A criminal trial opened in Plymouth County Superior Court as jurors were presented with sharply contrasting explanations for the deaths of three children in early 2023. The defendant, a 35-year-old mother, has acknowledged strangling her children at her home in the Boston suburb of Duxbury, but contesting sides disagree on whether the act was the result of severe postpartum mental illness or a calculated decision to kill.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers laid out their competing narratives during opening statements on the first day of the proceedings. The defense centered its case on the mother’s mental state after the birth of her third child, while the prosecution emphasized evidence it says points to deliberate planning.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington told jurors that the woman had endured months of worsening postpartum mental health struggles following the birth of her youngest child. He said she was living with psychosis when she went into the basement and carried out the killings. "This is a woman that was suffering from psychosis at the time that she went down to that basement," Reddington said in his statement to the jury.
Reddington characterized the defendant as a devoted parent who had been tormented by suicidal thoughts and other symptoms of postpartum illness. According to the defense, she repeatedly sought help from multiple healthcare providers and was prescribed a range of medications that ultimately failed to relieve her condition. "She’s living her own hell," Reddington said. "She knows what happened with those kids." The defense also noted that the woman had previously worked as a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham, speaking for the prosecution, acknowledged that the mother had experienced mental health problems before the killings, but rejected the notion that the trial should be framed as a broader conversation about women’s mental health or the quality of medical care. "This is not a public debate about women’s mental health and how the medical system treats women," Buckingham told jurors, stressing instead that the legal question before them was whether the defendant appreciated the wrongfulness of killing her children and nevertheless chose to act.
Buckingham said evidence would show the defendant sent her then-husband, Patrick, out to pick up a food order after timing, via mapping on her phone, when he would return home. The prosecutor said that timing was used so she could "swiftly to accomplish a very specific goal: to kill." Buckingham described how, upon his return, Patrick found his wife in the backyard and called 911. After first responders arrived, Buckingham said, Patrick discovered the children in the basement and screamed that they had been killed.
The prosecutor framed the killings as a selfish attempt by the defendant to escape a life she no longer wanted to maintain. "This was a woman who no longer liked the life she thought she wanted; it was getting harder and harder to control," Buckingham said. "And when she saw the opportunity to escape, she made the selfish choice to take it and to take Cora, Dawson, and Callan first before attempting to take her own life."
The defendant has admitted to strangling the three children in January 2023 using exercise bands in the basement of the family home. The children were identified as Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, who was 8 months old. After the killings, the mother cut herself with a knife and jumped from a second-story window in an apparent effort to end her life. That fall left her paralyzed.
Prosecutors have charged the woman with multiple counts of first-degree murder. If convicted on any of the first-degree murder counts, she faces a mandatory life sentence. Court officials said the trial is expected to continue for an estimated six to eight weeks.
Clear, factual testimony and medical evaluations are expected to play key roles as the trial proceeds, with jurors weighing the evidence presented by both sides to determine criminal culpability and the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the killings.