The Clancy Trial Week, Genetic Genealogy on Trial & a 41-Year Cold Case | The Particulars Ep. 12

Headlines end. The details begin. In Episode 12 of The Particulars, Lacey and Nic walk this week's cases with a different lens — a private investigator and law student alongside a former federal agent.

Trial Watch: the Lindsay Clancy trial, the full week in review — Kevin Reddington's opening, the shape of the defense case, and where things stand.

Legal Minute: the difference between investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) and the DNA evidence that actually goes to a jury. Using the Kohberger case, where the court record spells it out directly: the genealogy tip pointed investigators toward a suspect, but as the prosecution itself stated, it "did not provide law enforcement substantive evidence of guilt." What gets presented at trial is a separate step — a traditional STR DNA comparison. Genealogy is the lead; STR is the proof.

Evidence of the Night: a Massachusetts cold case that's gotten almost no national coverage. In January 1985, a newborn was found in the snow off Fruit Street in Mansfield and known only as "Baby Doe" for 41 years. In 2024, investigators submitted the infant's DNA to a forensic lab, built a genealogy profile, and — after a discarded soda bottle allegedly matched — charged a now-59-year-old woman. She has pleaded not guilty; the case is a real-world example of the exact technique we'd just explained.

Red Flag: what we didn't use, and why.

OUR OPINION. OUR ANALYSIS. NOT LEGAL ADVICE. Everything here is our commentary and opinion, based on the public record — not legal advice, and not an active investigation. Accused/alleged throughout; charged is not convicted; presumption of innocence applies, every time.

⚖️ New episodes Monday / Wednesday / Friday, 9 PM ET — live on TikTok, replay on YouTube.

Chapters
00:00 Intro & Tonight's Lineup
00:38 Trial Watch: The Clancy Week in Review
03:17 Reddington's Opening & the Defense Case
15:35 Where the Trial Stands
26:40 Legal Minute: Genetic Genealogy vs. Trial Evidence
29:18 STR Testing: What Actually Goes to a Jury
30:12 Evidence of the Night: The Mansfield Baby Doe Case
34:36 Red Flag: What We Didn't Use
37:00 Close

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good evening.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Tonight we're doing something different. It's been a light week for live viewers. So instead of moving on, we're walking the entire Lindsey Clancy trial week, start to finish, every day, every witness. This is the particulars. All right. So welcome back. I'm Lacey. I run a licensed PI firm and I'm also a law student.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I'm Nick. Everything tonight is our opinion and analysis based on the public record. We are not attorneys, and nothing here is legal advice. Everything you're about to hear was fact-checked and verified as of this afternoon. Uh let's go over our segments for tonight. So, number one, obviously we have the trial watch.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

The Lindsay Clancy full week.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

I'll throw this over here so you can see it.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

I don't have my glasses on. He needs his glasses. I can't see without my glasses. All right.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Segment two, we're gonna go into the legal minute.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yes, and it is uh I'm so excited. I wanted to throw this in, and I am super pumped about this one, okay? And then, so the I'll give you a little little glimpse. Okay, so the legal minute tonight is genetic genealogy. Then the evidence of the night.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Oh, was this about last night? What we watched? The genetic genealogy.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

It ties it. It uh it's connected. Everything is connected. There are no coincidences.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Segment three, evidence of the night.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

