Los Angeles, CA, Sept. 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A Clark County, Nevada coroner’s toxicology report released in September found multiple psychiatric and other drugs in the system of a 34-year-old mother who allegedly shot and killed her 11-year-old daughter on February 15, 2026, at a Las Vegas hotel following a cheer competition.[1]i Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) said that such published toxicology screening is needed in all evidence homicides, attempted homicides, murder-suicides and mass acts of senseless violence so investigators can determine whether mind-altering psychiatric drugs were present. Such testing is seldom done.
Without systematic toxicology and psychotropic drug history data, policymakers cannot measure how often these drugs were present or spot patterns that warrant study.
The watchdog already compiled 145 violent crimes involving people taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs. In the additional five cases this year, 12 people were killed, including nine children. Two suspects also died. Two suspects were U.S. military veterans. Two were parents who killed their own children. Only Las Vegas published toxicology results.
Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, says. “There is a blackout on the evidence that could show whether the drugs were present and how they could influence the suspect’s behavior.” Since 2004, CCHR has identified 57 drug-regulatory warnings and labeling updates linking some psychiatric drugs to violence, aggression, or hostility; 13 cite homicidal ideation or thoughts of harming others.
The other four cases, based on published law-enforcement, family, and court accounts, are:
- Florida, April 2: A 25-year-old man stabbed a 73-year-old woman more than 50 times while she walked her dog, killing her. The sheriff said he was on psychotropic drugs and had been involuntarily committed in 2025. His mother said he may have stopped the medication, raising withdrawal questions if accurate.
- Louisiana, April 19: A 31-year-old veteran shot eight children ages 3–11 (seven his own) and wounded two adults, including his wife, then was killed by responders. Family reported mental-health struggles treated with “medication” and counseling at a VA hospital.
- California, May 20: A 32-year-old Navy veteran allegedly beat an Army veteran to death outside the victim’s home. A family friend said the suspect was medicated. A 2025 custody filing by his estranged wife and local reporting cited PTSD and mental-health incidents. A trial is pending.
- California, June 3: A 44-year-old man stabbed an actor to death. Diagnosed with schizophrenia in July 2025 and prescribed psychiatric drugs, his mother believed he had stopped them about a week before, indicating possible withdrawal; found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
The four cases have no published toxicology. That gap is why CCHR is urging legislators to sponsor bills modeled on Tennessee Public Chapter 897 (SB 2088/HB 2013), effective July 1, 2026. The law requires toxicology screening for psychiatric drugs, including at therapeutic levels, when a deceased person is suspected in a mass attack in which the perpetrator tried to kill four or more people. With consent, it also allows tests on a living suspect in specified circumstances. De-identified, HIPAA-compliant results go to a health science center for analysis and recommendations to government.
CCHR wants the mandate to be broader and more public. “The weapon or the body count should not decide whether this evidence is collected,” Eastgate said.
CCHR is also concerned that in a series of cases in which mothers killed or tried to kill their children after documented mental-health struggles, authorities have not reported toxicology testing—or have not released results.
The recent Las Vegas case is a rare instance in which a coroner published a full psychotropic panel on both mother and child. Another case is a January 24, 2023, Duxbury, Massachusetts, tragedy in which a 32-year-old mother just discharged from a psychiatric stay, strangled her three children, ages 5, 3, and 8 months, then jumped from a window. The infant died days later. Her lawyer said she had been prescribed about 13 psychiatric drugs in prior months for postpartum mood disorder and related conditions, and argued overmedication and drug-induced homicidal and suicidal ideation. That case put potential polypharmacy risks on the public record.
A third historical file is a June 20, 2001, Houston case in which a 37-year-old mother drowned her five children. She had psychiatric hospitalizations, was prescribed antidepressants and an antipsychotic. A science consultant wrote that a combination of the drugs contributed to involuntary intoxication, that an “overdose” of one antidepressant and “sudden high doses” of another “worsened her behavior,” and that this “led to murder.”
Kevin P. Miller’s 2017 documentary Letters From Generation RX includes a daughter’s account of her mother, in a “robotic” state while taking prescription psychotropics, loading six children into a vehicle to drive into a river and saying it was “time for all of us to die.” The children survived. The film places the episode in its account of SSRI antidepressants.
The five 2026 cases update CCHR International’s running count from the 145 incidents in its report Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence and Suicide to 150. That report compiles violent acts by people reported to be taking psychiatric drugs or withdrawing from them. The Violence Prevention Project’s U.S. Mass Shooter Database separately found that 24% of mass shooters in its set had been taking psychiatric drugs. Sealed records and sparse toxicology mean that figure is incomplete. CCHR further documents this issue in its documentary, Prescription for Violence.
CCHR is calling on every state legislature to require psychiatric-drug toxicology—and public, de-identified reporting of results—whenever a suspect in a homicide, attempted homicide, or murder-suicide has a known psychiatric history, a current or recent prescription, or an involuntary hold. Tennessee wrote a starting rule for mass attacks. The five cases of 2026 and the mother cases with no published labs show why that rule does not go far enough.
CCHR International is a mental health industry watchdog co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz. It has helped enact hundreds of laws protecting patients from abuse and forced treatment, including a 2004 federal law prohibiting schools from forcing children to take psychotropic drugs as a requisite for their education.
Sources:
[1] Toxicology Results Revealed for Utah ‘Dance Mom’ and Daughter, 11, Who Died in Murder-Suicide,” NBC 8 News, 16 Sept. 2026
About Citizens Commission on Human Rights International
Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is an international mental health industry watchdog, established by the Church of Scientology, which has helped enact more than 190 worldwide reforms that protect the public from abuse.
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