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 the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has added to its running tally of violent crimes involving people taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs.
CCHR, a mental health industry watchdog, says the Las Vegas case stands out because it is the only one of the five this year in which toxicology results were published. The group is calling on legislators to require toxicology screening for psychiatric drugs in all evidence homicides, attempted homicides, murder-suicides, and mass acts of senseless violence. “There is a blackout on the evidence that could show whether the drugs were present and how they could influence the suspect’s behavior,” said Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International.
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 she walked her dog; a Louisiana veteran who shot eight children, seven of them his own; a California Navy veteran who allegedly beat an Army veteran to death; and a California man diagnosed with schizophrenia who stabbed an actor to death. In each case, family members or authorities reported psychiatric drug use or withdrawal, but no toxicology results have been made public.
Since 2004, CCHR has identified 57 drug-regulatory warnings and labeling updates linking some psychiatric drugs to violence, aggression, or hostility, with 13 citing homicidal ideation. The group’s report, Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence and Suicide, now documents 150 violent incidents involving psychiatric drugs, up from 145. 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, though sealed records and sparse toxicology mean that figure is likely incomplete.
CCHR is urging lawmakers to sponsor bills modeled on Tennessee Public Chapter 897, effective July 1, 2026, which 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. The group wants the mandate to be broader and more public, arguing that “the weapon or the body count should not decide whether this evidence is collected.”
The Las Vegas case is a rare instance in which a coroner published a full psychotropic panel on both mother and child. CCHR points to other cases, including a 2023 Duxbury, Massachusetts, tragedy in which a mother strangled her three children after being prescribed about 13 psychiatric drugs, and a 2001 Houston case in which a mother drowned her five children while on antidepressants and an antipsychotic. The group also cites Kevin P. Miller’s 2017 documentary Letters From Generation RX, which includes an account of a mother on prescription psychotropics who drove her children into a river.
CCHR further documents the issue in its documentary, Prescription for Violence. 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. It is now calling on every state legislature to require psychiatric-drug toxicology and public, de-identified reporting 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.