A Massachusetts cold case cracked after 41 years. That's pretty wild. And then uh the red flag may look like one that we've had earlier in the week, but it's not. It's a it's a connector, so to speak. It's a different red flag. Quick reminder for anyone just joining, Lindsay Clancy is on trial for the deaths of her three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan. She's never disputed that she caused their deaths. The fight is over her mental state under Massachusetts lack of criminal responsibility standard, the formal name for what people usually call an insanity defense.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Because of a mental disease or defect, did she lack the substantial capacity to appreciate that what she was doing was wrong? Or to conform her conduct to the law? Once that proper once that's properly raised, the Commonwealth has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she was criminally responsible. Both capacity to understand and capacity to control. The defense doesn't have to prove zero capacity, just that it was substantially impaired.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Who's ready to get into this? Yes. So we're gonna go day by day. There were four court days this week Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. No Tuesday session. Okay, so we're gonna start with day one, Monday, July 27th. That was openings and Patrick Clancy begins. Prosecutor Buckingham told the jury this was a deliberate, meticulous killing. A calculated decision, in her words, not a mental health referendum. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington didn't dispute that Lindsay caused her children's deaths. His argument, severe postpartum psychosis, compounded by over-medication.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Patrick Clancy took the stand around 11:45 a.m. as the prosecutor's first witness. He testified to the relationship timeline, met Lindsay in 2013, moved in together in 2015, then walked through her mental health decline starting September of 2022. A trip to New Hampshire where she told him she was going to start Zoloft, though he later learned she'd already had this prescription before telling him. A docket confirmed detail for anyone tracking the actual charges. Not just what's in the news. Three counts of strangulation or suffocation were formally dismissed. Here's that word again. How about you say that one?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

I put the pronunciation in for you.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yes, it's uh no li prasuqui. That's how we're gonna say it.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

I thought that was fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Was it good?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

That was good. Alright.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

It's got the full like phonetic or or you could Yeah. Often it's just shortened to no pros.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

I'm trying to help you out.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

I know, in in attorney lingo.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah, which there's a lot of it. But anyway.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

And that was on July 8th and 9th. In plain terms, that's the prosecution formally declining to pursue those specific counts. The strangulation and suffocation. The murder charges stand. Those three additional counts do not.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

So a notable prosecution move on Monday. ADA Jennifer Sprague introduced a bag of Lindsay's prescription pills into evidence.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

We talked about that before.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Uh-huh. Arguing many body mini bottles were still largely full, meaning she wasn't taking most of what she'd been prescribed. Um, that's the state's inference, not a settled fact. Bottles can be full for a lot of ordinary reasons, including which we had talked about switching medications. Yeah. I mean, and if if we have gone, I'm just gonna say that because you know, my take on that was anybody that has ever had any kind of medications um prescribed.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Right. I was just reviewing mine actually today.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

And when you go through um when you go through, like, I guess establishing, trying to establish especially with mental health disorders. Yeah, sometimes you may actually have um different providers. You may not jive with a certain, and you may have to change a whole different provider.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

But again, you'll go through all of those things and I mean and certain medications, they just yeah, there could be side effects, they're not there could be the well, it's it's not just side effects, they're not getting the result that you are wanting.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Well, yeah, and and you can also have like um there's dosage changes too. Like you're usually supposed to titrate up. I mean, depending on what medication it is, and you know, you could say you're on X amount of something over an extended period of time, and you've kind of so to speak max out on that dosage, but you feel like it's you're not really seeing the benefit of it, they may switch you to another.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

So it I and of course the side effects.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Yeah, I I wasn't it wasn't something that I saw like you know, she kind of made a big deal about holding up the bag, and I was just like, I wasn't really it's it's it's I know, I know, but I wasn't necessarily thinking I know oh okay, well.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

But we we look at things through a different perspective than a lot of people do, so right.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

So that was kind of the the big the big show for Monday, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, and we didn't have session on Tuesday, so day two was on Wednesday, July 29th.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Correct. So Patrick's testimony concluded Wednesday. The significant new detail, about a week after the killings, Lindsay called him from the hospital and said she'd heard a man's voice telling her that if she didn't do it now, she'd lose her chance. He testified she'd never mentioned hearing a voice before that call.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

