The Telehealth Testimony, Redirect vs. Recross & a System No One Coordinates | The Particulars 16

Headlines end. The details begin. In Episode 16 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, Day 10. The defense's case continues — including testimony about the telehealth-only psychiatric admission, the treatment that followed, and a cross-examination that turned on a key recross moment. Tonight's courtroom material comes from pool reporters and named outlets in the room (Boston Globe, Boston 25, NBC Boston, CBS Boston), not the certified transcript; where exact wording matters, we flag it.

Evidence of the Night: an update on the Nancy Guthrie case — a new challenge to the authenticity of the ransom notes we covered a few weeks ago, and what a document examiner would actually be able to say.

Legal Minute: redirect versus recross — how each side gets another turn with a witness, what the rules let them ask, and why that back-and-forth matters. A clean, textbook example straight from today's testimony.

Red Flag: a system with no one coordinating. Not one bad actor, but a handoff problem — multiple providers, no shared file, no one owning the full picture. It's the same shape of failure we flagged in our Flock Safety segment: different case, same crack in the system.

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.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Chapters
00:00 Intro & Tonight's Lineup
02:24 Trial Watch: Clancy Day 10
04:31 Julie Paul & the Telehealth Testimony
11:35 Reddington's Cross & the Recross Moment
14:53 Evidence of the Night: The Guthrie Ransom Notes Challenged
18:32 Legal Minute: Redirect vs. Recross
20:39 Red Flag: A System With No One Coordinating
24:26 Close

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Our opinion, our analysis, not legal advice. Tonight's trial watch takes up most of the show, but we got a full lineup. Legal Minute and Red Flag both come straight out of today's Clancy testimony. And Evidence of the Night has a real update on the Nancy Guthrie ransom notes we covered a few weeks back. So sourcing up front, tonight's trial watch content comes from courtroom uh pool reporters and multiple named outlets present in the room. So Boston Globe, uh Boston 25, NBC Boston, CBS Boston, and uh the last time I checked because of the way everything worked with timing, um I couldn't get a more verified transcript. Um, but I will say that I don't know if anybody's watching full day, which we covered this a little bit like in I think last episode. It's interesting that the ones that do like news reporting of the trial are not the ones that are doing like the live stream. So like if you watch the trial during the day, the live streams that you There's Idaho News, there's Court TV.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Right. Yeah, there's a few companies that are. I mean, it's a it's a whole setup just to be live. I know and actually make it sound good.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

I'm just wondering if anybody else had figured that out.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Half the time they don't it don't even sound good.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Okay, well, anyway. Um, so TikTok and YouTube. If you don't, it's neither here nor there. We'd appreciate it if you follow, like, subscribe, share, all those things. If you don't, to each their own, whatever. But right now, YouTube is carrying all of our replays, and tomorrow is Tuesday, right, August 11th, which means tomorrow, episode two, we'll go out of the Casewalker Chronicles of Particulars will go out on Spotify. Um, so for those that are trying to catch the replays of the lives in audio form, yeah, tomorrow there'll be a new episode. Are we ready?

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Trial watch.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Lindsay Clancy is on trial in Plymouth Superior Court, charged with three counts of murder and the deaths of her children, Cora 5, Dawson 3, and Callan eight months. On January 24th, 2023, in Ducksbury, Massachusetts, prosecutors say she strangled the children after sending her then husband, Patrick, out on an errand, then attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window, which left her paralyzed. And depending on which platform or media outlet is reporting, that has been. But basically, she, I believe, the sternum up.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

She's paralyzed.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah, she's got arm and head movement, and that's pretty much all I've been able to see in the courtroom. So, um, her defense is arguing that she is not criminally responsible, that she was in the grip of severe postpartum psychosis, compounded by medication at the time of the killings. Not guilty by reason of insanity, which is a legal defense arguing the person committed the act, but should not be held criminally responsible because a severe mental illness at the time prevented them from understanding that what they were doing or what it was they were doing was wrong.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

And this case involves postpartum psychosis, a rare, severe, severe psychiatric condition that can emerge after childbirth, involving symptoms like delusions, hallucinations, and a break from reality. Distinct from the more and more serious than postpartum depression. Postpartum psychosis is much more severe. Trial began roughly two weeks ago with opening statements and testimony from Patrick Clancy. Today, Monday, August 10th, is day 10. And the start of week three.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

