Medical Examiner Details Children's Autopsies As Lindsay Clancy Weeps

Barbara Olson is a medical examiner in the Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner's Cap Cod office. She testified in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial about the autopsies of her three children, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan Judge William Sullivan recessed court during her testimony after Clancy sobbed, "I can't do this!" Clancy continued to cry through Olson's testimony. Jennifer Sprague, an assistant state attorney in Plymouth County questioned Clancy in direct-exam. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington did not cross-examine her. 01:24 "I have examined over 1,900 bodies and performed over 800 autopsies." "I can't do this." 05:20 "Alright, counsel. We're going to take a break." 12:15 "So generally speaking, we can appreciate the color of bruises. So red, blue, purple bruises tend to be bruises that occur more recently, and as they heal over time, they start to take on a yellow or green appearance." "And the bruises that you observed on Cora's body-how did they appear?" "They all had versions of red appearance to their shapes." 14:05 "Ligature strangulation results in a category of asphyxial type of deaths. Asphyxia means that the body is deprived of oxygen, and in this case, specifically the brain. So, when you have compression on the outside of the neck, well, blood is how oxygen is delivered to throughout our body. So the right side of the heart delivers blood to our lungs, where during breathing and respiration we then put oxygen into our blood." "It then moves to the right side of our heart and gets pushed out to our body through blood vessels we call arteries. Once the oxygen is released at its targeted site, it then recirculates to the right side of the heart through blood vessels called veins, and the process starts all over again. It's a continuous circulation, but when you have compression of the neck, first and foremost, your airways reduce. It's compressed, so you can have a reduction in your ability to breathe or complete inhibition in your ability to breathe when you have compression." 17:08 "Ultimately, the once the brain has a critically low level of oxygen, a loss of consciousness will occur. It takes an average of four pounds to compress the veins of the neck, and an average of around 10 pounds to compress the arteries of the neck." 18:44 "And once someone loses consciousness, do they immediately die?" "No. So if there is no intervention, the brain continues to have a lack of oxygen, and so until the brain cells start to die, there it's irreversible injury to the brain. The person is alive until the body can no longer sustain the lack of oxygen." 21:11 "Did you form an opinion to a reasonable degree of professional certainty to medical certainty as the cause of death of Cora?" "Yes." "And what was that?" "Asphyxia." "And was that by manual strangulation?" "By strangulation."