On cross-examination, Patrick described Lindsay as very dedicated, a mother who did everything for the family. And those are quotes very dedicated and did everything. He confirmed she always took her medications as prescribed and tracked them in a journal. Her mental health worsened in December of 2022 after a doctor increased her Cerequel dosage. Two medical center visits followed, including a multi-day locked ward stay in early January of 2023.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Defense attorney Reddington told uh the jury directly in his opening exactly how severe Lindsay's injuries were from the fall. Quote, she shattered, exploded her thoracic spine, shattered her cervical spine, first disc broke every rib. So that was a I think that was a notable because there was a lot of there's been a lot, again, there's been a lot of talk, like a lot of coverage on this case. So I feel like it's we'll put in some of those quotes when it kind of is fitting, so to speak. I mean, I don't want to sit there and just quote constantly at every part of this trial, but I thought that was notable because people had some questions on some of the videos floating around about like, well, well, yeah, she, you know, she's a paraplegic now. I know, but like people were like questioning some of those things. Like, well, did she really do this or did she really do?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Well, I mean on that, on the redirect, Sprague asked Patrick to confirm the second floor window drop was 12 feet. He testified he'd never personally measured it, but believed that was correct. So you know a 12-foot fall, and then you have to include the height of your body. A fall from just standing can cause TBI.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

All right. Well, I'm just gonna say, I don't know that anybody necessarily, I mean, maybe your dad, but I don't know that anyone would be able to say, well, this window is X amount.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

I don't think that's ever you you think about it, ground level. I know what they were trying to determine, but I'm theory, it's like typically, you know, you have eight foot ceilings plus the floor.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

I've never thought that never has crossed.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Well, as a man as a man, yeah, I know. I guess you think about that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

I mean, uh to each their own, but it's like I couldn't tell you. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

The 12-foot figure is Patrick's estimate under questioning. It's not an independently verified measurement. That's worth keeping straight, though.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah, and and Lindsay Clancy is paralyzed roughly from the sternum down since that fall. Uh Reddington has told the court directly she requires two-person assists for transfers, and that her medical team has flagged an ongoing suicide risk requiring constant supervision. That's Reddington's own on record statement to Judge Sullivan, not speculation. And I don't know, again, I don't know what everyone's doing as far as what they are watching, if any of this is coming through as far as like the clips, because you know, I know there are some clips that are. I will tell you that I don't even wanna I don't even want to say this because people are gonna people are yes, it's my opinion. I watched some of the and that I'm sorry, I I feel like this is just a horrible case. Like I watched Patrick and then I watch Lindsay, and it it's just to watch them in this courtroom is it's just you gotta think their worlds are turned upside down right now. Yeah, and I I it's just not so all of that to say, because we are talking about Wednesday, the 911 call was played for the jury Wednesday. What's been reported by name in the courtroom? Patrick can be heard telling the dispatcher, quote, she killed the kids and she describing blood everywhere. End quote. Patrick himself was walked out of the courtroom before it played. He was spared from hearing this and his own recorded screams. However, Lindsay sobbed uncontrollably in her wheelchair. Juries took a break after. And I say all of that because this I we talked about that, and I don't remember which episode we talked about it, but I feel like this case this is a very emotional case. Even if which I didn't put it in, I was gonna put that in and I wanted to put it in.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Can you come back to it? It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

No, we can't. So I had what I was showing you. I showed you the video of the defense.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

We will discuss that, and that'll be a legal minute section.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Okay, we'll put it in our legs. And it was really good.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Lacey showed me this video, and it was really good. It'll be we'll put that in our legal minute for um Monday. And I may actually be able to actually play the video and we can listen, we can all listen to it.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

So media cannot record, display, reproduce, distribute, or otherwise disseminate either. Everything we've just said is limited what named Courtroom Press has reported. If you've seen images online claiming to be a transcript, don't trust them. We're not using them. And I say that because there are a lot of um And we touched on that in a yeah, a lot of like transcript uh, I don't even want to call it like a it's like a graphic. And it's it's like the transcript. And I mean it it could be true, that could be what was said, but may not be verified.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah, I mean, I I would just so caution press tier worth including in with attribution in the four months before the killings, Lindsay was prescribed 13 psychiatric medications total antipsychotics and sedatives across psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, ED doctors, and inpatient staff. That is a lot.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

