serial killers and studies why and who commits crimes. They're the stuff that movies are made of. And this guy represents part of that organization. And there he was on the stand being taken down in moments by Kevin Reddington.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: Well, this was stunning because I thought, well, this is a good guy for them to... wrap up with uh he seemed pretty solid don't get me wrong i don't think he was the most charismatic guy up there but he seemed um like a guy who knew what he was talking about and was respectable robes um he was in you and i watched every day of this trial this was the first guy that i felt comfortable saying okay the prosecution made some headway he actually said a couple of things in the way he said it and solid and made you ask some questions to where hmm Maybe. On the last day with the last witness probes, they got to what we were waiting to hear for five weeks.
00:02:29
Speaker 3: I agree. So they got and this was in layman's terms. It was something we could all understand. Certainly the jurors could understand this as well. But he basically said she knew what she was doing. She was in control. from the beginning of that day to the end of that day and he went into detail about why she was deliberate how she planned how she was watching the time and this was all a very controlled decision from start to finish this wasn't a voice that told her to do something where she was out of her body and out of her mind she was very much he testified in control of her actions and her mind and that He said it very effectively and he stated it very simply. We actually have his exact quote here. He said, my opinion is that she did have the capacity to appreciate right from wrong. It is my opinion with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Miss Clancy was criminally responsible.
00:03:35
Speaker 1: Let's plain speak.
00:03:36
Speaker 2: We've heard a couple of other prosecution witnesses say that. The guy I'm thinking about, the one was before this, he said that. He was the psychologist?
00:03:43
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:03:44
Speaker 1: Am I right? Okay.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: He said the same thing. Robes, he was definitive in what he said. And it was the first thing that I felt completely landed her plane, the prosecution. And again, I'm not critical of putting on their case, but as a layperson, Robes, they connected the dots to where when she was going through this. He explained why and made you question.
00:04:07
Speaker 1: Well, hmm.
00:04:08
Speaker 2: And he gave the example, Robes, of as she's going through this and she's trying to kill her kids, Patrick Clancy called while he was out on the errands. She didn't answer the call. He said the fact that she called back is very telling.
00:04:22
Speaker 3: Yes, because she was buying time. He said she made a decision. Now, he said if she were hearing voices and being... told what to do by this male voice for her to stop and call Patrick Clancy back because he was saying that she knew if she didn't, he might come home soon and interrupt what she was planning to do. And so she had the wherewithal and the control to call him back to tell him about whatever thing he needed to pick up at CVS so he would stay on his errands and not come home early to him That was a major sign that she was not psychotic, that she was in control.
00:05:03
Speaker 1: Was that enough?
00:05:05
Speaker 2: Was that enough to convince 12 people she was sane, right? After all we've heard, and again, there have been some other testimony from experts. I think this was their best guy. I mean, Avram Mack was taken down completely by Reddington. The guy before this was, is it Hal Kirk, Hal Halepin, whatever his name, the guy, the psychologist was the next to the last witness. He didn't have a good showing. I mean, we almost had a damn mistrial because of that guy.
00:05:30
Speaker 3: Yes, he was very hesitant, second-guessing himself when Reddington had his way with him.
00:05:37
Speaker 2: So this is the guy then, isn't it, Rogue? Did he do enough? Did he say enough to convince you that she was sane? And I got to believe this guy over this other guy from the defense.
00:05:51
Speaker 1: Was that enough, baby?
00:05:53
Speaker 3: I have to say, for the first time... I think in a long time after hearing Dr. Satov testify today, I thought, wow, man, the jury might actually find her criminally responsible because he just was so logical. He appealed to just the basics, the fact that she was so methodical, that she was so calculated, that she was so controlled, that she didn't. seemed like she was out of her mind. And I know that we've heard other witnesses for the defense say that you can have the ability to function and appear normal while still being in a state of psychosis. But just the way he described it, that phone call, that really was eye-opening to me. And I just, I wonder if that really landed the way it did for us, for jurors who were listening.
00:06:47
Speaker 1: It still didn't land for me medically.
00:06:49
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a consensus in the medical field about postpartum psychosis, postpartum depression. That's the impression I'm getting. So why am I, as one of a 12-member juror, why do I need to figure this out? Y'all tell me what's wrong with her. And y'all need to come to a consensus. Well, it's the the literature is so confusing. I don't know what's the right thing to do.
