With Lindsay Clancy’s murder case now ending in a mistrial, defense attorney Kevin Reddington is shifting his focus back to another high-profile Massachusetts case: that of Kelsie Cote, who is accused of killing her grandmother as part of an alleged scheme to collect a $1 million inheritance.
Reddington described Cote as a “very nice young lady,” telling reporters Sept. 4 outside the courtroom where Clancy’s trial had taken place. “I’m ready to go on that too, and they’ve been very patient. So between Lindsay and Kelsie, I’ll get it done,” he said.
According to the Boston Globe, Reddington has represented Cote since she was arrested in 2022.
Prosecutors say Cote attacked 74-year-old Doris Cote on Halloween night in 2022, allegedly stabbing her with an open pair of scissors before striking her with a paperweight.
Cote was later charged with murder, assault with intent to murder and destruction of evidence.
She pleaded not guilty at a May 2023 hearing, seemingly mouthing “I love you” to family members as she sat in a wheelchair, due to a foot injury resulting from a separate incident involving a four-wheeler, according to The Berkshire Eagle.
On Nov. 1, 2022, Kelsie’s father called 911 to report that his mother Doris was dead at the bottom of the basement stairs in her North Adams home, according to a police report obtained by iBerkshires.
“The investigation determined that Kelsie Cote was the last person to see her grandmother alive,” then-Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington said in a 2022 press conference. “She reported finding her grandmother deceased on the morning of Nov. 1. Kelsie Cote was one of two people with access to the home in addition to her grandmother.”
Prosecutors said parts of Kelsie’s story were unusual—and didn’t match their evidence.
Kelsie told police that she had left her grandmother’s residence at 7:30 p.m. on Halloween, but prosecutors determined that she stayed until after midnight.
She allegedly claimed to have discovered Doris at 10 a.m. on the following morning, but waited approximately six hours before calling for help.
Inside the house, investigators found evidence of a violent assault in an upstairs room and found evidence that suggested Doris’ body had been dragged to the stairs, according to Harrington.
Detectives wrote in the police report that they found “apparent bloody footprints and drag marks…leading from the main living level hallway through the kitchen and down the basement stairs.”
A pile of bloody clothes and potential weapons were also found in trash bags inside Kelsie’s car, Harrington said.
An autopsy showed Doris suffered seven wounds, primarily to her head, including a sharp-force injury to her thumb that Harrington said indicated a defensive wound.
Timothy Shugrue, Berkshire County’s current district attorney, said there was evidence that Kelsie planned her grandmother’s death.
“We have a lot of significant information from the Google searches that she was planning out how to kill her grandmother,” Shugrue told The Berkshire Eagle in May 2023, pointing to alleged searches for the “soft parts of the head” and about the role of a medical examiner.
Shugrue told the outlet that Kelsie was allegedly addicted to the painkiller oxycodone and had been stealing money from Doris. He said Kelsie had moved in with her grandmother after her grandfather died and arranged for Doris to make her the beneficiary of her financial assets—which were valued at over $1 million—instead of her father.
According to Shugrue, Kelsie’s father had installed Ring cameras inside her home which Kelsie turned on and off and mved after the killing.
“She was already taking money out [Doris Cote’s] safe, out of her accounts,” he told the outlet. “Her grandmother probably found out.”
Kelsie will next appear in court on Sept. 28.
Reddington did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Oxygen.