And I will say, for clarity, depending on the source, I I have like this specific yes, but this was Boston Globe, okay. Um but I will tell you that depending on which outlet, they have said anywhere from like 11 to 13.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

So again, we're going off what the Boston Globe.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

This the 13 psychiatric medications total is from the Boston Globe. That is where I I got that from. So again, like I said, depending on which media outlet you are choosing to follow, it may be a different that may be different. And again, we don't know what they are using as their sample as far as time.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Our analysis again. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

I'm just telling you. I'm just just putting it out there.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

A little bit about why Tuesday was dark.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yes, the emergency motion. Yeah. And I am I am really eagerly waiting this. But Tuesday's scheduled session was actually canceled by the court. The defense had filed an emergency motion, docket entries number 152 and number 153, asking Judge Sullivan to instruct the jury to disregard specific portions of the prosecution's opening statement and Patrick's early testimony, the stated timeline of when the children were killed, and any reference to Lindsay searching, quote, ways to kill, end quote. Reddington calls that an ongoing false narrative.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Attached to the motion an affidavit from digital forensic expert Steve Verona. I think that's it.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Docket entry star. Docket entry number 154, disputing the dates and times tied to those searches.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yes, and as of our last docket check, there's no explicit ruling entry for 152 or 153. Testimony did resume Wednesday, so it was clearly resolved in the Commonwealth's favor and practice, but we don't have a citable order. So we're saying trial resumed, not motion denied.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

From my opinion, this is a live example of exactly what we've said before in legal minute. An opening statement built on disputed facts can have real quo consequences mid-trial. We watched that play out in real time this week.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

On Thursday, July 30th, 10 first responders testified Thursday morning. Officers Stephen Hall, Brian Josephine, and Vincent K. Hill, Duxbury fire captain P.J. Hussey, Fire Captain Keith Nett, firefighter and paramedic Patrick Dwyer, paramedic Jennifer Stratton, and Pembroke firefighter and paramedic Robert Costanzo, among others. Defense declined to cross-examine nearly all of them. And I'm just going to put also in that, I think that speaks, in my opinion, highly, because these people are giving a testimony and instead of kind of And it's also possible that the defense will have them as witnesses awards. It could be. Or they just don't want to re-up all of the I mean because the defense had already put in that they didn't really want all of these witnesses.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

The less amount of that those descriptions and descriptors from those testimonies getting to the jury is favorable to the money.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Well, they didn't want to spend days and days and days, you know, just being told the same thing over and over and over.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

It's a it's a decision that they made. It's a defense decision that they made. Um that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

And we yeah, we may they may call them back later to do, you know, but to introduce something different. I I thought as as heavy as Thursday was, I was like, okay, they you know, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

So Officer Hall found Lindsay semi-conscious in the backyard. Cuts to her wrist and neck, not actively bleeding. He and Officer Josephine found Dawson first, carried him to uh to waiting EMTs, then went back down and found Cora and Kylan. With paramedics already working on them. Photos entered into evidence showed a yellow exercise band next to Dawson's body and blood in the basement carpet.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Um Captain, I I really don't feel like that's how you say that name, but Hussy? Okay. Captain Hussey's account, he heard a scream, looked into the basement window, and saw Patrick, quote, unwrapping something from a child's head, end quote. His description of the scene is a whole quote, it turned very chaotic very quickly. End quote.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

And that's witness level detail uh from different sources in the in the courtroom. Yeah, Boston Globe, CBS Boston, CNN. Those are all cross-verified, all of them. So Reddington made an oral motion Thursday to reduce the number of first responder witnesses. After hearing it was denied. Testimony continued as scheduled.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

So that leads us to day four, which is Friday, July 31st. Jurors visited 47 Summer Street in Duxbury, plus the 3D restaurant and a CVS in Plymouth. The two stops prosecutors say Patrick made the night of the killings. So the state's theory here is that sending Patrick to two locations was to buy time. That's the prosecution's argument, not a settled fact. Lindsay did not attend the view.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

