Transcript of Lindsay Clancy trial | Questions about prescriptions take center stage

Tonight, medications prescribed to Lindsay Clancy take center stage.

Were you recommending that she be on all of those at the same time? The Remeron, the Seroquel, the Prozac?

Yes.

Plus, a push to add a TikTok influencer to the defense witness list.

She did work at the McLean Hospital that the doctor was testifying that Lindsay was in for 5 days. How mental health and our criminal justice system intersect in this landmark case.

Commonwealth Confidential: The Lindsay Clancy Trial starts right now.

Well, we got to look into Lindsay Clancy's desperation to navigate and overcome her struggle with her postpartum mental health. Good evening, everyone. I'm Jacey Monahan.

And I'm Glenn Jones. A psychiatric nurse practitioner who treated her at South Shore Hospital took the stand today. NBC 10's Mary Marcos joins us live outside Plymouth Superior Court. Mary, there was a lot to sort through today.

There was, Glenn, and what stood out to me is what this practitioner thought was really going on with Lindsay and how her now ex-husband reacted.

He was pissed off about the medication and what it was doing to his wife.

Patrick Clancy's growing frustration with his wife's treatment taking center stage in court.

I recall Patrick saying, my wife is not bipolar. Lindsay looked at me, she did not, she did not say anything.

Prosecutors went through weeks of appointments, calls, and portal messages between Lindsay Clancy and Rebecca Gelada of South Shore's Perinatal Program in the weeks before she killed her 3 kids.

I had noticed that Lindsay was attributing a lot of her symptoms to her medication.

Gelada described a patient who desperately wanted to feel better but was also afraid of the medications that could help.

I feel addicted to it, and I feel like I'm not being heard, that That is a possibility.

Clancy was prescribed more than a dozen drugs in 4 months, and providers testified some of them can make bipolar symptoms worse.

You can swing from mania symptoms to depression symptoms relatively rapidly.

When Lindsay reported having suicidal thoughts, Gelada recommended a partial hospitalization at Women and Infants in Rhode Island, but the Clancy's were turned away.

Did you know that in fact they wouldn't accept her into the postpartum program because of their concern that she had been overmedicated by drugs?

I can't speak to that.

Lindsay's defense attorney reading aloud medical records from that evaluation.

We attempted to reach current outpatient provider Rebecca Jalada but did not receive a call back.

They never called me. I absolutely would have called them back.

Another name we heard a lot today was Leticia Dukes. She's another clinician who treated Lindsay at South Shore Health. We expect to hear from her tomorrow with the judge said will be another full day of testimony. Live in Plymouth, Mary Marcos, NBC 10 Boston. All right, Mary, thank Thank you.

Joining the conversation now is NBC 10 Chief Legal Analyst Michael Coyne, and of course we want to introduce criminal justice professor Dr. Kelly Wallace. Thank you for joining the discussion. We appreciate your being here. Uh, two witnesses today, both of them psychiatric nurse practitioners who work with Clancy leading up to the murders. You heard about Rebecca Gelana. She spent most of the time on the stand today and gave us a clearer picture of the level of care administered, including the medications prescribed We also heard how Clancy was communicating her concerns with Gelada. So take a listen to this.

She sends you a message saying, hi Rebecca, I took the 15 Remeron and 25 Seroquel. I woke up at 12 with horribly intrusive thoughts of wanting it to be all over. I took 1 milligram Ativan and went back to sleep and the thoughts went away. I feel like we are throwing all these different meds at my insomnia when the root cause is Ativan dependence. I don't feel any of the anxious thoughts I had before. I feel completely numb.

OK, so in that— that's just a quick exchange. Could you question, is Clancy being a difficult patient, or is she being her own best advocate? And I'll ask you, Michael, if they could prove that she was not adhering to what each doctor was asking her to do, does that weigh in the prosecution's favor?

Yes, I think—

That she was noncompliant, basically.

Yes, I think in part they're trying to make a case for the jury to fall back back on, that her behavior was grossly reckless at the minimum, um, that her not following the doctor's advice, not following the medicines that they prescribed for her, uh, means she still could be culpable of some form of murder or manslaughter, I think is what they're hoping that the jury will hear and then hold her accountable.

What complicates things a little bit, Dr. Wallace, is of course this is also a medical professional who is on trial and probably has a lot of information in her own mind about what's being prescribed, um, are we seeing a difficult patient, or are we seeing someone who was really just advocating for themselves?

I think we're seeing someone who's advocating for themselves, which is a frustration a lot of patients feel in today's medical societies. I know that some women will bring their husbands or boyfriends or fathers with them to appointments to feel heard and feel validated from medical professionals. As Rebecca said during her testimony, patients have autonomy. They are the experts of themselves, their bodies, and their experiences. She is just the expert in the DSM and the symptoms and diagnoses. She can't know what the patient doesn't tell her. And so I don't hear Lindsay saying, I'm being difficult, you're not doing what I want. I hear her saying, these are my frustrations, here's what I'm feeling, I don't want to feel this way, can you please help me, can we do something about it?

