Lindsay Clancy case: was it evil, or severe mental illness?

Brief summary of some of her medication and reactions:

Zoloft, sertraline is an SSRI which can trigger manic episodes, was the first. She didn’t sleep for 48 hours on it experienced racing thoughts and increased anxiety. Nonetheless the dose was increased from 25mg to 50mg.

She was then given a cocktail of medications for insomnia and heart palpitations.

She was later given Prozac - another SSRI ie in the same class ie one that can trigger mania in bipolar. Given her poor reaction to Zoloft this was a strange choice.

LC then reported intensifying insomnia which should have been a red flag for drug intolerance or bipolar

She was given more sleep and anti anxiety medication.

She then experienced disassociation perceiving the world around her as “unstable”, “distorted” and “distant”. She reported feeling “disconnected” from her own body, unable to drive unable to be left alone.

This should’ve flagged a reassessment of the whole diagnosis and drug treatment.

At this point, she sees, not a psychiatrist, but another nurse practitioner who gave her Seroquel a bipolar med.

Her condition then took a dramatic turn for the worse – she experienced suicidal ideation, began experiencing what she described as “intrusive thoughts “ the voices said “I will not be the same I want to die”

She described herself to her husband and parents as feeling “emotionless “and “like a zombie”.

She lost 15 lbs, had no appetite and experienced panic attacks and confusion and experience a lack of attention over the days.

She was so scared by this she called the suicide hotline but they failed to hospitalise her as she didn’t have a particular suicide plan.

Rang another hotline but again they didn’t because she didn’t have a plan.

Her husband then followed up with her nurse practitioner. He said LC was now “10,000 times worse since she started this medication“. He asked if they could get LC off the medication and start from scratch.

But instead of stopping the medication, the nurse increased the dose.

PC then contacted the nurse again to say LC had had her worst week yet - he said she had had loud repeated auditory hallucinations all day, couldn’t get out of bed.

She later reported to PC snd her mother that she had thoughts of killing herself and harming the kids. She had delusions that people could hear her thoughts, that she would be locked up and have her children taken away.

She was then hospitalised and the Seroquel was stopped.

But she was then given another AD Amitriptyline and the dose increased the day before the killings.

On the day itself she reported waking up with suicidal thoughts, had suicidal hallucinations all day which later in the day begins to focus on harming the children.

How did you expect women to react?

I don’t personally indulge misogynist telescopic philanthropy which focuses in the children to the exclusion of LC. She experienced the most appalling suffering. And did basically die of her injuries, it’s just that the hospital managed to revive her.

This case is being heard to determine whether she ends up in prison or psychiatric hospital. And clearly I favour the latter. She has a full life sentence anyway.

I am aware that SSRIs are contraindicated for bipolar without a concurrent mood stabiliser. Or that is what I know from the past, perhaps thinking has changed.

But as she was prescribed Zoloft in September 2022, and took it for one week and then discontinued it, I very much doubt it would cause a problem 4 months down the line.

She was prescribed a very low dose of Prozac in November and had apparently taken it prior with a good response. It seems she didn't continue to take it.

In December she was re-prescribed Prozac along with a mood stabiliser (Lamactil), which is precisely what is recommended to avert any triggering of a tendency to bipolar. But again, I am not up on current thinking around this.

None of the drugs she was using after this would be likely to trigger bipolar or be contraindicated for bipolar, from what I can see.

Not that I’d put it like that, but LC did go into cardiac arrest and the doctors managed to resuscitate her.

How did you expect women to react?

I don’t personally indulge misogynist telescopic philanthropy which focuses in the children to the exclusion of LC. She experienced the most appalling suffering. And did basically die of her injuries, it’s just that the hospital managed to revive her.

This case is being heard to determine whether she ends up in prison or psychiatric hospital. And clearly I favour the latter. She has a full life sentence anyway.

Honestly I wouldn’t bother trying to put any evidence to mulberry as they aren’t interested in listening to the facts. Any one of us that watched the trial knows that LC had a bad reaction to the meds and, when she voiced this, the doctors put her dose up rather than down. It’s shocking malpractice and they’ve not denied doing it.

It’s not the view that’s the problem, it’s the posting things that aren’t true and not listening to counterarguments when they are backed up with evidence and instead saying ‘it’s just semantics’. No, it’s evidence that has been used in a court of law. It isn’t up for debate whether the meds negatively impacted on LC, it’s in her medical records what she reported and what the doctors did in response to it. e.g. LC told doctors that certain medications were making her worse (she also documented the affects of each medication in her journal) and, instead of listening to her, they increased the dosage. That’s been proven.

That’s pure speculation. She needed a breathing tube. She went into cardiac arrest. She asked for a DNR prior to going into cardiac arrest and the doctors refused to grant her one. If they had, she’d be dead. I do believe she fully intended to kill herself and the medical reports show that her spine literally exploded in places.

Doesn’t make it not true either. Either way I think her receiving death threats for it is a bit extreme, don’t you?

You’ve been given the list of meds from her toxicology report.

Would you answer my question? What does evidence of psychosis look like for you?

And how can a totally sane cold blooded murderer also be actively suicidal at the same time?

she has no injuries from her bodies auto response to jumping out of a window. She didn’t put her arms out to protect herself. How is someone able to override those natural human instincts?

Her clinical history. The contents of her diary. The conversations she had with her family. The witness statements confirming she was deteriorating quickly and begging for help. The evidenced lack of appropriate clinical care.

thats enough for reasonable doubt over whether she could have been having a psychotic episode with auditory hallucinations.

In addition to that,
the fact she was then diagnosed with Bi Polar. Knowing the impact of the medications she was given on someone who is BPD and not treated. And having direct experience of someone living in and out of psychotic episodes.

what evidence would you need to be presented that would ‘affirm’ for you that she was suffering psychosis at the time? What does that evidence look like?

I think you may be mixing up @mulberrymilk and me. I will reply to you about evidence for psychosis question shortly.

And how can a totally sane cold blooded murderer also be actively suicidal at the same time?

This is a very, very strange question. Many murderers, including for example school mass shooters and family annihilators, are sane cold blooded murderers AND actively suicidal at the same time. It is a not uncommon pattern amongst murderers.

Her clinical history and diary are evidence that she was mentally unwell, not that she was in psychosis. I don’t think anyone is disputing that she was mentally unwell. I’m certainly not. No-one who saw her clinically before the murders diagnosed her with psychosis or any psychotic symptoms. The conversations with her family again do not show psychosis. You can be unwell and deteriorating and asking for help without being psychotic and completely out of control of your own actions. The lack of appropriate care again is not evidence of psychosis.

What evidence would affirm for me that she was in psychosis? Evidence of behaviour other than murdering her children which it would be difficult to explain without psychosis. Evidence of this type of behaviour at any time before she murdered her children. Evidence that LC had reported psychotic symptoms to clinicians before she murdered her children.