After the view, testimony resumed. Oh, here we go. Detective Sergeant Maffeo met Lindsay at South Shore Hospital. Sedated, unconscious, couldn't be interviewed. He later returned to the home during the search warrant execution and described blood in the backyard under the window, on the windowsill, the ledge, two shingles below it, and up the interior wall and bed.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Dr. Mark Tenowitz treated Dawson at Beth Israel Deaconess Plymouth. Arrived with no pulse, not responding to CPR. The team worked on him roughly 40 minutes. He was declared dead at 7.28 p.m.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Dr. Benjamin Kaufman treated Callan. Arrived in cardiac arrest, regained a heartbeat after about 10 minutes, but never regained the ability to breathe on his own. And showed zero brain function the entire time. He was in Kaufman's care. Callan was flown by helicopter to Boston Children's Hospital.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

So Judge Sullivan noted today that the case is actually running ahead of schedule and trial resumes Monday morning. And I will say that today was I I mean, I'm just saying, like, I I'm kind of trying to think about this from all the different um aspects of the case. And if I'm thinking about this as the jury, we just had Thursday of the first responders.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah. And then today we go to the scene and do a tour of I feel like this week, I mean, first of all, this week you've got opening, and then they lead off, right? With I mean patchets. And then you and then you do the witnesses, and then you do and like they did um, you know, this week when they were going through, they showed they showed evidence. Yeah. And like held things. And I mean, I know that's the point of trial, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:47

I feel like I feel like that is to be expected because we're talking about the Commonwealth presenting their case.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

The defense Cannot really refute a lot of these things that they're presenting because their soul def their defense really solely rests on the fact of her mental capability. Two things we found this week that press didn't report. Going back through the docket directly, on July 27th, the same morning, the jury was sworn in, and the court conducted a Voidir hearing. That's Voidir, the process of questioning a specific juror one-on-one about whether they can stay impartial with juror number 250 in seat 16. After that hearing, the juror was kept on the panel. There's also a supplemental order regarding protocol for media coverage of the view filed the same day as the today's jury visit. Meaning something about the view or media protocol changed at the last minute. Well we don't have the order text itself, so we're just flagging it as an open item, not stating what changed.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

I'm not I'm not trying to be like anyway, but I'm thinking in my head, let's just we know this is a very high profile case. Okay. And I don't know all of I've never been to Boston. Yeah, I'd like to go. I'd like to go. I've never been. Um like I can't say how big of a town or anything like that, as far as like, but I'm thinking in my head, I'm we know what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah. The whole town. Yeah, I mean especially.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

So you think people probably I mean, I'm sure they probably put some thought into this, and they probably had like I mean, you know, I'm just saying. Like, I'm sure there was thought put into this, and I'm sure that's what they mean when they talk about media and things, because they're gonna have all these people there. It's the same thing how to do that. You're gonna have people with outbursts and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

And and that's another thing. It's really tough because you know, the jury instructions specifically state a lot of times they're sequestered. I I I'm not gonna talk, yeah, we haven't gone into any of that. Uh, but uh with that, again, we don't know what it was that changed.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

But there was something, and it and from what we ex have experienced, it you know, it could be a multiple to multitude of different things.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

But we're not gonna we're not gonna go into what we think it works for. Another day. Another day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

So that's the full week. Four days, more than a dozen witnesses, one still open fight over what the jury's allowed to consider from the opening statements. And if this deep dive is kind of coverage you've been looking for, hit follow. We do this every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And we're tracking this trial start to finish. Everything we've got lives in one place, my friends. That is our link tree. And the link is in our bio. It's got our schedule, which you should already know every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 9 p.m. Eastern. And I thought about this the other day randomly. There are people all over the world that have no idea. Like, I mean, it could be like what, one o'clock in the morning? Could you imagine the dedication for somebody to be listening to this at one o'clock in the morning?

