u/Ok-Experience9545

This is my theory. I've been following this case since it happened and watched the whole trial. At this point, I'm convinced that this was an attempted murder-suicide with altruistic motives. I think her decision was influenced by her insomnia mostly, as well as her depression and her medications to some extent. She seemed like the kind of dedicated mother who treated her children as extensions of herself that she could control. Witness testimony (the welfare check she called for while at work, the crux of her PP anxiety being leaving her kids to go to work, resisting sleep training because she didn't want her babies to cry, etc.) illustrate a mother with unhealthy attachment and separation. Then the control part. Dawson's non compliance and Callan's refusing the bottle seemed to disturb her because she couldn't control it, and the forum posts and baby books weren't working. She was unreceptive to the process of medications and other interventions because she couldn't control their effects and the natural timing of them. I think the reason she seemed to be doing better leading up to the event, especially the day of, is because she'd decided she was going to end things. I think things had become so bleak for her, that she was so helpless, and this would be her final effort for control. I do think she planned on dying that day, that her suicide attempt was... sincere (for lack of a better term), and taking the kids with her was an attempt to control their fates before she left this earth. It seemed that she truly believed her kids were unsafe without her. If she was gone and they stayed living, she'd have no control over what happened to them moving forward. I can speculate that her suicide was premeditated with more confidence than I can speculate that the murders were.

The one concession I'll make has to do with what Sprague pointed out in her closing argument, which was that she just left the kids where she killed them. For someone who wrote a bunch of notes and seemed very intentional about things, I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd planned her and the kids' departing more meticulously (written a suicide note, left the kids in more humane postures). The way she handled her actions, at least to me, give slight credence to the theory that she wasn't in her right mind and acted on some impulse. But, it can also be argued that she saw no point in making a production because she'd be dead anyway.

Tough decision for the jury.

My two cents on what happened today:

Alright, what we saw today was a clash of professionals, one of medicine and one of law. Of course we're on the lawyer's home court, and through his profession he's honed the art of making witnesses look incompetent and unreliable, in this case too young and inexperienced. It's not the kindest thing, but regardless a decent strategy considering that his client may spend the rest of her life in prison if he doesn't fight hard enough. He's good at what he does, and unfortunately today this doctor was the victim of that.

From what I've seen and heard, I think Dr. Tufts is a competent psychiatrist, which is expected. Her course of action with LC was standard and appropriate. She literally did the best she could've within the confines of her profession. She can't read the lady's mind.

I think there's a difference between being good at your trade and being a good witness. I do think she held her own pretty well and was a great witness.

Reddington imposed responsibilities that don't really fall on psychiatrists of adult patients (giving client a hug, calling the family, etc.), and also pressured her to accept a misinterpretation of her notes. It's skillful of Reddington because it looks bad either way. As people say, if you're explaining you're losing.

He came across to me as very obtuse, making a scene that she didn't do things psychiatrists aren't expected to do at all. I think he knows this and did it intentionally, banking on the jury not knowing what psychiatrists are obligated to do and hoping that his theater, like a veneer of rhetorical dominance over this doctor, would be taken as truth.