00:07:10
Speaker 3: It's confusing and it's minimal. And that's the other thing. I do think that was something that the defense has been incredibly effective at trying to poke holes in this concept or this notion that these very learned men who have gotten up there and have decades of experience in this field have all had to acknowledge and admit that they haven't really had that much, if any, hands-on experience with women in and postpartum psychosis.
00:07:36
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you think about that question to answer the jurors? Do we go with what the current literature says, or do we go with the direction the literature is going, but not quite there?
00:07:48
Speaker 1: Right?
00:07:48
Speaker 2: Because all we know to go with, we don't have enough to say whether this lady was in psychosis. They can't agree on it. The literature is minimal. But we've heard plenty of evidence, Robes, that they're working on updating the handbooks, that they're doing all these things, and it's becoming.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: More of an area of study. Now, So what do you go with as a juror?
00:08:07
Speaker 2: I got to stick with all we got here, or do I? Am I supposed to make the decision about what they should be judging her based on?
00:08:15
Speaker 1: What the hell?
00:08:16
Speaker 3: And I think that's why jury instructions are going to be so important for the jurors in terms of what they can consider, because I think it's been fairly demonstrated, actually, from both the prosecution and the defense witnesses that Lindsay Clancy loved her children. That is not in question.
00:08:33
Speaker 1: Okay, that's not. Okay.
00:08:35
Speaker 3: That is not in question.
00:08:36
Speaker 2: So what does that do for you as a juror in determining the likelihood of her being out of her mind?
00:08:41
Speaker 3: Well, I say this because they did do, I think the prosecution did an effective job of trying to show this woman who loved her children fiercely and maybe even too much to the point where she felt like she was the only one who could take care of her children. And I do believe they made it very clear she did want to kill herself. She wanted... She wanted to end her life, and I do think it is reasonable to think that it's possible. Probable? Beyond a reasonable doubt, I don't know. But certainly possible and maybe even probable that she didn't trust anyone else to take care of her children and that if she was going to leave this earth, she wanted her children to go with her.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: Does that sound like a sane woman to you?
00:09:28
Speaker 3: It sounds like somebody who is desperate and somebody who feels out of control and is trying to get some control back and who loves her children so much she doesn't want to be without them and she doesn't want them to be without her. I think that is possible. that jurors could come to that conclusion. And if that is what they determine is what happened, she would be criminally responsible.
00:09:51
Speaker 2: Okay, she loved her kids a lot. What have you seen that she's so controlling that it steps outside the bounds of what you know of motherhood? That's another thing. How many, what are the breakdown women and men on the 18? It's 18. We don't know who's who yet, but.
00:10:06
Speaker 3: I believe I thought it was, it was 18. I thought it was 12 women and six men.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: So we don't know what the ultimate breakdown is going to be on the final jury, but And frankly.
00:10:14
Speaker 3: I don't know who would be more likely to side with her. And I think it just so depends on each person's experience because that's what you will be willing to accept or believe. And even though I know you're supposed to just look at the facts, it's impossible not to separate your own experience or what you know to be true or what you believe to be possible. And if you're a woman and you're a mother, you're going to have a certain perception about what is believable and not. I actually think maybe men would be more likely to be like, yeah, she probably was psychotic. I feel like she would be better off with men believing psychosis rather than women because if a woman has given birth and maybe even experienced postpartum depression, might even think she understands and think, nah, there's no way.
00:11:06
Speaker 2: But does she understand getting up to that point and just not acting on all this stuff?
00:11:11
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I've been frustrated too. I've seen doctors too.
00:11:15
Speaker 3: I've considered suicide too. That thought has popped in my head.
00:11:18
Speaker 2: But then, Ropes, where do you leave room for? And this is the part that pushes back on that. Ropes, this woman has documented history of mental illness. Doesn't mean she's not guilty. That is the line I'm trying to figure out, baby. How mental ill... before you're no longer responsible.
00:11:38
Speaker 3: Correct, and I think that's a huge, massive, gray, fuzzy area. What the hell?
00:11:43
Speaker 1: That's impossible, baby.
