A sudden alert appeared on the MyChart medical portal, demanding immediate attention.
The message was stark and alarming: ‘I feel like I’m going to die and I don’t care.’
Rebecca Jollotta, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, had recently begun working with a new patient, Lindsay Clancy, enrolled in the postpartum program at South Shore Health in Massachusetts.
At the age of 32, Clancy was around six months into her postpartum journey with her third child, grappling with intense anxiety and unrelenting insomnia.
On that December 2nd morning in 2022, the mother of three sent a series of distressing messages, revealing her battles with intrusive thoughts, a deep sense of hopelessness, and fears that her medications were exacerbating her issues — or worse, that she was becoming dependent on them.
‘I have never felt anything like this before,’ she wrote.
In response, the nurse sent her messages reassuring her that intrusive thoughts were ‘quite common’ in women with postpartum depression and that they ‘mean nothing about you as a mother.’
This week, those private messages took center stage at Plymouth County Superior Court.
Lindsay Clancy and her attorney Kevin Reddington in court on Wednesday. The full horrors of January 24, 2023, were laid bare when jurors heard harrowing details about the injuries that Clancy had inflicted on her small children
As Clancy sat forced to listen to what she had done, she hyperventilated and broke down in guttural sobs. ‘I can’t do this,’ came the guttural wail from the mom-of-three as her body crumpled over the defense table
Her uncontrollable cries and emotions ended up shuttering the courtroom twice in the space of just 30 minutes
Rebecca Jollotta, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, began treating Clancy in a postpartum program at South Shore Health, Massachusetts
Seven weeks later on January 24, 2023, Clancy strangled her three children Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months, with exercise bands in their home in Duxbury.
She then slit her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-floor window in an apparent suicide attempt.
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, claims that she heard a voice commanding her to kill the children and herself, saying it was her ‘last chance.’
Now, it will be down to a jury to decide whether she is guilty of first-degree murder or if she was in the grips of severe postpartum psychosis – and so lacks criminal responsibility.
Inside the courtroom on Tuesday, Clancy spent her 36th birthday reliving those weeks leading up to the killings.
Dressed in a pale blue blouse and clear wide-rimmed glasses, with her long dark hair loose around her shoulders, she looked every inch the doting, suburban mom she once was.
But sitting at the defense table in her wheelchair – a permanent reminder of her injuries from that awful night – she could only look on as one of the many doctors she had sought help from took the stand at her murder trial.
Jollotta treated Clancy from November 29, 2022, when a colleague leaving the clinic transferred her to her care, through December. Clancy then voluntarily admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital for five days.
During that period of treatment, Jollotta met Clancy once in person and twice over telehealth.
Much of their communication took place through the MyChart portal, with Clancy sending Jollotta messages almost daily, sometimes several times a day.
As the messages were read aloud, Clancy spoke of her numbness and depression and revealed her spiraling anxiety that she was not getting any better.
She also spoke of having intrusive thoughts of suicide and ‘wanting to die,’ Jollotta testified.
‘What I’m really feeling is I cannot go on this way,’ Clancy wrote on November 30, one day after their treatment began.
Later that day, Clancy asked Jollotta if she could give her a call.
Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan were strangled at the family home in January 2023
Crime scene photos show the inside of the basement where the children were found strangled
The above text exchange does not include all of Clancy’s messages or of the nurse’s replies
The above text exchange does not include all of Clancy’s messages or of the nurse’s replies
Jollotta testified that she did not call Clancy because she was too busy seeing other patients. She had a more junior member of staff call her instead, she said.
The following day, Clancy sent Jollotta several messages describing her intrusive thoughts and revealing her fears about trying new medications.
‘It’s just a very scary stressful time for me, and starting new meds with side effects is very scary to me,’ she wrote.
On December 2, Clancy sent the nurse several messages throughout the day.
‘I took the Remeron,’ she wrote, referring to an antidepressant used for insomnia.
‘I woke up at 12.15 and had intrusive thoughts – of wanting it all to be over.’
Clancy opened up about having an intense fear that she was addicted to the anxiety drug Ativan and asked to speak to someone about substance abuse.
‘I really need to explore the option that I am addicted to Ativan,’ she wrote.
‘I feel addicted to it, and I feel like I’m not being heard that that is a possibility,’ she wrote.
‘I feel like we are throwing all these different meds at my insomnia when the root cause is Ativan dependence. I don’t feel any of the anxious thoughts I had before.
‘I feel completely numb.’
Over more messages that day, Clancy wrote that she felt like she was going to die.
‘I also just feel concerningly numb right now, like I have no emotion whatsoever,’ she wrote.
‘I feel like I’m going to die, and I don’t care. What do I do about this?’
The messages continued that day with Clancy begging that she was ‘willing to try anything.’
‘I have never felt anything like this before.’
‘Do you think my symptoms will go away?’
