Lindsay Clancy Trial- Day 20

brooke mcleod

Aug 25

5 min read

Rebuttal Witness #2 - Dr. Kirk Heilburn- Continued..

Psychiatrist

found Lindsay did suffer from mental disease or defect but says she was aware of the wrongfulness of his actions and could conform her behaviour to the law
states multiple times that she was deeply ill and the suicide attempt was severe and real
Highlights the two Filicide reasons that could apply to Lindsays case. he says in his opinion the evidence more supports the second one.
1. acute psychosis
2. altruistic filicide
Talks about the decisions it would take to commit the act, why the basement? what order? what to say to keep the kids calm? For these reason he's not convinced of a psychosis episode.
On cross it's determined he is being retained and paid by the DA's office.
On cross it's pointed out that he has no experience in postpartum mental health disorders
Reddington also points out that the interviews were done 3 years after the event and Dr. heilburn agrees its better to do them earlier but also states he had a lot of records to review that helped him

Reddington was hard on this guy, I feel like he's just getting exhausted of the prosecutions witnesses being bad a testifying and running on and on. He tried very hard to only allow the witness to answer Yes or No to questions which is actually something the prosecution did to his witnesses.

Rebuttal Witness #3- Dr. Gregory Saathoof-

Professor in Emergency medicine/ Sr. psychiatrist for the Behavioural Analyses Unit at the F.B.I. in Quantico

Has testified about 40-45 times
Specializing in forensic psychiatry but not board certified because he would have had to do a one year fellowship which being later into his life, he didn't have the time.
Works with department of corrections in Virginia, Brings in and trains upcoming psychiatrist in assessing and treating inmates.
Has dealt with 4-5 women who killed their children
Has worked with thousands of patients with psychosis.
Published an article in 1987 on postpartum psychosis based on 2 patients that a medication had caused the issue.
Describes Lindsay's memory of the voice starting and how it progressed.
According to him she was standing at the refrigerator making the kids dinner and had just missed Patrick's call and Called him back and hung up. then she heard a male voice from outside her head saying this is your last chance, you have to kill the kids and then kill yourself and the voice continued constantly on repeat until after she killed the kids. Says she told Dr. Spenelli the voice started when Patrick left which is about 15 minutes before the phone call
Agrees with Dr. heilburn that it's odd to have a auditory hallucination only that one time.
Says he's never seen committing the act be curative of hearing the voice
also says it's rare to have the auditory hallucination without the visual (I don't think any others have said this)
Is asked about what she was cooking for dinner, he says she was grabbing chicken nuggets out of the fridge for the kids. But Patrick testified that Dawson was already eating chicken nuggets when he was leaving. Dr. Saathoff says this shows inconsistency.
Asked about outward betrayals to family and providers that he mentioned in his report. his examples below:
Her and Patrick had been dating a year and she was in nursing school and didn't tell him that she was having anxiety and sought help during that time.
Her texts messages claimed she was doing good and her pictures showed something very different then what she was feeling internally
Talks about a medication that Lindsay decided against a medication due to potential side effects but according to him she then didn't mention it to the provider
Says Lindsay was upset over the superficial conversation with her friend at spalding because it looked bad on her not being able to talk about the event.
According to him Lindsay found Spalding more focused on her spinal injury then mental health but the records show some mental health care. Dr. Saathoff says this shows inconsistency.
Talks about her choice of take out and how it was inconsistent because her phone showed she googled the restaurant before asking Patrick but she apparently told him that she googled it after asking Patrick if he wanted to.
was asked what Lindsay told him about taking the pill, did she take a handful or crush them and he says she didn't mention how she had taken them and then 3 minutes later says the fact that she omitted crushing the pills as suspicious and claims crushing pills is difficult to do and then put them in lemonade.
He says she remembers the order of the kids but not how she convinced them to go downstairs. States the order was Dawson in one area, then Cora in another area and finally Callen next to Cora.
Thinks it's odd that the voice tells her to kill the kids but not how.
Tries to explain why this is significant but kind of starts rambling and taking long pauses to think, Defence objects at the point and they go to sidebar.

After sidebar the Dr. is dismissed for the day and that the evidence will rap up tomorrow. Closings on Thursday and going over Instructions with lawyers and hopefully starting deliberations as well.

This guy had me up and down on reliability. He seemed to struggle to testify but the things he did manage to get out seemed competent and informative. But he lost me again when he states about her "outward betrayals" thinking the pictures and texts messages not matching her inside mood is seen as a betrayal. This is very common for depression to essential fake happiness to stop people from worrying, fear that no one will understand or making other uncomfortable. Delayed in a lot of his responses, almost seeming to struggle at times. And honestly kind of creeps me out haha. He seems to be grasping at straws for "inconsistency".