00:11:44
Speaker 3: I tend to think, and I could be wrong, but I think as a human, as a juror, whatever you feel like seems more believable based on your personal experiences, you have an expert who has taken the stand who has validated how you feel. And if that expert wasn't completely eviscerated by Kevin Reddington... You might feel, I feel like the prosecution gave you justification with enough experts. If you don't think it's possible or you don't think it's likely that she was in a state of psychosis for whatever reason, there have been multiple experts who validate that point of view. Then if you actually think, wow, no mother, no loving mother could actually do this to her kids unless she was in a state of psychosis. The defense gave you expert witnesses who will validate that line of thinking. I actually am going to be so fascinated to see how long this jury deliberates. If they're able to come to a unanimous decision and how long it's going to take. And I have, honestly, at this point, I have no idea.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: They're not supposed to discuss it ahead of time, right?
00:12:52
Speaker 3: They are not supposed to discuss it with anyone, certainly not each other.
00:12:56
Speaker 2: No deliberation has taken place yet. So they are essentially going to walk in there tomorrow, presumably, to start jury deliberations and look at each other for the first time and say, what do you think?
00:13:04
Speaker 1: What do you think? I wonder what's that going to be. What if you had 12 people that are in agreement? I think that's impossible.
00:13:12
Speaker 3: I cannot imagine. But yes, I do think the prosecution scored some points today with Dr.
00:13:20
Speaker 1: Satov. Some common sense points. Yes.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't understand all this, the postpartum, this and that, and psychiatry and psychiatry.
00:13:28
Speaker 1: I don't.
00:13:29
Speaker 2: But I do understand him making the point that, okay, she's in psychosis and a voice is talking to her and the phone rings.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: She doesn't answer.
00:13:37
Speaker 2: But then the voice stops talking to her long enough to say, why don't you go ahead and make that call, and I'll be back when you get done.
00:13:43
Speaker 1: Exactly. Like, that's a plain speech kind of thing, right? The robes that I can understand.
00:13:50
Speaker 3: And several of their last, well, the three last rebuttal witnesses all had this same through line. This was a consensus that they did not... by this notion that this male voice had never spoken to her before and had never spoken to her since, but chose that very specific 18-minute window of time to go ahead and tell her to do this. They said that that was very unusual, and I believe one of them, if not all of them, said they've never seen that before.
00:14:20
Speaker 2: Okay, and there you go, Robes. It goes, as we're listening, like, okay, he's making some good points, and then here comes Reddington. And Reddington once again dresses this guy down regarding his resume is where he starts. So, Rose, we listened to this very credible guy and about all his experience. He's got 40 plus years in doing this thing. He works for the FBI Behavioral Unit. He says he has treated thousands of people in his years.
00:14:45
Speaker 3: Thousands.
00:14:46
Speaker 1: Over time. Oak, he's legit.
00:14:48
Speaker 2: Robes, and then he needed to explain to us and Reddington exposed.
00:14:53
Speaker 1: Who were his patients?
00:14:55
Speaker 3: Prisoners.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: He works in prisons. Dealing with prisoners.
00:15:01
Speaker 3: Criminals.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: Who possibly are trying to do a fake freaking insanity defense. That's who he deals with and treats. So the person, Robes, now I'm listening to him. I don't like that. Okay, I'll keep listening. I'm just going to give him a shot because you know what, Robes? He says some legit stuff. And he's got a great resume. Man, it says FBI on his business card. And then he gets asked the question that Reddington has asked every prosecution expert. Hmm.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: All right.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: Then how many women have you treated in that 40 year history robes and all that career?
00:15:36
Speaker 1: How many women have you treated with postpartum psychosis?
00:15:41
Speaker 3: Two or three, I believe, was his answer, which actually was worse. If he had just said two, if he had said three, but two or three, he wasn't sure.
00:15:49
Speaker 1: Don't know. These didn't stand out to me.
00:15:53
Speaker 3: That made me question. First of all, it's obviously two or three is is is. Hard to imagine that's going to give you the expertise to testify specifically about a woman whose defense is that she has postpartum psychosis and you've seen or treated two or three women. Rubs.
00:16:15
Speaker 1: Rubs.
00:16:16
Speaker 2: He didn't think about this plenty before he testified. He didn't know he was going to get asked that question. This is the thing. So many of the prosecution experts are acting like homers. You can't just be straight, be honest. You look like you're trying to hide something or trying to make yourself sound better. That's the part that ends up discrediting them.
00:16:34
Speaker 1: Not his resume.