So Dr. Jennifer Tufts, a psychiatrist who treated Clancy from late September of 2022 through January 23rd of 2023, the day before the killings. So she returned to the stand today for roughly three hours of cross-examination by defense attorney Kevin Reddington. Today's biggest development and the one nearly every outlet led with, Tufts confirmed she never once met Clancy in person. Tufts testified that all 14 of her sessions with Clancy, including the final one on January 23rd, 2023, they were conducted by telehealth. Um so under questioning, she acknowledged that over video she could not see her patient's hands or legs and said she didn't feel there was anything she was missing by not meeting in person. And that was a considerable chunk of what testimony. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Um from today.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

The sp specific admission is reported consistently throughout ABC News, Core TV, and Boston.com. Um that's the uh press tier, not the certified transcript. So that that's where all that reporting has come from. The exact wording, we're just we're just paraphrasing here. So um not quoting anything.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

So Reddington also pressed her on language from her own practices website, describing her as a specialist in postpartum care. Tufts push back saying she described it as an interest, not an area of expertise, and denied that her care had been negligent. And there was a lot of back and forth right there at the beginning where he was, you know, saying, Was it an ad on your site? And she was kind of pushing back, saying, wasn't an ad, it was my website, I don't do it, so I can't really and I personally didn't change it, so that was kind of her thing at that point. And then as it goes later in, there's other areas we're gonna discuss.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

So here's context worth being precise about because it's exactly the kind of jurisdiction detail we don't gloss over. Clancy herself has an active medical malpractice lawsuit against Tufts and five other providers. Norfolk Superior Court, Civil Action 268-2C V00081, filed by Clancy's own attorney. That's a separate civil case from the criminal trial happening in Plymouth. Uh, we've read the actual complaint directly.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

So the complaint's court theory is what it calls, quote, disorganized, uncoordinated polypharmacy. End quote. So multiple prescribers across multiple providers, non-coordinating care, which alleges uh obscured an accurate bipolar with postpartum onset diagnosis and contributed to a psychotic break. So the complaint also characterizes tough cell health therapy sessions as running as short as 17 minutes, which she did um discuss today, because that was that was one of her things she poked back at, where the 17-minute figure is Clancy's own attorney's characterization in the civil filing. It's an allegation, not an adjudicated fact. On the stand that, you know, she was testifying her sessions ran roughly 25 to 30 minutes, and she was saying that the therapy portion of the session was 17 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Reddington put the basis question directly to Tufts over a prosecution objection that Judge Sullivan overruled. He noted she and name she's a named defendant in what he called a large lawsuit, then asked her whether she understood the outcome of the criminal trial was major to the outcome of her own civil case. Tufts replied, I don't actually know that.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

So, criminal defense attorney, I'm gonna say Elsie Hershen, who has no connection to this case, told Boston 25 News that treating physicians in Clancy's position face a built-in incentive problem. It serves their own interest to testify that her care was adequate, since that also protects them from civil liability. So Hershen called it, quote, a bias in their testimony, end quote, and said it's fair territory for cross-examination. So this isn't just outside commentary anymore. So the defense put it to her directly on the record over an objection, the judge overruled. So that means the court itself treated this as fair, relevant territory, not just a talking point. It doesn't make her testimony false, but it's a live bias question that's now formally part of this trial, so not just something we're speculating about from the outside.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

On experience specifically, Tufts testified she received her board certification on September 12, 2022, the same date Clancy's intake questionnaire is dated. In the one month before, seeing Clancy, she said she treated only a couple of patients for postpartum depression at her practice, asked her mental health, and none for postpartum psychosis specifically, which she described as rare. Over her full residency, 2018 to 2022, she estimated treating a at least 50 postpartum patients. Now, from an investigative side, this is a standard cross-examination architecture. You don't attack the first diagnosis, you attack the diagnostician's access and experience level, so that everything she says afterwards already has a question, a question mark hanging over the jury's mind.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

So another uh term that we kind of wanted to break down in this is the black box warning. So the FDA's strongest required safety label on a medication used when there's evidence of a serious or life-threatening risk. Tufts testified she reviewed Zolof's side effects with Clancy, but didn't believe she specifically raised suicidal thoughts as a risk because the drug's black box warning centers on younger patients, typically capping around age 24, and Clancy was about to turn 36. So Tufts said she didn't believe there was evidence Zolof causes suicidal or homicidal thoughts in older adults. On bipolar disorder, Reddington asked directly Tufts, quote, no, I assured that with her, she never had mania, end quote.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Reddington also pressed on treatment options. Tufts said she considered Zulreso for Clancy, but couldn't recommend it. Now, Zulreso is a fast-acting IV medication for postpartium depresspartium depression, given as a continuous 60-hour infusion over about two and a half days, at the time, available only at a small number of specialized facilities.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I will say I had never heard of that.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Never, no.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Like I didn't know that was one of those.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

I mean, I know, I know like these IV bars are popping up everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Oh my gosh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

