At Lindsay Clancy trial, focus turns to medications prescribed before
she killed her 3 children
[August 12, 2026]
By MICHAEL CASEY
Lindsay Clancy messaged one of her caregivers less than two months
before she killed her three young children in 2023 to say she was having
“intrusive thoughts I never had before,” “feeling completely hopeless”
and worried about becoming addicted to some medications.
Rebecca Jollotta, a psychiatric nurse practitioner at South Shore Health
Perinatal Behavior Health Program, testified at the trial Tuesday she
exchanged messages with Clancy regularly on a patient portal throughout
in late November and December 2022. Much of their conversations revolved
around Clancy reporting trouble sleeping, depressive symptoms she was
having and her search for the right mix of medications to treat her
symptoms.
Several times Clancy indicated to Jollotta either that she had not taken
the full dose of a prescribed medication or that she wanted to reduce a
dosage or change her prescription based on what she felt were
intolerable side effects. Clancy also worried about being addicted to
some medications like Ativan, but Jollotta said she was not.
Struggle to find the right medications
“I really don’t like the way I feel on the Remeron and I know that I
can’t stick with taking it,” Clancy said in a December message asking to
switch from the antidepressant, which also is used to treat anxiety and
insomnia, to a previous prescription mix. “I started having very
intrusive thoughts that I never had before.”
Jollotta tried to assure Clancy that having intrusive thoughts is common
with someone diagnosed with postpartum depression and anxiety and
encouraged her to give the Remeron more time to work since she had only
been on it a few days.
“This could be some postpartum anxiety. And I wanted to familiarize her
with the symptoms, so that she had them written down and she could
report them to me,” Jollotta said.
Jollotta, who is among several providers that Lindsay and her former
husband Patrick Clancy have sued over her care, repeatedly came up with
alternative treatment plans for Clancy including a range of different
medications, behavioral therapy, support groups and meditation. But she
acknowledged that it was up to Clancy whether she chose to follow her
advice.
“I’m only making recommendations based on my education experience,
training and what I’m seeing in terms of symptoms,” Jollotta said. “The
patient has the autonomy.”
During their virtual and in-person visits, Jollotta said, Clancy never
talked of having a plan to harm herself or her children. She also never
showed signs of psychosis or mania.
But Jollotta acknowledged that Clancy did report having thoughts of
suicide. She also suggested that Clancy might have underlying bipolar
disorder — due to her days of going without sleep. But Patrick Clancy
denied that was the case.
Suicidal thoughts
In mid-December, Jollotta had a call with the couple and was told Clancy
had her “worst day” and was “having persistent, intrusive thoughts of
suicide.” Jollotta suggested she consider a higher level of care such as
that offered by Massachusetts General Hospital. She settled on the Women
and Infants Hospital postpartum program in Rhode Island t but was soon
discharged — with advice to stop taking one of her antipsychotic
medication.
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Lindsay Clancy, and her attorney Kevin Reddington , listen to
testimony from Rebecca Jollotta, during Clancy's murder trial in
Plymouth Mass., on Tuesday Aug. 11, 2026 in Plymouth, Mass.
(Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
Jollotta, who was going on vacation, said she was concerned that
Clancy had been discharged from the hospital, telling her in a
message that she could “could benefit from the groups and added
support separate even from medication changes.”
She was worried the hospital wanted Clancy to go off Seroquel, the
antipsychotic medications. Clancy was advised this could lead to
“worsening of mood, worsening of sleep,” but she insisted on going
off the medication. Jollotta agreed to slowly reduce the dosage.
During cross-examination Clancy's attorney Kevin Reddington argued
that Jollotta was not familiar with the care Clancy received
elsewhere.
Jollotta never talked to one of Clancy’s psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer
Tufts, nor did she access Tuft’s medical records. She did not know
how many times Clancy saw Tufts, noting that she only thought Tufts
treated Clancy in September.
“Would it surprise you if I told you that she saw Dr. Tufts 14
times” during a four-month period ending in January, Reddington
said.
Jollotta never talked to anyone from the Rhode Island hospital that
admitted Clancy, nor did she have access to the records of McLean
Hospital, a psychiatric facility that Clancy admitted herself into
on New Year’s Eve.
“If you're treating a person through all of this stuff that we've
talked about and it’s now apparent that things have decompensated so
bad that they have voluntarily admitted her to a locked ward in a
mental institution, is it important to Rebecca Jollotta to find out
what the diagnosis and treatment was of their patient?” Reddington
said.
Jollotta agreed it was but acknowledged that she never did find out.
Killer, or someone who was mentally ill
Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths
of Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged from 8 months to 5
years old. They were found in the basement of the family’s home in
coastal Duxbury, Massachusetts, where their mother was lying in the
yard. She had jumped from a second-story window, and she remains
paralyzed from the waist down.
Prosecutors argue that the former labor and delivery nurse was an
intentional killer who contrived to get her husband out of the house
and then strangled the children with exercise bands on Jan. 24,
2023. Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham has urged jurors not to view the
trial as “a public debate about women’s mental health and how the
medical system treats women.”
Clancy’s attorneys do not dispute that she killed the children. But
they say she should not be held criminally responsible because she
was mentally ill, believing she heard voices ordering her to take
their lives and her own.
The defense says she was in the grip of bipolar disorder and
postpartum psychosis, a rare postpregnancy condition that can alter
a woman’s sense of reality. A forensic psychiatrist diagnosed Clancy
with those conditions after the killings.
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