Margaret Hamp, a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital who worked alongside Clancy for roughly seven years, appeared at the courthouse today.
Reddington’s private investigator, Bob Jones, brought her into the courtroom, apparently so she could see Clancy.
The visit was brief. After only a few minutes inside, Jones escorted Hamp back out.
Hamp was the first defense witness to speak about Clancy, describing her as “compassionate” and “really good at being a nurse.”
“She was really compassionate. She was kind. She was the kind of nurse you wanted taking care of you,” Hamp testified.
Hamp also recalled a conversation she once had with Clancy about Andrea Yates.
She testified that the discussion came after a patient arrived at the hospital while pregnant and had plans to harm herself.
Clancy had started at Massachusetts General Hospital that summer, Hamp said, and the two talked about postpartum mental illness.
The nurse said she asked her if she knew about the Andrea Yates case.
Clancy said she didn’t. When Hamp told her, she said that Clancy had cried and asked: ‘How could a mother hurt her children?’
Clancy’s case has been compared to Yates.
Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub in Texas in 2001. Her attorneys said she suffered from postpartum psychosis and believed killing her children would save them from hell.
Her initial murder conviction was overturned, and in a retrial she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state mental hospital.
