The revolving door of medical practitioners who treated Lindsay Clancy while she suffered from postpartum psychosis failed to diagnose her with bipolar disorder, ultimately leading to her psychotic break where she allegedly killed her three children, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
Clancy, 35, allegedly fatally strangled her young children – Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan – with an exercise band at their Massachusetts home in January 2023 after months-long treatment for various postpartum ailments, including severe insomnia and depression.
In a lawsuit filed on Jan. 23, Clancy alleges that the “polypharmacy” of people and organizations tending to her all failed to properly diagnose her with “bipolar disorder with postpartum onset” and wound up “[exacerbating] her condition and precipitated a severe psychotic break.”
The lawsuit details low-grade anxiety Clancy experienced after having her first and second children that were alleviated by special attention to self-care before the “hypomanic symptoms” she experienced in 2022.
Just one week after having their third child, Clancy became obsessed with maintaining a “beach body” and fell into an intense workout routine. In early July, just five weeks after giving birth, she ran a five-mile race, according to the lawsuit.
Her sister said that Clancy was “unlike her usual sensible self” and became sucked into a “multi-level marketing scheme” for exercise products, which she tried to pass off to her friends and family, the lawsuit said.
By the end of the summer, Clancy’s mood “suddenly switched to anxiety and depression,” and living her daily life became a “chore.”
It was then that she “took the initiative” and sought out medical and psychiatric assistance — the same parties her husband, Patrick, accused of “overmedicating” Clancy in his own lawsuit filed last 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, according to Patrick and Clancy’s respective lawsuits.
After months of trying to receive help from the defendants named in the lawsuit — the South Shore Health System, Aster Mental Health Inc., the Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, Dr. Jennifer Tufts and nurse Rebecca Jollotta — a defeated Clancy started to wonder if she was a “psychopath.”
Just four days before she allegedly killed her children, Clancy tried to research possible cures for psychopaths, the lawsuit said.
Clancy was overwhelmed by a “force” the day she allegedly killed her kids — one that had the same aggressive, antagonistic male voice she claimed to have hallucinated since she was prescribed Seroquel, according to the lawsuit.
She whispered “Go to God, baby” to her children while they died before throwing herself out their home’s second-story window, according to the lawsuit.
A doctor officially diagnosed Clancy with severe bipolar disorder in September 2024, the lawsuit said.
Antidepressants typically increase hypomanic symptoms and mood instabilities for people with bipolar disorder.
Clancy is seeking an unspecified amount of money in damages for her medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, emotional distress, permanent disability, the loss of her family’s companionship, and the devastation of her marriage.
Clancy, who is still on suicide watch, is scheduled to go on trial in late July.
She has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder, three counts of strangulation, and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Her lawyer warned there is a “real probability” Clancy will try to kill herself during the trial. She has undergone round-the-clock supervision at the Tewksbury State Hospital since May 2023.