But to have a antidepress, well, I'm not gonna say it's an antidepressant because I don't know, but to have a drug that is used for postpartum depression that's through an IV, I'd never heard of that before.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah, that was news to me. So Tufts testified Zoresso was only available to her patients at Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island. So she had no access to it for a Massachusetts patient like Clancy. Uh Reddington's cross closed on Clancy's final appointment January 23rd, which was the day before the killings, when she reported her worst symptoms yet, including a racing heart and feeling numb for 17 straight days. Tufts had just increased one of her medications. Reddington asked directly whether that intense that increase contributed to what happened the next day. Tufts said she didn't believe so.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Reddington finished his cross just before the lunch break. On redirect, prosecutors work to rehabilitate some of what he'd raised. Tufts testified she treated psychosis patients before, said her intake questionnaire doesn't screen specifically for postpartum depression because its symptoms overlap with depression generally, and said patients ultimately have to self-report their own thoughts. There's no test that shows what's happening internally.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Then back on Recross came the moment nearly every outlet flagged as the sharpest exchange of the day. So Reddington pointed to Tufts' own clinical note, which he read as describing Clancy as calm with pressured speech present. Tufts insisted he he had had it backwards, so that her note meant Clancy showed neither symptom. Pressed on the exact wording, she told him, quote, I don't care what it says, I know what it meant. End quote.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Whether that's geography or coordination between providers, Tufts was excused following what outlets described as a tense exchange with Reddington. Julie Paul, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who founded South Shore Health's Perinatal Behavioral Health Program, took the stand next, called by the prosecution.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

So Paul testified Clancy was referred to her by Clancy's then mother-in-law Susan Clancy, and that Clancy's anxiety began after her husband Patrick returned to work following his 12 weeks of leave. So a pattern Paul said she commonly saw in other patients. At intake, Clancy screened high for generalized anxiety. Paul testified she was not suicidal at that point and denied both suicidal and homicidal ideation when asked directly. So Clancy told Paul she'd had success with Prozac in the past, so Paul prescribed it. But Clancy later reported it caused feelings of disconnection and spaciness. Paul switched her to a different antidepressant, Mtazepine. After starting it, Clancy told Paul she was managing but that sleeping longer would help and they increased the dosage.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Paul's arrangement with Clancy was always meant to be short-term. She testified she was planning to leave South Shore and relocate to New Hampshire, though she said she didn't recall telling Clancy that directly. She transferred Clancy's care to another provider before she left. Paul described Clancy in her sessions as organized and cooperative, a strong historian of her own symptoms actively participating in her own care.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

So Paul's cross-examination has not yet happened. It's scheduled for tomorrow. So everything above is direct testimony, only untested by the defense. And court resumes tomorrow before testimony continues. Judge Sullivan is expected to first rule on whether a third witness called by the defense is competent to testify. We are going to transfer or move scoot along into our next segment, which is evidence of the night.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

So Nancy Guthrie 84, mother of today, co-anchor Savannah Guthrie.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Transition. Thank you, Amy. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Disappeared from her Catalina Foothills home near Tucson, Arizona on January 31st. In late July, six months into the investigation, the Pima County Sheriff's Department released the full text of two purported ransom notes sent to a local television television station in February. One demanding a multi-million dollar Bitcoin payment, the second claiming Guthrie's had since died. We covered that release when it happened. Today's update is new. A credentialed outside expert is now publicly challenging whether those notes are real at all.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Chris Mohandi is a forensic psychologist with a well-documented record in high-profile cases. So does anybody know that name? He's credited with helping persuade OJ Simpson to surrender to police back in 1994 during the standoff. So in an interview published by Fox News Digital on August 9th, he laid out why he doesn't buy the notes as genuine.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Mohandi pointed to several specific red flags. The notes were sent to a news outlet rather than used as a private negotiation channel. They explicitly announced themselves as ransom demands. And the pronoun usage shifts inconsistently between we and I across the two letters. He also downplayed the significance of specific crime scene details in the first note. A smartwatch near Guthrie's bed, and a damaged backyard floodlight that investigators investigators had treated as a possible sign of authenticity, saying those details could plausibly have reached someone secondhand rather than only being known by the actual abductor.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

So this is one expert's stated hypothesis, not an official determination. Mohandi himself repeatedly frames it that way, and federal law enforcement sources have told reporters, investigators remain split, some confident the notes are fake, others still treating them as possibly genuine. So no suspect has been named and no arrest has been made in Guthrie's disappearance.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Mohandi's own read on what actually happened. He thinks this looks like a burglary gone wrong. Quote, a burglary burglary gone wrong, and then attempts to cover things up, end quote. Though he was careful to call that a hypothesis, not a conclusion, and said investigators are right to keep pursuing every lead, including the notes themselves.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

