As the trial of Lindsay Clancy unfolds, fresh insights are emerging from her former psychiatric nurse, shedding light on the treatment Clancy received leading up to the tragic incident involving her three children.
Nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta testified in Plymouth Superior Court on August 11. She provided detailed accounts of her initial interactions with Clancy, which began with a telehealth consultation on November 29, 2022.
Jollotta recounted that Clancy was four days into taking the antidepressant mirtazapine, aimed at addressing her mental health challenges and insomnia. During a 30-minute virtual consultation, they agreed upon a treatment strategy, continuing with the prescribed medication.
The nurse practitioner noted in her testimony that she observed no signs of psychosis in Clancy at that time. Clancy did not express any suicidal thoughts or intentions to harm others, according to Jollotta.
In a message sent on November 30, Clancy inquired about the safety of discontinuing mirtazapine after five days, reporting a worsening in her depression symptoms, as recounted by Jollotta.
Jollotta testified that since October 2022, Clancy had gone through a series of “really short medication trials.” She told her patient that it could take several weeks before a specific treatment could take full effect and encouraged her to keep up with her medication, in addition to several other recommended treatment options.
On Dec. 1, Jollotta testified, Clancy messaged her that she didn’t like the way she felt on mirtazapine and asked to alter her medication plan. “I know that I can’t stick with taking it,” the prosecution read from Clancy’s messages, which Jollotta affirmed were accurate. “I started having very intrusive thoughts that I never had before.”
In her response, Jollotta said she highlighted “how intrusive thoughts are quite common in postpartum depression,” reassured her and shared resources.
“I’m sorry for all the messages,” Clancy wrote in another message that day, per Jollotta’s testimony. “It’s just a very scary, stressful time for me, and starting new meds with side effects is very scary to me.”
Over the following days, Jollotta reported Clancy messaging about concern over potential side effects, saying she had “horrible intrusive thoughts” and had “never felt anything like this before.”
“I also just feel concerningly numb right now, like I have no emotion whatsoever,” Clancy wrote, per court testimony. “I feel like I’m going to die, and I don’t care. What do I do about this?”
According to Jollotta, they continued to work on her treatment plan, and she did not take those words as suicidal ideation.
“It sounds more like depression than side effects,” Jollotta confirmed she wrote in a message to Clancy. “It’s not uncommon for me to hear ‘I’ve never felt anything like this before,’ or ‘I just don’t feel like myself.’ All of this sounds like postpartum depression.”
What Is Lindsay Clancy Accused Of?
Clancy’s medical history has been a key point of focus during her trial for the deaths of her three children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan.
On Jan. 24, 2023, Clancy fatally strangled her kids in the basement of their Duxbury, Mass., home, then jumped from her second-floor bedroom window in a suicide attempt, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.
Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder. Her defense team has argued that she is not criminally responsible due to her mental state at the time.
“This is a woman that was suffering from psychosis at the time that she went down to that basement,” he told jurors. “She had no motive. She loved her children. She intended to kill herself. She didn’t fake that.”
Meanwhile, the prosecution has argued that Clancy was not “in the throes of psychosis” on the day of the killings.
“This was a woman who acted intentionally, rationally and swiftly,” Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham said in her opening statement, “to accomplish a very specific goal: to kill.”
The prosecutor said there was “no dispute that [Clancy] was dealing with mental health issues” prior to the killings but argued she should still be held criminally responsible.
“The fact that someone may suffer or have a mental illness, a mental disease or defect, is not the end of the inquiry when it comes to guilt or innocence,” she added. “It is whether a person can appreciate the wrongfulness or criminality of the conduct and conform their conduct to the law.”