SPEAKER_01 25:19

That'd be awesome.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

But you can catch the replay. If you can't catch the live, we we do have the replay. But again, we also, if you can't see it from here, maybe before the end of the live, I will show you my shirt again. We do have our shirts, uh, the sticker meal store. So every social media that we have is linked on that link tree. Um, our YouTube, everything's on there.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

So and uh quick note before we move on. Ton is Clancy's start to finish for the anchor segment. And everything after this is new ground we haven't covered before. No repeat bridges tonight. If you're watching this as a clip and not live, follow, like it, share it, and check the coffee, our store on Sticker Mule links all in our link.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

You know what? I write these and I am the one that dedicates the time. So from now on, I'm gonna pad these a little bit. So instead of me slating this as 10 minutes, I'm gonna say this is like a 30-minute section. So you'll leave me alone with my squirrelisms.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah, squirrel. Okay, legal minute. Genetic.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Who's excited for tonight's legal minute? Because this is good stuff. I am excited. So the legal minute tonight, scroll back up there, sir. Genetic genealogy, investigative tool, not trial evidence. So this one's topic uh it kind of falls into I like to say a two-part, but it's not really. So there's a new Netflix documentary, and tonight's evidence of the night also is linked to our legal minute. Would you look at that? Would you just look at it? Let's set up the legal concept first, shall we? You've probably heard the term genetic genealogy a lot this week. Netflix just released a three-part documentary on the Idaho student murders called the Idaho Murders College Nightmare, and it's put the technique back in the news. So to be clear, this is not a Coburger case status update, okay? Nothing has moved in his post-conviction relief petition since we last covered it. Uh Wednesday, I think. Um, so that's off. It stays off tonight's show. However, we're using the documentary purely as the news hook for legal concept that also applies to tonight's evidence of the night.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, investigative genetic genealogy, IGG for short, is how investigators take unidentified DNA from a crime scene, upload a profile to a public genealogy database, and build out a family tree to try to identify a suspect. It's the same basic technique that's cracked hundreds of cold cases in the last few years.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Okay, so here's the part people mix up. Genetic genealogy identifies who to look at. It is not by itself what proves guilt in front of a jury.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

In Coberger's own case, that distinction is spelled out directly in the court record. Idaho's second judicial court, second judicial district court in was it Leda County, addressed this in a written order. The IgG TIP pointed law enforcement toward Koberger, but as the prosecution itself stated in a filing, it quote, did not provide law enforcement a substantive evidence of guilt. End quote. The prosecutor's own position was that the genetic genealogy was not used to get an arrest warrant, not used to get a search warrant, and would not be presented at trial.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

What actually gets presented at trial is a separate step. A traditional STR DNA comp comparison, okay? So the standard direct DNA profile match technique courts have used for decades. Uh in Koberger's case, prosecutors describe that comparison as a statistical match between his DNA and DNA on the knife sheath at the scene. That's the trial evidence. The genealogy work is how they found him in the first place. And it's an investigative lead, not the proof.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

So this distinction matters a lot for tonight's next segment, where the exact same lead generation technique, this time through a private lab called Orthem.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Has anybody had that on their uh sponsored?

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Uh-huh. Is how investigators identified a suspect in a case that sat cold for 41 years. Segment three, evidence of the night. The Mansfield baby doe case.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

All right, this is a real developing Massachusetts case that's gotten almost no national coverage. So, which is exactly the kind of story we built this show to cover. So, on January 26th, 1985, a father and son were rabbit hunting off Fruit Street in Mansfield, Massachusetts, when they found the body of a newborn baby in the snow. The medical examiner determined the baby had been born full term and alive with no injuries or defects and died a short time after birth. No suspect was ever identified. For 41 years, he was known only as Baby Doe.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