All right, let's talk about the other nurse practitioner who was on the stand today. At the start of the proceedings, we heard from nurse practitioner Julie Paul. She returned for cross. It didn't take long. Defense attorney Kevin Reddy then barely asked her anything. There were two softball questions And then he thanked her for her care of Lindsay. And I noticed, Michael, this was the polar opposite to the way that Reddington worked through cross with Dr. Tufts. And then I wonder, is that maybe the point, to actually show the jury that these two witnesses professionally are polar opposites?

Exactly. He wanted to convey to the jury first his appreciation for the care she provided his client and distinguish her from the witness that came before. Who didn't provide the appropriate care as he saw it. And that's a message that would resonate with the jury, is the difference between the testimony each of them gave and the manner in which he then treated them on cross-examination.

All right. Well, as we look at after lunch, Reddington got his opportunity to cross-examine Gelada. And as you know, just you were talking about, Glenn, compared to yesterday, a lot less tense, you could say, at the start of the day. She went on the record saying she's treated hundreds of mothers suffering from postpartum mood disorders. We didn't hear that yesterday, including postpartum psychosis. Take a listen.

Have you yourself had the experience of treating people, women, with postpartum psychosis?

I have, yes.

And how many patients approximately over the course of the last 5 years?

Approximately 5.

And how about postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety?

Hundreds.

Okay, so that bit of testimony is just a reminder how rare postpartum psychosis is. According to the National Institutes of Health, it impacts 1 to 2 in 1,000 mothers. So with that fact in mind, Michael, how did she do on that?

She did great. She was very professional. She answered the questions she knew. She didn't try to stray too far from things that she didn't personally have knowledge of. She was a strong witness, but I also think for both sides, because what she did is she stuck to the facts as she knew them. She provided the information about the medicines, and the fact that she has such a breadth of experience was important on cross-examination as well.

I do, I do want to note that the, uh, Dr. from McLean's had to take 10 seconds to even think if she had ever treated somebody with postpartum psychosis. So what a difference when we got this doctor up there to go, "Five, like, five. I know I could have treated five patients." Right.

It left me, uh, inquisitive as to whether she had at least heard some of the earlier testimony or been made aware of it. Hey, dot your i's, cross your t's.

Sure.

Uh, buckle up.

Sure.

Dr. Watts, I wanted to ask you, because I'm wondering about what level of confidence you and we should all have in the way that mental health and the criminal justice system sort of intersect. Let me just give a little background because we've had the Leticia Sanders case that was just overturned here in Massachusetts. She murdered two of her kids. Same thing happened in the Andrea Yates case. She killed her kids back in 2001, convicted, then overturned. Five children were drowned in their bathtub in Texas. Yates was ultimately acquitted, deemed not criminally responsible. Add in the Clancy case, that's 10 dead kids in 3 cases, and so far zero upheld convictions. It kind of makes you feel like, what are we doing here? And then to listen to some of the medical professionals unable to prevent it from happening, it does feel discouraging. How do you see a big picture?

Sure. The biggest issue in this entire situation is the lack of education and cross-training from one field to the other. Criminal justice professionals know criminal justice, mental health professionals know mental health. And we're really seeing that with these testimonies and these cross-examinations and the questions the lawyers are asking versus the responses or the detail that they're being provided from these medical professionals. Most, most nurses don't go into nursing to be police officers, and most police officers don't go to be therapists, correct?

Fair point.

However, we're seeing a blending of these roles a lot, whereas police officers are triaging folks in mental health crisis on the street and folks who are in hospitals are experiencing acute symptoms or are experiencing behaviors that warrant the nurses and staff calling the police. But we're not training or educating folks on the other side. And so they're only being equipped with what they know to handle cases that shouldn't really be handled by that facet of our society. But both are so under-resourced and underfunded that—

But it sounds like you're describing a fixable problem.

I am, absolutely. And it's shocking because mental health across our country is one of the first places where funding is cut. We have closed down 95% of the state hospitals that existed before the deinstitutionalization movement in the 1970s. Those were the places, the inpatient facilities, where folks could go and get the care they needed, whether acute or chronic. Now, those places had their issues. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. However, 5% of the facilities meant for folks like Andrea Yates, like Lindsay Clancy, are only left.

Well, you know, there was one point that Patrick said that we heard in testimony, is that they didn't want to go through the ER again and spend the entire day in the ER, and yet that's what you have to do if you want to get a bed in some sort of facility.

And sometimes you're turned away. In, in a lot of states, there's a 72-hour hold for how long someone can be in a psych inpatient unit before they can be, you know, released if they don't meet criteria. And then you have to file insurance appeals to keep people. There's a lot of paperwork and stuff that goes behind closed doors just for folks to get the mental and medical health care that they need. And some providers just either are unaware or don't have the staff to go through the motions.

Michael, Dr. Wallace, thank you for joining us. I hope you'll come back. Absolutely. Talk more with us. We're discussing the move by the defense to add a new witness, and she was discovered on TikTok. So answers to your questions as well. But first, as always, we want to take a moment to remember the victims in this case, the Clancy children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan. Commonwealth Confidential will be right back.

