At a glance
- Location: Plymouth County, Massachusetts, with treatment at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital–Plymouth and Boston Children’s Hospital
- Case period: January 2023, with courtroom testimony describing the events of January 24 and January 31, 2023
- Victim described generally: A young child brought to the emergency room in cardiac arrest
- Critical clue: Blood and urine samples drawn that night were quietly preserved in a hospital laboratory refrigerator — evidence that almost never made it into investigators’ hands
A child arrived at a small-town emergency room already in cardiac arrest, and for the medical team racing to save him, there was no time to ask why. According to testimony later given in court, the boy — identified in hospital records as Callan Clancy and called “Ken” by the physician who treated him — had no pulse when paramedics rolled him through the doors. What began as a desperate resuscitation effort would, in the months that followed, turn into a criminal investigation that hinged on a handful of blood vials sitting in a hospital refrigerator.
A Child Arrives Without a Pulse
Dr. Benjamin Kaufman, an emergency medicine physician with about 12 years of experience, testified that he was working the night shift at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital–Plymouth on January 24, 2023, when EMS brought in the boy with CPR already underway. According to Kaufman’s testimony, paramedics told him the child’s heart had stopped and he was not breathing on his own — he was being ventilated by hand with a bag valve mask.
Kaufman said his team inserted a breathing tube, established an IV line, and gave a dose of epinephrine while watching the heart directly with ultrasound. “His heart started beating,” Kaufman testified, after that first dose of medication. Compressions and rescue breaths continued as the emergency team worked the case.
No Sign of Brain Function
Even after the child’s heartbeat returned, Kaufman said, there was no indication the boy could breathe on his own or respond to any stimulus. Doctors use the Glasgow Coma Scale, which ranges from 3 to 15, to gauge a patient’s neurological status. A score of 15 reflects a person who is fully alert; a 3 indicates no brain response at all.
“At no point during his care did he have any brain function that was evident on my exam,” Kaufman testified.
He was careful to note he is not a neurologist and was not the doctor who would make a final determination on brain function — but throughout the time the child was under his care at Plymouth, Kaufman said, the boy remained at that lowest possible score.
Airlifted to Boston Children’s Hospital
Because Beth Israel Deaconess–Plymouth does not have the pediatric intensive care capability the child needed, Kaufman testified that his team was on the phone with Boston Children’s Hospital almost immediately, coordinating next steps. The child was flown by helicopter to Boston, with ICU physicians reviewing the case and offering guidance throughout, according to Kaufman’s account. From the moment the boy reached the Plymouth ER until he arrived in Boston, Kaufman said, he never regained the ability to breathe on his own.
The defense asked Kaufman no questions on cross-examination.
A Second Patient — and a Preservation Order
While the medical drama played out in two hospitals, a separate process was unfolding roughly 20 miles away at South Shore Hospital, where a different patient’s blood and urine had been drawn that same night: Lindsay Clancy.
Melissa Arcadipane, who had worked at South Shore Hospital for more than 20 years and served as supervisor of the specimen processing department, explained to jurors how the hospital lab routinely handles samples sent over by pneumatic tube from the emergency department. Blood and urine are checked against labels, matched to physician orders, and — critically — not always fully used up in testing. Leftover samples, she said, are typically stored in a specimen refrigerator until they are either needed or eventually discarded.
Arcadipane testified she was aware that law enforcement had served the hospital with what is known as a “preservation notice” for Lindsay Clancy’s blood and urine samples drawn on January 24, 2023. A preservation notice, she explained, instructs a hospital to set aside a specific patient’s samples rather than let them be discarded through normal lab procedure.
The Evidence That Could Have Slipped Away
This is the quiet turning point in the case: without that notice, the samples drawn from Lindsay Clancy that night could have been used up in testing or simply thrown out once the ordered lab work was complete, as happens routinely with hospital specimens that aren’t flagged for retention. Instead, according to Arcadipane’s testimony, staff pulled the samples aside, bagged them with a copy of the preservation notice, and placed them in a separate bin inside the specimen refrigerator — set apart from material headed for disposal.
It was a narrow, procedural safeguard, but it meant the biological evidence prosecutors would later rely on was still sitting in that lab a week later, waiting to be formally collected.
A Trooper, a Warrant, and Six Vials
On January 31, 2023, a trooper with the Massachusetts State Police arrived at South Shore Hospital with a warrant to collect the preserved specimens, Arcadipane testified. She said she retrieved the samples from the designated bin, double-checked the identification label to confirm they belonged to Lindsay Clancy, and handed them over. According to testimony, the trooper left with six vials of blood and one vial of urine.
Arcadipane said she did not independently recall the exact sample types beyond what she had already described, but she was certain of one thing: she personally verified the identity on the labels before releasing anything into the trooper’s custody, preserving a clear chain of custody for whatever testing would follow.
Where the Case Stands Today
The testimony from Dr. Kaufman and Melissa Arcadipane came during proceedings examining the events of January 24, 2023, and the handling of medical evidence connected to Lindsay Clancy. The case has drawn on detailed hospital records, emergency medicine expertise, and laboratory chain-of-custody procedures to reconstruct what happened that night — from the child’s arrival in cardiac arrest to the eventual seizure of blood and urine samples nearly a week later. Court proceedings in the matter have continued to unfold, with jurors hearing testimony from medical staff on both ends of the case as attorneys build their competing narratives of what took place.
