A jury is to determine whether Lindsay Clancy is criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023 in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She was being treated for postpartum mental health issues when she killed the children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was 8 months old. Plymouth County Superior Court Judge William Sullivan is presiding over the jury trial, which began on July 27 and is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Curated by: Meghann Cuniff (223 videos)
The psychiatric nurse practitioner who testified in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial discussed their correspondence and meetings, including a Dec. 7, 2022, message Clancy sent regarding her sleep and medication. Clancy wrote Rebecca Jollotta at 9:48 a.m., "Hi Rebecca, last night did not go well at all. I took the Valium and melatonin and slept only only slept from 9 to 1. Then around 2, I got desperate and took 25 milligrams of Benadryl and only slept about one more hour. What can I do? I really need help." Shanan Buckingham, an assistant district attorney in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, read the message aloud during Jollotta's testimony on Tuesday (August 11, day 11). Jollotta read her response aloud. "I mentioned so your husband made a good point yesterday. Despite taking the Ativan in the evening, you were still only able to get a five-hour stretch of sleep, which yes is improvement, but does sort of dispel the notion that benzodiazepines are the only thing that are helping you sleep right now, as you are still getting less than the target of six to eight hours with Ativan, and the Valium did not help for sleep much at all. My next step in this case is to try a higher dose of Seroquel on its own. Are you feeling any subsequent loss of energy, exhaustion, fatigue with lack of sleep?" In court, Buckingham asked Jollotta, "Why would it be the next step to increase from 75 of Seroquel to 100?" "So she had been taking 50. So I was suggesting 75 to 100 would be my next step, because again, bipolar is still on my differentials, and now I have the data that she only slept two hours," Jollotta answered. "So I asked her the follow-up question: 'Are you feeling tired, or you know, are you feeling exhausted? Any subsequent loss of energy?' It's still in the back of my mind that this could be bipolar." "As far as the Seroquel goes, at that point, creeping up the dosage, do you get now from the using it to treat insomnia to using it to treat something else like bipolar?" Buckingham asked. "Correct," Jollotta answered. "And so that piece of it about feeling subsequent loss of energy and exhaustion, fatigue. Why ask that?" Buckingham asked. "Patients can have insomnia because they're anxious or because they're depressed, but typically they're exhausted or they're tired the next day, and it really does affect them. If a patient has an underlying bipolar, they could go on two hours of sleep and not feel tired at all, and that's unusual," Jollotta answered.