Her involvement in this case came about after one of the prosecutors— I don't recall which— made it out on direct examination that McLean is some kind of a 5-star institution This woman posted a video on TikTok saying that she could not stand for, and I quote, the lies and the misrepresentations.

The TikTok community is on the edge of their seats about this one. Emily Thorndike, a former McLean Hospital worker who didn't treat Lindsay Clancy, could end up playing a role in this case. We're back now with Michael and of course NBC 10 courtroom insider Sue O'Connell. Judge Sullivan said he would consider a motion to have a TikToker added to the defense witness list. So, Michael, I want to start from with you here because we hear so often about if you're on the witness list, don't watch the testimony of the other people while the trial is going on. This person might be called specifically because they were watching testimony. Yeah, I'm having a little trouble understanding it, and you should.

It's, uh, yes, there's a sequestration order. Witnesses are not supposed to watch the testimony that preceded their their appearance in court so that they won't match their testimony with what's already taken place. So it would be highly unusual, but it is a key issue that's now developed.

Some relevance here.

What— with significant relevance— what the level of care is on the weekend at the psychiatric facility. I said to Sue the other night, it reminded me, I deposed a doctor one time for a client, uh, with respect to a psychiatric facility, and it's the first time I ever heard the word a per diem psychiatrist. A day laborer who comes and goes at various hospitals on the weekends to cover the care for that— virtually that entire hospital. And it's a scary thought, obviously.

Yes.

And Sue, all right, we know what happened with the Karen Reed movement and all of that with the social media and the people outside and inside the court. Are you seeing any of that building?

Oh yeah. I mean, there's a whole underbelly to this that we're not discussing about what people think is happening and not happening. And certainly there's support for people with postpartum and trying to raise awareness. What's fascinating about this, and this is, I think, the case the prosecution made, they can already— they don't need a TikToker to do this, right? You know, Kevin and the defense, Reddington and the defense can call more witnesses from McLean and question them really like, how do you do this? What's happening? They can ask for the records for the week that the days that Lindsay Clancy was there to see how many staff was there. You don't need a TikTok star to do that. And I only think it became an issue, though, because of this TikTok video that happened. And, you know, the prosecution is kind of all over the place here trying to find their footing. And I think that Kevin Reddington saw this opening like they're calling it Five Star. Everybody's got lawsuits against every hospital on the face of the earth. And now you've got this TikTok charismatic person who's making a case.

And she's a powerful advocate. Who has really important information to say, and it comes very across very impactful.

It does.

That's why he wants her.

And it does sound like the Judge Sullivan is considering a voir dire on it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Reminding people, like, go through the whole Q&A, and if he agrees that it should be admissible, you gotta do it again in front of the jury.

Right. And there is some question. She wasn't there at the time that Lindsay Clancy was a patient. She was actually gone 2 years in time at that point. So there is some real question about relevance with respect to the timing. But what she has to say with respect to what the level of care is, staffing-wise, is important, um, and irrelevant.

And that's just for credibility, right? Because once again, when I hear that, I'm like, civil case, civil case. Like, that sounds like much more necessary to prove the civil case and the harm that was done to Lindsay.

Definitely. But it just— back it up from the defense in this case standpoint. She sought, desperately sought the treatment she needed so badly, and everywhere she went She was denied appropriate treatment, even at what the prosecution alleged was one of the best psychiatric facilities in the Commonwealth, if not the United States.

All right, let's get to a viewer question right now that brings up, uh, something that I think Beth is the one who wrote this one. Why wasn't a deal, a plea deal, arranged for her to go to an institution for the criminally insane? What is the purpose to put her and her family through all of Um, Michael, I can't remember if it was on the show or in the hallways, like we often do have our discussions. Yeah, but, um, it is the kind of case where maybe a plea does seem like a more appropriate end instead of a lengthy trial.

Agreed. And the first time I was asked the question, I said no, there's no way they really can do it. The more I thought about it, I think there is a way that it could still be done. Even, um, the district attorney would have to acknowledge that she's correct, she was in fact not criminally responsible for these acts because of her mental illness, then you would have to agree— the defendant would have to agree to waive her psychiatric reviews, both at the 6-month and the year standpoint, because every year, if you're— if she's found not guilty, she's entitled to a further review. If they could agree that she waived those rights for 5 or 10 years, and even when she does ultimately get reviewed to see if she's able to be released, the DA could still oppose it. To me, that would get her treatment that she desperately needs, and it is a way to bridge the problem that I think a lot of folks have with this. How are we going to make sure that she gets the treatment she needs, but also is protected, that everyone is protected under the circumstances?

I think that's the number one question I keep hearing is, why are we here at this point? All right, Michael Sue, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Of course, we appreciate you both. Stay with us for continuing coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial If you have a question, we want to hear from you. You can submit questions to Commonwealth.Confidential@NBCUNI.com.