‘Master manipulator’ murder suspect Isabelle Johnson arrested
Isabelle Johnson, 38, has been charged with killing 43-year-old Jason Christopher Coulthart, according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office. (Walton County Sheriff’s Office, Florida)
(FREEPORT, Fla.) — Isabelle Johnson, a suspected murderer who authorities say had been using multiple disguises and identities, has been arrested and taken into custody, according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office.
“We got her,” officials said in a post on social media late Thursday. “Isabelle Johnson is in custody.”
Johnson, 38, has been charged with the murder of 43-year-old Jason Christopher Coulthart who was found dead in a shallow grave in June in Florida after he had gone missing in May, according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators say Johnson used multiple identities to evade authorities, calling her a “master manipulator.”
Coulthart was reported missing on May 24 after he was last seen leaving the College Condominiums complex in Florida, according to the sheriff’s office.
Unidentified remains were found on a Freeport, Florida, property on June 25 — after investigators were able to identify where Coulthart’s body had been buried, according to the sheriff’s office.
A DNA match confirmed the remains were Coulthart’s in July, the sheriff’s office said.
Five others have been arrested and charged in connection with the murder, including two people accused of aiding Johnson evade investigators, the sheriff’s office said.
The Homeland Security sign off of South Elizabeths Rd is seen on February 13, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging the Trump administration has been sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government.
According to the complaint filed in Washington, D.C., many Iranian asylum seekers are pro-democracy protesters, members of religious minorities, or members of the LGBTQ community who seek refuge in the U.S. “because of the grave dangers they face in Iran.”
“Disclosing their confidential information to the Iranian Government violates the asylum seekers’ confidentiality rights, puts those who are subject to removal to Iran, directly or through chain refoulement via third countries, at risk of persecution, torture, and death following their arrival in Iran, and endangers their family members and acquaintances who may still be residing in Iran,” the group said in the complaint.
More than 100 people have been deported to Iran during the Trump administration, according to the IALDF.
The group wrote in the complaint that while the U.S. government may coordinate logistics with receiving countries, federal regulations prohibit the sharing of information that would “reveal or infer that the individual to be removed had applied for asylum.”
“Disclosing their confidential information to the Iranian government violates federal regulations requiring confidentiality, endangers their family members and acquaintances who may still be residing in Iran, and puts those who are subject to removal to Iran at risk of persecution, torture, and death following their arrival in Iran,” said Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that is representing the IALDF.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security and a representative of the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
The complaint alleges that the Trump administration has continued to share confidential information during the current war between the U.S. and Iran. The group claims the two governments held monthly meetings to share the immigration files of Iranians in ICE custody, including final orders of removal and applications for asylum.
While the monthly in-person meetings reportedly stopped before the war began on Feb. 28, the group alleges that ICE has “continued to mail or hand deliver document packages to the Iranian Interest Section.”
The complaint also alleges that Iranian officials have met with dozens of detainees at ICE facilities.
“Many of the Iranian detainees did not consent to meet with the Iranian Interest Section officials but were required to do so by ICE,” the filing says.
“According to Iranian detainees who met with an Iranian Interest Section official, the official had knowledge of their immigration cases, including the details of their asylum applications,” the suit said. “These nonconsensual meetings with the Interest Section official solidified the detainees’ belief that they had been identified to the very same repressive government that they had fled.”
The IALDF is asking a federal judge in Washington to block the government from providing confidential information to the Iranian government and to appoint a special master to review the files of Iranian detainees that have already been shared.
Lindsay Clancy listens to testimony at Plymouth Superior Court on August 18, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
(BOSTON) — Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney rested their case on Friday after calling one final witness to testify about the effects of postpartum psychosis.
Prosecutors are now calling three additional witnesses as part of a brief rebuttal case, and closing arguments could happen as early as Monday.
Forensic psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, who reviewed Clancy’s medical records and evaluated her several months after the killings, at the request of the defense, testified Friday that he believes Clancy was in the throes of postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children and attempted to take her own life in January 2023.
