Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer explodes at reporter outside court ‘you’re a biased weasel’: Live updates

Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington exchanged heated words with a reporter as he arrived at court today.

Journalists surrounded Reddington as he entered the courthouse.

He called out one unidentified journalist in the crowd.

‘You,’ Reddington said as he pointed at the man. ‘Let me tell you something, I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘Why?’ the reporter asked.

‘Because you are a biased weasel,’ Reddington said.

The journalist replied, ‘That’s ridiculous.’

On the latest episode of The Trial USA, crime correspondent Rachel Sharp takes listeners inside Plymouth Superior Court for day fifteen of the Lindsay Clancy trial, the second day of the defense’s case.

Rachel has been covering every single day of the trial in Plymouth, Massachusetts, keeping our readers up to date with live reports and filing video roundups from the scene.

Reddington went through Dr Heilbrun’s experience on the stand, pointing out that much of it is focused on juveniles.

Another area of expertise, he said, was ‘handling difficult cross-examinations.’

Dr Heilbrun admitted that he had not written a single article about a woman struggling with postpartum mental illness.

The only time he has ever written anything on the issue of psychosis was back in 1977 when he was in college.

Kevin Reddington has pointed out the connection between prosecution experts Dr Avram Mack and Dr Kirk Heilbrun and their association with Park Dietz Associates.

Park Dietz Associates is a consulting firm run by Dr Park Dietz, a psychiatrist whose testimony led to the retrial of Andrea Yates.

Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub in Texas in 2001, with her attorneys arguing she suffered from postpartum psychosis and believed killing her children would save them from hell.

Her initial murder conviction was overturned, and in a retrial she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state mental hospital.

Yates was granted a new trial because Dietz testified at that trial and citied a nonexistent Law & Order episode, according to CT Insider.

Under cross-examination, Dr Heilbrun was asked by Kevin Reddington if he has ever treated a woman who has suffered from postpartum psychosis.

He said that he interviewed a group of women back in 1982 – 44 years ago.

While Reddington paced in front of the podium, the psychiatrist also testified that he is being  paid $300 an hour for his work on this case – so far earning around $54,000 and counting.

Dr Heilbrun testified that Clancy was suffering from a mental defect of bipolar disorder and sleep problems.

But he said that she retained an awareness of the illegality including of killing her children.

She was aware of the illegality and moral wrongfulness of what she was doing, he testified.

This was a serious suicide attempt and altruistic filicide rather than psychosis, in his opinion.

‘Although this depression and hopelessness influenced her decision, she retained control over when, where and how she carried it out,’ he testified.

It is his opinion that she was criminally responsible on January 24, 2023.

Dr Heilbrun testified that Lindsay Clancy was still grieving when he interviewed her in April.

‘I don’t think that she was in any way over this or thinking only about herself, it’s something that I noticed when I evaluated her in April is that she is still grieving, she’s still in mourning for those kids,’ he said.

‘She used language like, “I have lost everything and I don’t want to be here.”‘

Dr Heilbrun testified to several reasons that he did not believe she was psychotic.

She said she was ‘horrified’ when she woke up in the hospital – something he said shows she was thinking about what happened.

There were also inconsistencies in her statements about the voice, he said.

He said that in the days after the killings she said that the voice told her it was her ‘last chance’ and also that the children would suffer without her. She later said the voice did not tell her the children would suffer without her.

He also said that it would be ‘very unusual’ for her to be able to have the phone call with Patrick in the middle of a psychotic episode. Patrick had called her from CVS when he went to pick up children’s medicine.

Dr Kirk Heilbrun returned to the stand and was asked about a term called peritraumatic dissociation – where someone goes through a traumatic set of circumstances and so it feels like things are unreal.

‘You feel as though you’re watching yourself,’ he explained.

Dr Heilbrun testified that it can sound psychotic because someone can feel as though they lack decision-making but it is more about going through a traumatic set of circumstances.

Her strangling her children could be an example of that because that was very traumatic for her, he said.

During the strangulation, he said that Clancy made several decisions.

‘Why the basement? Who of the children goes first? What do you say to the children to keep them from panicking?’ he said.

Dr Heilbrun testified that where the children were killed, how they were strangled, what to use, the order with which to kill them, and the way to try to kill herself were all decisions she made.

‘She was going through what she called, “no thinking, no decision-making, only responding to the voice,”‘ Heilbrun said.

‘There are just many ongoing decisions that have to be made to accomplish a killing like this in just 18 minutes.’

Jurors have now entered the courtroom. Clancy watched them as they entered.

The judge said he is not going to speculate about the schedule after today, saying he has been wrong about it in the past.

Lindsay Clancy is sat at the defense table in a pale pink blouse and hairband.

ADA Shanan Buckingham is in another black bow.

There are now four rows packed to the brim with media with the rest of the gallery full with members of the public.

Today’s proceedings kicked off with a sidebar.

Lindsay Clancy is accused of murdering her three children – Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan – in January 2023.

Although the 36-year-old does not deny killing her children, she has pleaded not guilty and claimed she is not responsible for her actions because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.

On the day of the killings, Clancy asked her husband, Patrick Clancy, to leave their home to get takeout food and to pick up something at a pharmacy.

The former nurse strangled the children with exercise bands, then used multiple methods to try to end her own life.

She was paralyzed after falling from the home’s second-story window and is being held at a state hospital.

If you or someone you know needs help, please call or text the confidential 24/7 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US on 988. There is also an online chat available at 988lifeline.org.