The revolving door of medical practitioners who handled Lindsay Clancy whereas she suffered from postpartum psychosis did not diagnose her with bipolar dysfunction, in the end resulting in her psychotic break the place she allegedly killed her three kids, in line with a lawsuit filed final week.
Clancy, 35, allegedly fatally strangled her younger kids – Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan – with an train band at their Massachusetts dwelling in January 2023 after months-long therapy for numerous postpartum illnesses, together with extreme insomnia and despair.
In a lawsuit filed on Jan. 23, Clancy alleges that the “polypharmacy” of individuals and organizations tending to her all did not correctly diagnose her with “bipolar dysfunction with postpartum onset” and wound up “[exacerbating] her situation and precipitated a extreme psychotic break.”
The lawsuit particulars low-grade anxiousness Clancy skilled after having her first and second kids that have been alleviated by particular consideration to self-care earlier than the “hypomanic signs” she skilled in 2022.
Only one week after having their third baby, Clancy grew to become obsessive about sustaining a “seaside physique” and fell into an intense exercise routine. In early July, simply 5 weeks after giving beginning, she ran a five-mile race, in line with the lawsuit.
Her sister mentioned that Clancy was “not like her traditional smart self” and have become sucked right into a “multi-level advertising and marketing scheme” for train merchandise, which she tried to go off to her family and friends, the lawsuit mentioned.
By the top of the summer time, Clancy’s temper “out of the blue switched to anxiousness and despair,” and residing her each day life grew to become a “chore.”
It was then that she “took the initiative” and sought out medical and psychiatric help — the identical events her husband, Patrick, accused of “overmedicating” Clancy in his personal lawsuit filed final week.
The cocktail of prescriptions Clancy was prescribed on and off between October and December 2022 included Zoloft, trazodone, Prozac, Ambien, Remeron, Klonopin, Seroquel, Ativan, Valium, and Lamictal, in line with Patrick and Clancy’s respective lawsuits.
After months of making an attempt to obtain assist from the defendants named within the lawsuit — the South Shore Well being System, Aster Psychological Well being Inc., the Girls and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, Dr. Jennifer Tufts and nurse Rebecca Jollotta — a defeated Clancy began to marvel if she was a “psychopath.”
Simply 4 days earlier than she allegedly killed her kids, Clancy tried to analysis doable cures for psychopaths, the lawsuit mentioned.
Clancy was overwhelmed by a “drive” the day she allegedly killed her children — one which had the identical aggressive, antagonistic male voice she claimed to have hallucinated since she was prescribed Seroquel, in line with the lawsuit.
She whispered “Go to God, child” to her kids whereas they died earlier than throwing herself out their dwelling’s second-story window, in line with the lawsuit.
A health care provider formally recognized Clancy with extreme bipolar dysfunction in September 2024, the lawsuit mentioned.
Antidepressants sometimes enhance hypomanic signs and temper instabilities for folks with bipolar dysfunction.
Clancy is in search of an unspecified amount of cash in damages for her medical bills, misplaced wages, ache and struggling, emotional misery, everlasting incapacity, the lack of her household’s companionship, and the devastation of her marriage.
Clancy, who remains to be on suicide watch, is scheduled to go on trial in late July.
She has pleaded not responsible to 2 counts of homicide, three counts of strangulation, and three counts of assault and battery with a harmful weapon.
Her lawyer warned there’s a “actual chance” Clancy will attempt to kill herself throughout the trial. She has undergone round the clock supervision on the Tewksbury State Hospital since Might 2023.
