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The question is no longer who killed the children. It is what the law says was happening inside their mother’s mind when she did it.
Jurors deciding the fate of Lindsay Clancy will be allowed to consider manslaughter if they conclude prosecutors have not proved the murder charges, Judge William Sullivan announced Wednesday. Both sides have now rested after testimony from 85 witnesses, and closing arguments are scheduled for Thursday before the case is handed to the jury.
Clancy killed her three children, Cora, Dawson and Callan, at the family’s Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023. Prosecutors say she sent her husband out to collect medication and takeout before taking the children into the basement and strangling them with exercise bands. Clancy then jumped from an upstairs window, leaving herself paralyzed.
The defense has never disputed that Clancy killed the children. Instead, the trial has revolved around criminal responsibility. Clancy has said she heard voices ordering her to kill the children and then herself, while medical witnesses have offered extensive testimony about her mental condition. Jurors must decide whether she could appreciate the criminality or wrongfulness of what she was doing or conform her behavior to the law.
Sullivan declined to give a separate Bowden instruction that would specifically invite jurors to consider alleged shortcomings in the police investigation. Each side will receive an hour for closing arguments Thursday morning, followed by the judge’s instructions. Deliberations could begin around noon, leaving 12 jurors to decide where catastrophic mental illness ends and criminal responsibility begins.
Hot Take
Three children are dead, and there is no verdict that puts anything right. The jury is only being asked to decide which legal name belongs on the wreckage.
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The mogul wanted $100 million over a documentary. Now the defendants want him to pick up their tab.
Sean “Diddy” Combs could be ordered to pay nearly $1 million in legal fees after losing his $100 million defamation lawsuit against NBCUniversal, Peacock and Ample Entertainment. The case targeted Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, which Combs claimed defamed him through false allegations and conspiracy theories.
A New York judge dismissed the lawsuit in April, and the defendants have now requested approximately $990,292 in attorneys’ fees under the state’s anti-SLAPP protections. Those laws are designed to discourage litigation aimed at punishing or silencing protected speech and can leave an unsuccessful plaintiff paying the other side’s costs.
Combs’ lawyers reportedly are not fighting the defendants’ right to recover fees. Instead, they are challenging how much they should receive, including the hourly rates billed by their attorneys. For Combs, already buried beneath criminal consequences and civil litigation, the failed attempt to strike back at his media coverage may instead produce another expensive liability.
Hot Take
Diddy went looking for $100 million and found a bill waiting in the alley. Sometimes the punch you throw is the one that empties your own pockets.
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The man sitting beside Tupac when the bullets came says somebody offered seven figures for a different version of history.
Imprisoned Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight claims attorneys representing Duane “Keffe D” Davis offered him $1 million to say Davis was not inside the vehicle from which Tupac Shakur was fatally shot in Las Vegas. Knight made the allegation during a telephone interview with TMZ but did not identify the attorney he says made the offer.
Knight was driving the BMW carrying Shakur on September 7, 1996, when gunfire tore into the vehicle near the Las Vegas Strip. Shakur died six days later, while Knight survived after being struck by either a bullet or shrapnel. Davis, now standing trial, has previously described himself and Knight as the only surviving eyewitnesses who know what really happened that night.
Knight said his loyalty to Shakur could not be bought and maintained that he wants no part in the prosecution. He is currently serving a 28-year sentence in California for killing businessman Terry Carter in 2015. His explosive claim now drops another allegation into a case already built around decades of changing accounts, dead witnesses and arguments over who was really inside that Cadillac.
Hot Take
Thirty years later, the Tupac case still smells like Vegas after sunrise. Dead men, old stories and a million-dollar allegation lying on the pavement waiting for somebody to explain it.
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The convicted killer says the deal that spared his life was built on threats, broken promises and evidence his own lawyers kept from him.
Bryan Kohberger’s attempt to overturn the guilty pleas that sent him to prison for the murders of four University of Idaho students will receive a formal hearing. Judge Steven Hippler has scheduled a status conference for June 3, 2027, followed by an evidentiary hearing on June 17.
Kohberger is serving four consecutive life sentences without parole after admitting to murdering Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in November 2022. In a handwritten post-conviction petition, he alleges ineffective assistance of counsel and claims his pleas were not knowingly or voluntarily entered because attorneys subjected him to threats and made promises that were not kept.
He also claims his defense team failed to disclose exculpatory discovery before he accepted the agreement. Prosecutors want the challenge dismissed, and Kohberger faces a formidable obstacle in his own signed factual admissions accepting responsibility for the premeditated killings. If he somehow succeeds in unraveling the deal and ultimately returns to trial, the death penalty could once again be waiting on the table.
Hot Take
Kohberger took the deal when death was standing outside the door. Now he wants the lock picked. The trouble is, his own signature is sitting on the other side.
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The teenager accused of killing his stepsister aboard a cruise ship will now wait until November for a jury.
The murder trial of Timothy Hudson, the 16-year-old accused of sexually assaulting and killing his 18-year-old stepsister Anna Kepner aboard the Carnival Horizon, has been postponed from September 8 to November 2. Judge Beth Bloom approved the defense request after prosecutors said they did not oppose the delay.
Hudson’s attorneys say the extraordinary family dynamics surrounding the case have made it difficult to interview certain relatives. That information could become crucial if Hudson is convicted because, as a juvenile facing possible life without parole, he would be entitled to a Miller hearing examining his maturity, upbringing, family circumstances, role in the offense and prospects for rehabilitation.
Kepner was found beneath a bed in the cabin she shared with Hudson and a younger half-brother during the blended family’s cruise in November 2025. Her death was ruled a homicide caused by mechanical asphyxiation. Hudson, who is being prosecuted as an adult, has pleaded not guilty to murder and sexual assault charges. The new schedule also pushes the plea agreement deadline to October 23 before the two-week Miami trial begins.
Hot Take
Families usually carry their secrets home from vacation. This one came back with an empty chair, a murder charge and relatives who may hold pieces of a story nobody wants to tell.
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