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Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer spent hours Monday grilling the shrink who treated Clancy in the months before she strangled her three kids — ripping the doctor for only having a month on the job before she started treating the troubled mom.
Dr. Jennifer Tufts took the witness stand for the second day at Clancy’s Plymouth, Mass., trial and was subjected to a relentless and blistering cross-examination by Kevin Reddington.
“If you advertise as an expert in postpartum and you have a month of experience, plus a residency, would you consider that to be negligent or misrepresentation?” Reddington said.
“I do not believe that I’ve been negligent,” Tufts responded.
“You really want this jury to believe you were an expert?” the attorney pressed.
“I don’t believe that’s the wording that I used. I said it was an interest of mine … I don’t believe I called myself an expert,” Tufts said.
The 35-year-old Duxbury mother first saw Tufts on Sept. 15, 2022, four months before she killed kids Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan and then tried to kill herself on Jan. 24, 2023.
Clancy appeared emotional at times as Reddington forced Tufts to dissect every action she made in Clancy’s case.
Tufts, 36, admitted that she had only been with a private practice Aster Mental Health — her first job out of her residency — for one month before she started treating Clancy.
“I was practicing independently … for about a month, but the training is immense,” Tufts said of her four-year residency through Boston Medical Center, which included a year working with a postpartum specialist.
Reddington also questioned Tufts about the fact that Clancy and her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, had both filed medical malpractice lawsuits against Tufts and other providers for allegedly misdiagnosing and overmedicating Clancy.
“You’re a defendant in a very large lawsuit, right?” Reddington asked.
The prosecution objected, but Judge William Sullivan allowed Tufts to answer.
“Yes,” Tufts admitted.
“You know the outcome in this case is major to the outcome in your lawsuit, right?” Reddington asked.
“I don’t actually know that,” the shrink responded.
Reddington also laid into Tufts for allegedly prescribing Clancy antidepressant medication Zoloft which has a known side-effect of insomnia — one of Clancy’s major postpartum symptoms. And the lawyer repeatedly questioned why Tufts only saw Clancy over video and never in-person.
“Why would prescribe Zoloft to a young woman who is postpartum, who is telling you she has anxiety and telling you she can’t sleep? She has all of these symptoms and you prescribe a medication with a side effect of trouble sleeping?” Reddington said.
“Individuals have very varied responses to medications,” Tufts replied. “Some have no side effects, some have one or two. It’s impossible to predict.”
“Zoloft is a top-choice, a first-line medication for people with anxiety,” the psychiatrist continued.
Clancy only took Zoloft for eight days after experiencing a slew of intolerable symptoms after increasing her dosage on the eighth day.
Tuft wrote in her notes she was “crying all day” the day before seeing her on Oct. 20, 2022, she had brain fog, racing thoughts, anxiety and she was “paranoid of getting suicidal thoughts,” the jury learned.
The labor and delivery nurse — on maternity leave after giving birth to her third child, son Callan, in May — was also “terrified to start” a new drug, the doctor said.
Tufts told Clancy to immediately stop the medication and discussed alternative options for her, the doctor testified.
“That must have made you pretty concerned?” Reddington asked.
“I was concerned, yes. I gave her some therapies,” Tufts said, noting she also discussed Clancy’s options.
Tufts admitted she was only seeing Clancy in person for the first time when she began testifying on Friday.
“Did you give her a hug? Oh no, you were on telehealth so you couldn’t, could you?” Reddington said.
“I couldn’t give her a hug but that’s not something psychiatrists normally do with patients,” Tufts answered.
Tufts continued to see Clancy in the coming months as she spiraled downwards, switching medications multiple times, going to the hospital twice for suicidal thoughts, and seeking treatment from multiple providers who all prescribed various psychiatric medications, the jury has learned.
But Clancy insisted during all of her sessions that she wouldn’t harm herself or her kids, though she did admit she had thought about suicide.
Reddington asked Tufts if she knew Clancy had opened up to Patrick around mid-December 2022 about having thoughts of harming the kids.
“No,” Tufts said. “If I heard that I would have been very concerned.”
“You would have called DCF, right?” Reddington asked, referring to the Department of Children and Families.
“I might have,” she responded.
Tufts also maintained she never saw signs of psychosis in Clancy and she didn’t believe Clancy had bipolar disorder because she never showed signs of mania.
Reddington wants to ask the jury to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity on the grounds she was in the throes of severe postpartum psychosis, partially caused by the medications that would worsen Clancy’s alleged bipolar disorder. He has also claimed she heard a voice telling her to commit the heinous acts.
Later Monday, jurors heard from nurse practitioner, Julie Paul, who briefly treated Clancy at a clinic at South Shore Hospital that specialized in treating women with postpartum.
She tried one med for three days and Clancy had bad side effects so she prescribed some others during a weeklong span. She then passed Clancy off to another practitioner because she was leaving the practice.
Paul is expected to be cross-examined by Reddington Tuesday morning.
After strangling her kids, Clancy slit her wrists and neck and threw herself out of the upstairs window of her home. She partially paralyzed herself in the fall and is now wheelchair bound.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
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