A wrongful death lawsuit filed by Lindsay Clancy’s husband claims poor mental health care led to the murder of the couple’s three children.
www.nbcboston.com
Prior to the murders, Lindsay Clancy sought medical treatment beginning in September 2022 for her anxiety and increasingly poor and deteriorating mental health condition, the lawsuit shows. Over the next few months, she was prescribed sertraline (also known as Zoloft), trazodone, fluoxetine (also known as Prozac), zolpidem tartrate (also known as Ambien), mirtazapine (also known as Remeron), clonazepam (also known as Klonopin), quetiapine fumarate (also known as Seroquel), diazepam (also known as Valium), and lamotrigine (also known as Lamictal).
The medications did not help, according to the lawsuit, and Lindsay Clancy was experiencing worsening anxiety, bad insomnia and paranoia of getting suicidal thoughts. She was only sleeping three hours eventually and felt disoriented, disconnected from her body and like she was in a panic state.
Lindsay Clancy sought treatment in an emergency room in November 2022 at which point she reported feeling afraid something awful might happen. The lawsuit alleges she quickly reported the negative impacts of the medications she was prescribed, noting feeling of numbness and panic attacks.
It was the end of November and beginning of December when she first reported suicidal ideation, the lawsuit shows. On Dec. 5, 2022, she contacted ASPIRE crisis support due to having intrusive thoughts of wanting to die. She reported that she believed her ongoing symptoms were connected to the medications she was being prescribed.
A few days later on Dec. 9, Patrick Clancy called the nurse's office and said it was fairly urgent that they speak about his wife's panic and suicidal ideation. The Clancy's were advised that she continue taking the medications.
Lindsay Clancy continued to experience suicidal ideation and continued to seek help, the suit alleges. On Dec. 20, 2022, she admitted herself into a day hospital program at Women & Infants Hospital for patients with post-partum depression. She said she started having passive suicidal ideation immediately after starting quetiapine fumarate (also known as Seroquel). She also said she could not feel fear, and she reported a general inability to function, as well as a feeling of numbness and severe depression.
Women & Infants determined Lindsay Clancy's mental health issues were likely due to "overmedication and misdiagnosis" and that its day program was not appropriate for her, the lawsuit states. They reached out to her nurse, who allegedly failed to respond to them.
As her condition continued to deteriorate, Lindsay Clancy admitted herself to McLean Hospital on Jan. 1, 2023, as a result of suicidal ideation, and stayed there until Jan. 5, according to the lawsuit.
Patrick Clancy's civil suit also alleges that his wife's providers were only meeting with her for 17 minutes at a time in that month. On Jan. 16, 2022, less than 10 days before the alleged murders, Lindsay Clancy reported that caring for her baby felt forced. She had her final doctor's appointment on Jan. 23 -- also 17 minutes long.
She is accused of killing her three kids the next day.
"Dr. Tufts and Nurse Jollotta, and through them their employers Aster and South Shore Health, were aware that Lindsay was experiencing suicidal ideation and a critically deteriorating psychiatric condition while in their care and failed to take reasonable steps to properly treat her," the lawsuit concludes. "Further it is more likely than not that, had Dr. Tufts and Nurse Jollotta appreciated the severe nature of Lindsay's mental health condition, they would have altered their treatment plans to properly treat Lindsay and, more likely than not, Lindsay would not have harmed or killed Cora, Dawson, and Callan, as is alleged."