The words that the "voice" uses hasn't changed which usually is a sign of truth. Questions I Have:

About the voice stopping is, do auditory hallucinations stop if you fulfill the act it's speaking of?
Lindsay talks about having "horrible, intrusive, unwanted thoughts" through the fall; was this actually more of a voice that she didn't realize or did report due to fear of loosing her kids?
How accurate are memories after a psychosis episode?

Once again the state is trying to point out inconsistencies but she is still saying all the same things in interviews 3 years later which shows consistency.

Honestly, I feel like the prosecution is really dragging out these testimonies. Much of it is stuff thats been heard over and over again already and all 3 witnesses have been over the time period of 2 days.

Psychiatrist

found Lindsay did suffer from mental disease or defect but says she was aware of the wrongfulness of his actions and could conform her behaviour to the law

states multiple times that she was deeply ill and the suicide attempt was severe and real

Highlights the two Filicide reasons that could apply to Lindsays case. he says in his opinion the evidence more supports the second one.

acute psychosis

altruistic filicide

Talks about the decisions it would take to commit the act, why the basement? what order? what to say to keep the kids calm? For these reason he's not convinced of a psychosis episode.

On cross it's determined he is being retained and paid by the DA's office.

On cross it's pointed out that he has no experience in postpartum mental health disorders

Reddington also points out that the interviews were done 3 years after the event and Dr. heilburn agrees its better to do them earlier but also states he had a lot of records to review that helped him

Reddington was hard on this guy, I feel like he's just getting exhausted of the prosecutions witnesses being bad a testifying and running on and on. He tried very hard to only allow the witness to answer Yes or No to questions which is actually something the prosecution did to his witnesses.

Professor in Emergency medicine/ Sr. psychiatrist for the Behavioural Analyses Unit at the F.B.I. in Quantico

Has testified about 40-45 times

Specializing in forensic psychiatry but not board certified because he would have had to do a one year fellowship which being later into his life, he didn't have the time.

Works with department of corrections in Virginia, Brings in and trains upcoming psychiatrist in assessing and treating inmates.

Has dealt with 4-5 women who killed their children

Has worked with thousands of patients with psychosis.

Published an article in 1987 on postpartum psychosis based on 2 patients that a medication had caused the issue.

Describes Lindsay's memory of the voice starting and how it progressed.

Agrees with Dr. heilburn that it's odd to have a auditory hallucination only that one time.

Says he's never seen committing the act be curative of hearing the voice

also says it's rare to have the auditory hallucination without the visual (I don't think any others have said this)

Is asked about what she was cooking for dinner, he says she was grabbing chicken nuggets out of the fridge for the kids. But Patrick testified that Dawson was already eating chicken nuggets when he was leaving. Dr. Saathoff says this shows inconsistency.

Asked about outward betrayals to family and providers that he mentioned in his report. his examples below:

Her and Patrick had been dating a year and she was in nursing school and didn't tell him that she was having anxiety and sought help during that time.

Her texts messages claimed she was doing good and her pictures showed something very different then what she was feeling internally

Talks about a medication that Lindsay decided against a medication due to potential side effects but according to him she then didn't mention it to the provider

Says Lindsay was upset over the superficial conversation with her friend at spalding because it looked bad on her not being able to talk about the event.

According to him Lindsay found Spalding more focused on her spinal injury then mental health but the records show some mental health care. Dr. Saathoff says this shows inconsistency.

Talks about her choice of take out and how it was inconsistent because her phone showed she googled the restaurant before asking Patrick but she apparently told him that she googled it after asking Patrick if he wanted to.

He says she remembers the order of the kids but not how she convinced them to go downstairs. States the order was Dawson in one area, then Cora in another area and finally Callen next to Cora.

Thinks it's odd that the voice tells her to kill the kids but not how.

Tries to explain why this is significant but kind of starts rambling and taking long pauses to think, Defence objects at the point and they go to sidebar.

After sidebar the Dr. is dismissed for the day and that the evidence will rap up tomorrow. Closings on Thursday and going over Instructions with lawyers and hopefully starting deliberations as well.

The words that the "voice" uses hasn't changed which usually is a sign of truth. Questions I Have:

About the voice stopping is, do auditory hallucinations stop if you fulfill the act it's speaking of?

Lindsay talks about having "horrible, intrusive, unwanted thoughts" through the fall; was this actually more of a voice that she didn't realize or did report due to fear of loosing her kids?

How accurate are memories after a psychosis episode?

Once again the state is trying to point out inconsistencies but she is still saying all the same things in interviews 3 years later which shows consistency.

Honestly, I feel like the prosecution is really dragging out these testimonies. Much of it is stuff thats been heard over and over again already and all 3 witnesses have been over the time period of 2 days.

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