00:16:36
Speaker 2: It's how he's coming off and trying to fool us into thinking he's something he's not. That's, excuse me, and I'm just saying he's not, I'm saying he's doing that. I'm saying it comes off ropes.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: Two or three.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: How many is it? They don't stand out to you? You've only done this And how many times have you been married?
00:16:52
Speaker 1: It was four or five.
00:16:56
Speaker 3: And the point being is these are learned men who have incredible degrees and wonderful resumes and make them experts on mental health. but specifically postpartum psychosis, it didn't seem as though any of them were actually experts on that.
00:17:13
Speaker 2: And it seems nobody really is, and Robes, that is gonna sit with the jury as well. Who are we supposed to listen to or believe? Who is smarter, who is more experienced, who is better, who is, we just don't know. But that is where Reddington started with this guy, but he was not done. Stay here, we'll explain the rest of the cross-examination from Reddington, that might have you questioning, might have the jury questioning, who they should believe.
00:17:39
Speaker 1: Stay here.
00:17:49
Speaker 3: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. Testimony is wrapped, but man, it ended with a bang because, yes, Reddington did his thing. He closed his cross-examination of the state's final rebuttal witness by reading the prosecution's opening statement to the witness. That might sound dangerous. Why would you want to repeat the prosecution's opening statement? Why would you want to repeat what the prosecution says your client did? Well, it was damn effective.
00:18:25
Speaker 2: We didn't know where he was going when he was doing this. We didn't, but you ultimately robes have the prosecution's star witness, most important witness, because it's their final witness, on the stand. And the last thing he said under cross-examination was to cut completely down the prosecution's argument that they made in their opening statement. That is what happened. He made their star witness admit that, yeah, what they said in the opening was bullshit.
00:19:02
Speaker 3: It was remarkable. It was brilliant, to be honest. And it was scary when he started doing it. Because you even said when we started hearing him, we missed. Wait, who was he quoting? Why is he saying these things?
00:19:13
Speaker 1: Where is he going with this?
00:19:13
Speaker 3: And then it all made sense. So Kevin Reddington says, on January 24th of 2023, Lindsay made a calculated decision.
00:19:21
Speaker 2: And again, this is completely him quoting Lindsay. The prosecutor's words they used in the opening statement.
00:19:27
Speaker 3: Yes. She was a woman who no longer liked the life she thought she wanted. It was getting harder and harder for her to control. And when she saw the opportunity to escape, she made the selfish choice to take it and to take Cora, Dawson, and Callen first before attempting to take her own life. She chose to manipulate her providers. seek out a quick and easy fix when she was feeling depressed and anxious. And when she didn't get what she expected, she chose the alternate route. She would seek a different doctor. She would change medications after days. She disengaged from treatment that she didn't like the plan. And after only four months in treatment, she made a choice. a deliberate and intentional decision that she didn't want to try anymore. And because no one could take care of her kids the way she wanted them to, she had to take them with her too. Would you agree that the evidence, in your opinion, supports that contention, sir?
00:20:27
Speaker 2: And he answered, I think that statement that you read really minimizes what she was going through.
00:20:33
Speaker 1: Damn. Drop the mic. And Robes, that statement.
00:20:38
Speaker 2: We have listened to testimony that flies in the face of that. It's almost like, wow, you kind of lied to us off the bat. That clearly is not what happened with this woman.
00:20:48
Speaker 3: And that was remarkably effective by the defense because every single person who took that stand said that Lindsay Clancy was begging for help, begging to go to the hospital, begging to be included in programs that she wasn't qualified for because it had been too long since she had given birth.
00:21:06
Speaker 1: So she didn't.
00:21:06
Speaker 3: Qualify as postpartum. She was not getting help that she was desperately seeking. So that all flies in the face of what the prosecution told jurors at the beginning of the trial. And when you can prove that the prosecution was overreaching, that they were fine lying to the jurors to try and make Lindsay Clancy look like an even bigger monster, that erodes trust.
00:21:33
Speaker 2: Forget, I mean, this is, you can't, they're human beings, Robes, on that jury. So emotion plays into this. And it's a motion directed at Lindsey Clancy. It's a motion having to do with the kids. It's a motion towards the attorneys. But Robes, it's also, they.
00:21:47
Speaker 1: Don't feel like, they don't feel good.
