The trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three children in January 2023, continued on Wednesday, August 5th, 2026, with testimony from a forensic toxicologist about medications found in her blood.

Justin Brower, a forensic toxicologist with NMS Laboratories, testified that his lab detected four psychiatric medications in Clancy’s blood: the antidepressants mirtazapine and trazodone, the mood stabilizer lamotrigine, and quetiapine, a drug used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. Brower noted that quetiapine can also be prescribed in low doses for insomnia.

When asked if the drug concentrations differed from prescribed levels, Brower said only quetiapine appeared slightly elevated but was not at a toxic or suicidal concentration. He added, “Usually people take handfuls of pills when they’re trying to harm themselves and take their own life, and this is not consistent with that.”

Earlier in the week, jurors heard excerpts from Clancy’s journals revealing her mental health struggles, including thoughts of suicide and feeling overwhelmed by motherhood. She described difficulties such as getting her newborn to sleep, returning to work as a labor and delivery nurse, inability to breastfeed, and feeling disconnected from her family.

In the three months before the killings, various clinicians prescribed Clancy a range of antidepressants, sleep aids, an antipsychotic, and other medications as she reported worsening insomnia, anxiety, despair, and confusion. A civil lawsuit filed against her caregivers alleges they should have recognized the risks to both Clancy and her children.

Clancy wrote in her journals, “Hearing him cry for 1 plus hours and not intervening just about killed me,” and told her husband, Patrick, “I want to die.” She also wrote, “I now have horrible insomnia and anxiety which is causing depression.”

Sources