Mom who claimed twins died from vaccines charged with murder; Stabbing victim’s husband lawyers up – TCN Sidebar

**Joshua Ritter** (0:10)
Hello and welcome to The Sidebar, presented by True Crime News, taking you inside the courtrooms of high-profile and notorious cases from across the country. I'm your host, Joshua Ritter. I'm a criminal defense lawyer based in Los Angeles, and previously an LA County prosecutor for over a decade. We are recording this on Wednesday, July 15th, 2026 In this week's episode, the approaching trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who faces murder charges for the deaths of her three children. Plus, the New Jersey husband of a murder victim lawyers up as the investigation into the fatal stabbing of his wife continues. But first, an Idaho mother is charged with the murders of her twins after claiming that vaccines claim the twin toddlers' lives. Today, we are joined by Sam Bassett, a criminal defense attorney and legal analyst. You can catch on CORE TV and many other outlets. Sam, welcome. How are you doing, my friend?

**Sam Bassett** (1:05)
I'm good, good. Getting a little rain here in Austin, otherwise doing great.

**Joshua Ritter** (1:09)
Glad to hear it. I'm glad to hear and I'm also looking forward to your thoughts because you are a practicing criminal defense attorney. And some of these cases, though we're not going to really get into the weeds of them, I think they do need a unique practitioner's mind to kind of help us unwind some of the issues at play here. So let's first jump in out of Payette, Idaho. A mother who claimed her twin toddlers died from vaccines has been charged with killing them. Andrea Shaw faces two counts of murder in the deaths of her 18-month-old twins, Dallas and Tyson, after an investigation concluded that the mother suffocated them. Shaw, however, denies the allegations and has leaned heavily into the anti-vaccination movement, even appearing on a podcast produced by the Children's Health Defense, an anti-vax group that with ties to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Shaw and her husband called authorities after finding Dallas and Tyson lying in their bed face down with both children cold to the touch. According to Shaw, authorities immediately focused in on the mother and her husband, despite the couple previously warning doctors about the twins' adverse reactions to routine Hepatitis A, DTaP and flu vaccines. Police arrested Shaw more than a year after the twins' death, about five days after the mother gave birth to another child. Shaw's defense sought to lower her $2 million bond to $100,000 in order to reunite the mother with her newborn, but a judge revoked her bond entirely, finding that Shaw posed a risk to her infant, even if she wasn't a risk to the community at large. Shaw is also engaged in a lawsuit filed by the Children's Health Defense against the American Academy of Pediatrics, accusing the medical organization of racketeering. While multiple autopsies have reportedly been performed on the twins in the wake of their deaths, authorities have not released that information thus far.
First thing on this, Sam, I want to jump into, is the bail.
I thought this was kind of interesting. She was originally had a $2 million bail. They were asking to reduce it for, I think, a very good reason. She just had a baby. She's got a five-month-old at home, apparently, who is still breastfeeding. She's saying, listen, and apparently, I think this child was born prematurely or there's some sort of risk for the child. She's saying, listen, I need to be out to take care of this baby. The judge says, not only am I not going to reduce it, I'm revoking your bond entirely because of the new baby. I feel that you pose a risk to this new baby, not the community at large, but to this baby.
I don't want to influence your answer on this too much, but what are your thoughts? Go ahead and jump in.

**Sam Bassett** (4:01)
Well, I think that this judge must have some information, probable cause information from the underlying case to be convinced that she had something to do with the deaths of these deceased, her deceased children. So if that's the case, why would the judge take a risk of putting her with a very young baby on conditions of bond without supervision? So I think you could argue, I guess, the baby can come to the prison or the jail and be breastfed there, but what would the judge, what would happen to the judge if the other baby died too? I think that's got to be his thinking on not just reducing the bond but revoking it.
So I think obviously the safety to the community is always a criteria and that baby is part of the community.

**Joshua Ritter** (4:56)