Jollotta testified that she did not believe Clancy was addicted to the medications or that her comments about dying constituted suicidal ideation.
Instead, she believed Clancy was suffering from postpartum depression and told her that her symptoms were ‘very treatable.’
Patrick, Lindsay, Cora, Dawson and Callan pictured together. Clancy is on trial for murdering the children
At one point on Tuesday, Jollotta loudly giggled into the microphone after the judge overruled an objection from the defense. Reddington declared a fresh objection ‘to the laughter coming from the witness’
Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial: All the key stories
Jollotta testified that Clancy would sometimes quit new drugs before they had time to take effect because she was concerned about side effects. She would also seek to lower the dose.
Clancy, she said, seemed to attribute a lot of her negative symptoms to her medications rather than her depression.
Jollotta prescribed Seroquel, Valium and Lamictal during the brief but critical period.
During a virtual appointment on December 6, which Clancy’s then husband Patrick joined, Clancy told Jollotta she had gone 48 hours without sleeping yet did not feel tired.
It was then that Jollotta said she considered whether Clancy was suffering from bipolar disorder – a condition that can cause a drastically reduced need for sleep.
But Patrick quickly ruled it out. ‘My wife is not bipolar,’ Patrick said.
Clancy just looked at her but said nothing, Jollotta testified.
Over the coming days and weeks, Clancy continued to message Jollotta.
‘What can I do? I really need help,’ Clancy said in another message to the nurse.
Ultimately, Jollotta recommended her for inpatient psychiatric care in mid-December because Clancy was having ‘persistent, intrusive thoughts of suicide,’ said Jollotta.
Clancy admitted herself to McLean Hospital on New Year’s Day and stayed for five days.
While she did have suicidal thoughts, she never spoke about having a plan for suicide or about having thoughts of harming the children, Jollotta testified.
Several members of the jury had their heads down, furiously scribbling down notes throughout the nurse’s hours-long testimony.
An expressionless Clancy watched on, sometimes conferring with her defense attorney Kevin Reddington.
Among the forensic, detailed questioning, there came a jarring moment where Jollotta loudly giggled into the microphone after Judge William Sullivan overruled an objection from the defense.
Reddington instantly shot her a look across the courthouse before rising to his feet and declaring a fresh objection ‘to the laughter coming from the witness.’
When it became his turn to question Jollotta, any laughter quickly vanished.
Under a barrage of questions, the nurse admitted that she had never contacted Clancy’s other providers for information or for her medical records – despite knowing that she was seeing another psychiatrist.
She also never contacted Clancy again after she checked into McLean.
Less than three weeks after she was discharged from McLean, that tragic evening unfolded.
The full horrors of January 24, 2023, were laid bare inside the courtroom on Wednesday when jurors heard harrowing details about the injuries that Clancy had inflicted on her small children.
Distressing images of Cora and Dawson’s autopsies punctuated the graphic testimony about their deaths from the medical examiners.
As Clancy sat forced to listen to what she had done, she hyperventilated and broke down in guttural sobs.
‘I can’t do this,’ came the guttural wail from the mom-of-three as her body crumpled over the defense table.
Her uncontrollable cries and emotions ended up shuttering the courtroom twice in the space of just 30 minutes.
Though Clancy is the one on trial, Jollotta and several other providers are also defendants in civil lawsuits filed by Clancy and her ex-husband Patrick over her treatment. A joint motion has been filed by the providers to dismiss the claims.
Several members of the public turned up to support Clancy – with some sharing that they believe she was ‘failed’ by the system
Clancy had sought help from multiple psychiatrists, hospitals and nurses and been prescribed at least 13 medications in the four months before the killings.
The suits allege that poor treatment and over-medication worsened her condition and contributed to the children’s deaths.
To some extent, America’s healthcare system is also on trial with debates around whether crucial warning signs were missed.
At the courtroom on Tuesday, these were questions on the lips of several women who had shown up to support Clancy.
Around three dozen members of the public had lined up outside the courthouse to get a seat inside – the most since Patrick testified on the opening days of the trial.
‘I’m here to support Lindsay and all women who are going through this,’ Karen Whebble told the Daily Mail.
Several among the heavily female crowd spoke of their outrage that ‘the system’ had failed both Clancy and her children.
Sue Blair, a mother from the nearby town of Kingston, said that watching the trial had only ‘solidified’ this thinking.
This was a woman who was repeatedly crying out for help and ‘was failed on every level,’ she said.
In particular, hearing all of Clancy’s messages to Jollotta in the MyChart portal, Blair said she couldn’t understand why her intrusive thoughts were not taken more seriously by doctors.
‘I don’t understand what you need to say to actually be considered suicidal. If you’re thinking about suicide, you’re thinking you don’t care if you die, to me that’s suicidal,’ she said.
‘I’m not a psychiatrist but to me any mention of suicide is a cry for help.’