So this is a good real-world example of something that PI work runs into constantly. Evaluating a written document for authenticity is not always just about the gut feeling, it's actually about specific, describable inconsistencies. So word choice, tone shifts, who the message was sent to and why. And Mohani is not saying the notes are definitely fake. He's showing his work on why he's skeptical. And this is exactly the kind of reasoning that's useful for the public to see rather than just a verdict handed down.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

So with that, uh we will move on to the legal minute. The legal minute.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Do you think I can do it in a minute?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

No.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Absolutely not. Tonight's legal minute comes straight out of what we just watched happen in Tufts' testimony. So no new case needed, just plain language breakdown of the order of operations you saw play out today.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

First definition we're going to talk about is re redirect examination. So that was used in court. A redirect examination after the opposing side finishes cross-examination of a witness. The side that originally called the witness gets a turn to ask follow-up questions, usually aimed at repairing or quali clarifying anything the cross-examination casts doubt on.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

And then your next is the recross examination. So after redirect, the original cross-examining side can come back one more time, but only on the specific new things that came up during redirect, not a fresh run at the whole witness. Today's sequence was a clean textbook example. Reddington's cross ran all morning. Prosecutors used redirect to rehabilitate Tufts on her credentials and to explain why her intake process doesn't specifically screen for postpartum depression. Then Reddington got recross and used it to zero in on that critical note dispute, the sharpest sharpest exchange of the day. And if you have not watched that, his cross was very well done.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

I could find it.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

All of that to say, this is where trial strategy actually lives, which is what I just talked to you about. So redirect is damage control, and recross is the other side, making sure damage control doesn't get the last word. Whoever gets the final question in front of the jury before a witness steps down has a real advantage. That's not an accident. That's why the order of operations is built the way that it is.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

That's what we call clear as mud legal jargon. Go by the job.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

But not legal advice. This is not legal advice. This is just our analysis, our opinion.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

All right, our last segment, our last segment of the day is our red flag. A system with no one coordinating. It's a pattern. We're pulling directly out of tonight's trial watch material because it's worth sitting with on its own. Between September of 2022 and January of 2023, Clancy's psychiatric care ran through at least four separate providers: Dr. Tufts at Astor Mental Health, Nurse Practitioner Julie Paul at South Shore, Perinatal Behavioral Health Program, and a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital during a January inpatient stay, and a partial hospitalization program at Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island. Testimony and filings so far show limited direct coordination between them. Tufts testified she never obtained records from Clancy's other providers, relying instead on Clancy to self-report.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

So the characterization of this as a systemic failure is the civil complaints framing, not an adjudicated finding. So we're not asserting it as a proven fact, and it's a separate question from the criminal trial's determination of responsibility.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

From the investigative side, this is a familiar failure mode. Not one bad actor, but a handoff problem. Every provider is operating off what the patient tells them. With no shared file and no one owning the full picture. That's not unique to psychiatric care, but the stakes here made the gap catastrophic. This is the same shape of problem we flagged with the flock safety segment a few episodes back. Not one person doing something malicious, but a system with no one positioned to see the whole board. Different case, same crack.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

You can't form any kind of conclusions or get a full picture unless you have all the facts. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

That's our substantive segment for tonight with our four segments. Yes. We had the trial watch where we covered day 10 today of the Lindsey Clancy trial. We switched it up tonight. We went to Evidence of the Night.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

I gotta keep you guys on your toes.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Where we talked about, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

It's Monday.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Oh my gosh!

SPEAKER_01 23:05

It's Monday.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

What kind of a production is this?

SPEAKER_01 23:08

I know.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Lord.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

So let me throw back the title card so I can get a recollection here.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Evidence of the night, where we covered Nancy Guthrie and the new challenge to the ransom notes. From there, we moved on to the legal minutes where we discussed the redirect and recross, uh, kind of courtroom procedure between the Commonwealth right now and the defense attorney. And our red flag we just finished, where a system with no one coordinating and consulting.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah, and I think that's a a whole thing. Like that's that's not just this case. That's not just the court system. That's not just medical.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Like that that's much.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

That can encompass a lot. That's tonight's show. Trial watch, evidence of the night, legal minute, and red flag.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

We're back Wednesday, same time, hopefully same place.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Never know.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

If something else moves before then, we'll have it.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

So all the things, give us a follow. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Subscribe to YouTube for the replays. Go to Kofi, links in the bio.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

This has been the Casewalker Chronicles, the particulars. I'm Lacey.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

I'm Nick.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

And we'll see you Wednesday at 9. You guys have a good night. Thank you for being here.