Several witnesses could be called to testify about those medications beginning Friday, the ninth day of trial, including Tufts. More than 50 witnesses have testified already.
Clancy is on trial for first-degree murder in the killing of her three children, Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months; in January 2023.
Clancy found Tufts, who works with Aster Mental Health in Braintree and Peabody, through an online search, according to court documents. Tufts has a “particular interest in women’s mental health and perinatal psychiatry from pregnancy through two years postpartum,” according to her online bio.
Clancy began seeing Tufts in September 2022.
Tufts attended Cornell University and received her medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine, according to her LinkedIn page.
She completed her residency at Boston Medical Center and joined Aster Mental Health two months before she met Clancy, according to her online medical profile.
Tufts is among several providers named in two civil lawsuits filed by Lindsay Clancy and her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, separately, earlier this year. Lindsay Clancy’s lawyers allege that between October 2022 and January 2023, she was overprescribed medications and misdiagnosed by experts who failed to recognize signs of bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis as Clancy’s symptoms continued to worsen.
Neither Tufts nor Aster Mental Health have responded to requests for comment.
It’s not unusual for providers to prescribe multiple medications and dose changes to patients, as they seek to find what works best. The public will learn more about the context behind providers’ medical decisions as they’re called to the witness stand in Clancy’s trial.
At her first appointment on Sept. 15, 2022, Clancy’s Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score was 23, according to Clancy’s suit. The clinical cutoff for that scale is 13 for a normal reading; the scale’s maximum score is 30.
Tufts prescribed Zoloft, which Clancy began taking in mid-October.
After consultations with other psychiatric clinicians, Clancy returned to Tufts for follow-up outpatient care and continued seeing her in December and January 2023.
Tufts ultimately issued 12 of the 30 prescriptions Clancy received in the four months leading up to her children’s killings, including Zoloft for depression, Ativan for anxiety, Benadryl for sleep, Valium for anxiety, Buspirone for anxiety, and Amitriptyline, a strong antidepressant.
It’s unclear how many medications Clancy took at any one time.
During court testimony on Monday, jurors were shown a bag of prescription medication bottles that Patrick Clancy had turned over to police. According to the prosecution, some of the bottles had only three to seven pills missing from their original prescriptions, while at least one bottle remained completely full.
Sarah Rahal can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @SarahRahal_ or Instagram @sarah.rahal.