00:21:50
Speaker 2: And there have been several moments, we've pointed out, like you feel like the prosecution was trying to get over on us. Trying to pull a fast one. Trying to do something. That felt dishonest. I mean, he, excuse me, let me just say, he performed in such a way at the end of this cross-examination that might have been effective. And doing that, Roe, was to make the prosecution seem like they haven't really been on the up and up.
00:22:14
Speaker 1: And from the very beginning, they said this.
00:22:16
Speaker 2: And they're closing with their experts saying that that statement they made at the beginning, he doesn't agree with it.
00:22:23
Speaker 3: Even though he testified that he thought Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible, he still, that last moment was everything. And look, this will be fascinating to hear closing arguments because it's, I feel like so many people online, everyone's back and forth, up in arms, this side or that. But you talked about this in a previous episode, that sometimes justice is mercy. Because I think people are looking at it, should we give her mercy or should we give the kids justice? And it's one or the other. But is there an avenue in which mercy is justice? And that, I bet you, I would imagine that is going to be how Kevin Reddington threads this needle because for all of those people, jurors included, who do feel a responsibility to those three kids to make sure that they are providing justice for them and they're fighting for them, that you can do that and at the same time give mercy to their mother. It will be fascinating to watch.
00:23:27
Speaker 2: So as we sit here, as we're recording... They are still in their charge conference, as they call it, but they're deciding what the jury instructions are going to be. The jury is back tomorrow morning, expected to get those instructions. And Robes, they'll be deliberating before lunchtime, based on all that we have seen. How long this will take, it'll be on a Thursday. Always curious when it bumps up against a Friday, Robes, when it comes to jury deliberations.
00:23:51
Speaker 1: Don't know if that'll factor in. I would be shocked at a short, at a quick verdict. Shocked.
00:23:58
Speaker 3: I would be shocked, too, but we've seen crazy things before, and as you point out, it lands now. It looks as though the jury will begin deliberating Thursday afternoon. They'll have all day Friday. You know they have been sitting in that courtroom for five full weeks. The idea of a weekend free of a courtroom, the idea of going back to their lives, their jobs, that will be enticing, and it will be motivating.
00:24:24
Speaker 2: This weighs, though, man. I mean, this is consequential. This ain't like the Diddy jury, right? This is consequential, what they do with this lady. Man, I don't know what they're feeling there, but I do not envy the position that they are in.
00:24:37
Speaker 1: But yeah, folks, this is wrapping up.
00:24:39
Speaker 2: You'll see probably a, and we have noticed, Robe, certainly this week, but I think starting at the end of last week, an increased intensity and coverage for this story.
00:24:47
Speaker 3: Because this is the impact, or I guess the The verdict in this case could have far-reaching implications going forward for mental health awareness, certainly for mothers out there. This is beyond just Lindsay Clancy. This is something that so many people are paying attention to because it's something that we haven't paid enough attention to. And if anything that was highlighted in this trial, we need to know more about postpartum health, postpartum depression, and yes, this little known disorder called postpartum psychosis.
00:25:22
Speaker 2: And Rose, as we are doing this, some stuff is starting to come out from the charge hearing.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: This is a big deal.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: They have now apparently given the okay to consider manslaughter.
00:25:37
Speaker 3: And we were wondering about that.
00:25:38
Speaker 1: They gave an option.
00:25:39
Speaker 3: That is going to be huge.
00:25:45
Speaker 1: Oh, we'll be able to consider manslaughter. That is huge. It's giving them almost a way out.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: Like we can have it, but we can still hold her responsible for it, but not fully and understand that she was going through something.
00:25:57
Speaker 3: Well, the question is, does she belong in prison or does she belong in a hospital?
00:26:04
Speaker 1: Consider evidence involving mental impairment. Oh, my gosh.
00:26:07
Speaker 2: And the other thing here, the update ropes, is the timing of it. They will have this thing by lunchtime. Closing arguments are going to be, Reddington said he only needs about a half hour.
00:26:18
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:26:19
Speaker 2: The judge said you can both have an hour. He said you only have, the prosecution said, up to an hour. So we got an hour and a half of closing tomorrow. And jury instruction, and that's it. Can't believe we're here.
00:26:30
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:26:30
Speaker 3: Wow. We will be watching. We know you've been listening, so we always appreciate that and you. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We will talk soon.