Resnick told jurors that in his opinion, Clancy was unable to tell the difference between right and wrong and lacked control at that time.
Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of her 5-year-old daughter Cora, 3-year-old son Dawson, and infant son Callan, who died after being strangled by Clancy at the family’s home in the Boston suburb of Duxbury on Jan. 24, 2023.
Defense lawyers do not contest that Clancy was responsible for the deaths of her three children, instead arguing she should not be held criminally responsible for their deaths because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings.
Resnick is a professor of psychiatry who has researched postpartum psychosis and testified as a key witness in the trial of Andrea Yates, a Texas mother accused of drowning her five children in a bathtub in 2001. He also served as a consultant on the cases of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Oklahoma City bombing culprit Timothy McVeigh, “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski, and the high profile murder cases of Scott Peterson and Casey Anthony, according to his biography.
Resnick testified Friday that, in his opinion, Clancy was not “psychotic every minute she was functioning” on the day of the killings but suffered a “command hallucination” after her then-husband Patrick Clancy left their family home to run errands that evening.
“My opinion is that Miss Clancy was, due to her mental disease, unable to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law on the day that she took the lives of her children,” he told jurors. “It was a matter where she was just following the command rather than being able to make any decision to do it or not.”
Resnick testified that Clancy, in his opinion, experienced “not only a command hallucination on the day that she killed her children” but also “a delusion of influence.”
“She felt that her body was taken over by an external force, where she was in a dream state and did not have control of her own body — it’s almost like she was a puppet, and someone else was pulling the strings,” he told jurors.
He added, “At the time of the crime itself on Jan. 24, 2023, Ms. Clancy was frankly psychotic. So, in that sense, she had a postpartum psychosis.”
Resnick further testified that Clancy “was obsessive about caring for her children” and likely believed her children “would be in terrible shape” if she only took her own life that day.
“In her mind, she believed that she would be doing her children a favor by having them go to heaven with her rather than remain on earth without her doing the mothering,” he testified.
Jurors are set to hear closing arguments and begin deliberating early next week, after both sides rest their cases.
Earlier this week, on Thursday, jurors heard from a hospital chaplain who testified that she met with Clancy more than 200 times in the past three years since she killed her three children.
Sheila Cavanaugh, a board-certified chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, testified that Clancy had told her she heard a “persistent” male voice ordering her to kill her children and herself in the months before she strangled them and attempted to take her own life.
Cavanaugh’s testimony came after jurors heard from defense witness Paul Zeizel earlier in the week, who also testified about Clancy’s claim she heard a voice telling her to kill her children.
Prosecutors have attempted to cast doubt on Clancy’s claim that she heard a male voice in her head telling her to kill her children and take her own life prior to the killings. According to Reddington, prosecutors have also suggested that Zeizel planted the idea Clancy heard a voice telling her to kill her children during their first meeting, two days before she made a similar comment to her husband over the phone.
Reddington has pushed back on that allegation, and an officer who stood guard outside Clancy’s hospital room testified previously that there was no evidence Zeizel planted the idea.
As the case nears its end, thousands have come to Clancy’s support online, and hundreds of supporters dressed in pink rallied outside the courthouse and the state hospital where Clancy is being held on Thursday.
A fundraiser for Clancy’s parents had raised $996,000 as of Friday morning.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Free, confidential help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You are not on your own.
At least two people were killed in a shooting at a strip mall near Cal State Northridge on Oct.2, 2026. LAPD responded to a call about a large party at The Artists Lounge when officers heard gunshots on arrival. (KABC)
At least two people were killed Friday in a shooting at a Los Angeles strip mall, according to police.
The Los Angeles Police Department responded to a 911 call about a large party at the mall near Cal State Northridge around 11 p.m. when officers heard gunshots, ABC local station KABC reported.
Two people were killed, and it was not immediately clear if there were other injuries, authorities said.
Officers were seen placing several people in handcuffs and taking them away after the shooting. Police hadn’t announced any arrests or released a suspect description as of early Saturday.
