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. The case is one of five violent incidents in 2026 that Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has compiled involving people taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs. In these five cases, 12 people were killed, including nine children, and two suspects died. Two suspects were U.S. military veterans, and two were parents who killed their own children. Only the Las Vegas case has published toxicology results.
CCHR is calling for toxicology screening 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. Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, stated, "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, include a Florida man who stabbed a woman more than 50 times while on psychotropic drugs and may have stopped taking them; a Louisiana veteran who shot eight children and wounded two adults before being killed; a California Navy veteran who allegedly beat an Army veteran to death while medicated; and a California man with schizophrenia who stabbed an actor after possibly stopping his medication. None of these cases have 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 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 added.
CCHR is also concerned that in cases where 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 Las Vegas case is a rare instance in which a coroner published a full psychotropic panel on both mother and child. Another case is the January 24, 2023, Duxbury, Massachusetts, tragedy in which a mother strangled her three children and jumped from a window; her lawyer argued overmedication and drug-induced homicidal and suicidal ideation. A June 20, 2001, Houston case involved a mother who drowned her five children after being prescribed antidepressants and an antipsychotic; a science consultant wrote that the combination contributed to involuntary intoxication and led to murder.
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's law provides a starting point for mass attacks, but CCHR argues it does not go far enough, as the five cases of 2026 and the mother cases with no published labs demonstrate. The organization, co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz, has helped enact hundreds of laws protecting patients from abuse and forced treatment.
