Jurors in Lindsay Clancy’s closely watched murder trial were told that her psychiatrist raised the dose of one of her medications just a day before the Massachusetts mother fatally strangled her three children.
Dr. Jennifer Tufts, the psychiatrist who treated Clancy and prescribed several medications during the four months before the children’s deaths, was back on the witness stand Monday at Plymouth County Superior Court, where she faced pointed questioning from the defense.
Over several tense hours, Tufts acknowledged that she continued adding or adjusting prescriptions in the period leading up to the killings, even after Clancy told her she worried the drugs were deepening her depression.
On January 16, 2023 — eight days before the tragedy — Tufts prescribed Clancy the antidepressant Amitriptyline, the court heard.
During that same appointment, Clancy described feeling emotionally numb and depressed, and said her connection with her baby felt forced rather than natural.
A week later, on January 23, Tufts met with Clancy for what would be their final appointment and increased the dosage of the medication.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington zeroed in on that decision, pressing the psychiatrist in an emotionally charged exchange.
“That pushed her over the edge, didn’t it?” he asked.
Dr Jennifer Tufts is a psychiatrist who treated Lindsay Clancy and prescribed her multiple different medications
‘I don’t think so,’ Dr Tufts snapped back.
It was around 24 hours later when Clancy was accused of murdering her children – Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months – inside the family home in the wealthy coastal suburb of Duxbury.
On the evening of January 24, 2023, the former delivery nurse strangled the children with exercise bands in the basement, before she cut her own wrists and neck and jumped from a second-floor window in a suicide attempt.
The 35-year-old has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to three counts of first-degree murder, arguing she was suffering from severe postpartum depression and psychosis at the time.
The defense has argued that Clancy was severely overmedicated, having been prescribed 13 different medications from multiple providers in the four months before the killings.
Inside the packed courtroom on Monday morning, Dr Tufts faced a heated grilling from Clancy’s attorney about her treatment of the mom-of-three.
Dr Tufts began treating Clancy in September 2022, seeing her 14 times between then and January 24, 2023.
Lindsay Clancy looked tense as she listened to testimony by her former providers in court
Throughout her care, she prescribed her multiple different medications including antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety and sleep medications.
On Friday, Dr Tufts testified for hours about her work with Clancy, saying that she never saw any signs of psychosis in the former nurse – even in their last appointment one day prior to the killings.
But under a fiery cross-examination on Monday, Dr Tufts admitted that she had never even seen Clancy in person. Instead, all 14 appointments took place over Zoom.
‘Until you came into this courtroom Friday you never saw this woman did you?’ Reddington exclaimed.
‘Correct,’ Dr Tufts responded quietly.
The defense attorney also picked holes in Dr Tufts’s experience as a psychiatrist.
Jurors learned that Dr Tufts had only completed her four-year residency at Boston Medical School in 2022.
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She started working as a practicing psychiatrist at Aster Health and got her individual DEA license to prescribe medication in August 2022.
It was only one month later, on September 15, that she had her first appointment with Clancy.
Dr Tufts also admitted that she had never worked with a patient suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Yet, Reddington claimed that Clancy had reached out to Dr Tufts because she advertised herself as a specialist in postpartum mental health.
He suggested the doctor had ‘misrepresented’ her experience when she only had ‘a month under your belt.’
In that very first online meeting, the psychiatrist prescribed Clancy the antidepressant Zoloft.
A list of medications that attorney Kevin Reddington posted next to his lectern during Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial
Dr Jennifer Tufts is one of several providers being sued by the Clancys for medical malpractice and negligence
By October, Clancy reported several side effects from the drug. Her insomnia had become worse and she was more depressed, Dr Tufts said.
Clancy was ‘crying all day,’ suffered mental fog, didn’t want to eat, was ‘terrified’ to start any new medications and was paranoid about getting suicidal thoughts.
Clancy also told her she ‘didn’t want to be left alone,’ Dr Tufts testified.
Clancy’s mom Paula Musgrove ended up staying with her daughter and son-in-law Patrick Clancy to help her.
As the months went on, Dr Tufts continued to prescribe Clancy medication through their Zoom appointments.
And Clancy was also receiving treatment – and more drugs – from other providers.
Yet, Dr Tufts conceded, the different medical providers did not communicate with each other.
At no point did she ask Clancy to sign a release form so that she could access her medical records and speak to her other doctors.
Dr Tufts testified that Clancy had been very cooperative and seemed able to advocate for herself so she felt she could simply rely on the information she gave her.
On Monday, jurors also heard from Julie Paul, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner who treated Clancy briefly in November 2022.
Paul ran a postpartum program and connected with Clancy through Patrick’s mother Sue Clancy, who was also a nurse.
In November, Paul prescribed Clancy Prozac – followed by a one-time dose of Ambien, as well as Remeron and Klonopin, to replace the Prozac.
In late-November, Paul transferred Clancy’s care to another nurse because she was transferring from the hospital.
The trial will resume on Tuesday morning with the defense’s cross-examination of Paul.
If convicted, Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will be sent to a psychiatric hospital.