In 2022, the Bristol County District Attorney's Office, Massachusetts State Police, and FBI Boston reopened the case as part of a cold case unit expansion. Two years later, in 2024, they submitted the infant's DNA to the company Orthem that we mentioned before, a private forensic DNA lab for advanced genome sequencing to build an investigative genetic genealogy profile. That profile pointed investigators towards a specific family tree.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

That work led them to Diane Curry Peck, now 59 of Attleboro, who in January 1985 was a 17-year-old senior at Mansfield High School. In 2024, investigators collected trash from her home, DNA from a discarded soda bottle allegedly matched the family profile.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

And in August of 2025, she was interviewed. According to Bristol County prosecutors, she admitted giving birth in her then boyfriend's car, said she hid the pregnancy from everyone in her life. And described what prosecutors characterized as a pact between her and the baby's father about what would happen. The alleged father has since died. He passed away in 2020. So he will never face charges.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

She was indicted by a Bristol County grand jury on June 29th of this year and reigned the next day, June 30th, in Fall River Superior Court. She pleaded not guilty to a single count of murder.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

She was released on a $10,000 cash bail and ordered to surrender her passport. Her attorney, Jason Maloney, said at this time that she denies the allegations and is eager for her day in court.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Her next court date is genuinely unresolved as of tonight. One outlet reports in August 31st pretrial conference in Fall River. A separate outlet reports her next date is in December. There is no publicly available docket number for this case yet. I pulled multiple. We'll update you the moment we can confirm it directly because this will be one that I add to my case tracker that I am keeping track of. But one more thing worth saying plainly, murder has no statute of limitations in Massachusetts. That's the entire reason a death from January of 1985 can result in an indictment in June of 2026. If you've ever wondered why cold cases this old can still go to trial, that's the legal mechanism.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

And like Lacey said before, this case has gotten a fraction of the national attention of some of the other stories we covered this year. And there's no legal reason for that gap. It's simply a matter of what got algorithm traction. You know? A newborn who had no name for 41 years deserves the same coverage as anyone else. A crime was committed that was never resolved.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

I have so many. Never adjudicated.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Moving on to segment four. What we didn't use. And this red flag is a little different. This is our process. This week, in prepping, this exact segment, we came across a very detailed set of community trial recaps online. Full witness breakdowns, exhibit numbers, timestamps, the works.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

It was extensive and very well done.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Genuinely more granular. She's patting herself on the back. Genuinely more granular than anything the wire service has published. We didn't use a word of it as a source.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

We did not.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

It's anonymous. Crowdsourced content, not a named outlet, and not a court record. And it had at least one clear error. Misnaming defense counsel entirely. They had in one recap.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

They had so many strong points.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

If a detail that basic is wrong, we can't we can't trust the smaller details. Exhibit numbers, exact quotes, without independently checking them.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Why you're laughing? Because I was horrified. Here's the thing, okay? I'm looking, listen, okay? I I will I will look to the ends of the earth, all right, for for stuff. I am a digger. I enjoy it. He has to come say, hey, let's go. It's time for bed. Because I will sit and I will just I'm gonna connect all the dots. And you better believe if there's that piece of the puzzle missing, we're gonna we're gonna look under every place to find that piece of the puzzle.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

All right, let's recap. The glove didn't fit. Let's recap tonight's segments. We had the trial watch.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yes. One one full week. I mean, I don't even want to say full, but it was one full week of the Clancy trial wrapped up this week.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

We had our legal minute with the IGG genetic genealogy.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

What was that song? IGG Watch. I don't know. You don't remember that song?

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Our segment three, evidence of the night, covered a Massachusetts cold case cracked after 41 years. But there is a trial for it, so it's technically not concluded. And our red flag tonight is kind of how we do what we do. A little bit of what we didn't do, and um and the lines we won't cross.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

We'll see you guys Monday. Follow, share, find everything else, schedule, merch, coffee at our link tree. Coffee. Our opinion.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Our analysis.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Not legal advice. Thanks for walking the case with us. We'll see you guys Monday.