Patrick Clancy Opens Up About Grief, Forgiveness and Moving Forward After His Children’s Deaths
Patrick Clancy says he once saw no future
Patrick Clancy says the deaths of his three children left him without a sense of purpose — and, for a time, without a wish to keep going.
“There was a time where I didn’t think I would live to see my 35th birthday,” Clancy, 36, told “60 Minutes” correspondent Ross Douthat in his first interview since his ex-wife’s trial ended in a hung jury. “And I was completely fine with it.”
The interview comes amid unresolved legal questions. The court has not yet determined whether Lindsay Clancy will be retried for the killings of Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months. It also arrives as Patrick Clancy and his wife, Dr. Rachel Danis, face intense public scrutiny, with online sleuths and social media users questioning his account and circulating theories about the case.
A family’s slide toward crisis
According to Patrick Clancy, the warning signs began in October 2022, five months after Callan was born. Lindsay told him she had gone several nights without sleeping.
Over the next two months, she made repeated emergency room visits. She admitted herself to a program for patients with postpartum depression but was discharged after one day of treatment. Doctors also prescribed an escalating number of medications, Patrick said.
He described feeling unequipped to help his wife navigate the medical system — or to manage a postpartum illness that seemed to keep changing shape.
“I think mental illness has this ability to be tragically deceptive,” he said.
December was the lowest point, Patrick said: “It was a big struggle for her — just a huge lack of sleep, deep, deep depression, intrusive thoughts.”
Lindsay checked herself into McLean Psychiatric Hospital on New Year’s Eve. She was treated for depression and released days later, returning home in time to celebrate Cora’s birthday on Jan. 7.
Less than three weeks later, Patrick said, he came home from an errand to find Lindsay lying in the backyard. Her throat and wrists had been cut, and she was paralyzed after jumping from an upstairs window, he said.
Inside the basement, he said, he found his children strangled. Cora and Dawson were dead. Callan was airlifted to Boston Children’s Hospital.
“I really thought there was a chance that Callan would live,” Patrick recalled. “I remember just thinking, ‘Just give me one. Just give me one kid, and I would raise him as best I could, and I would give him the best life I possibly could. I’d tell him about his brother and sister.’ And I was holding out hope for that.”
Callan’s heart kept beating for four days.
“I got to hold him. I got to lay down next to him. And he died in my arms,” Patrick said.
Forgiveness, lawsuits and a life lived with the outcome
In the days after the killings, Patrick wrote tributes to each of his children and made a public decision to forgive Lindsay.
“I saw headlines that said, you know, ‘Killer Mom,’ and ‘Baby Murderer,’ ‘Monster.’ And none of them were accurate,” he said. “I think if people said, ‘She did a horrible thing,’ I think everyone could agree with that. … But I believe that it was her mental illness that caused that.”
Lindsay never asked for forgiveness, Patrick said, but he gave it anyway. Both have brought medical malpractice lawsuits against health care providers who treated Lindsay. Some have denied wrongdoing, while others have not yet responded to the claims.
Patrick said he believes he “did the best I could with what I had at the time. And I live with the outcome. I live with it every day.”
Unable to remain in Duxbury, he moved to New York City that April, seeking anonymity.
Trial in court — and in the court of public opinion
Lindsay Clancy’s trial began in July. Her lawyers argued she was suffering from dangerous postpartum psychosis and could not be held criminally responsible for her actions.
The case became a national fixation, fueling arguments about the line between mental illness and criminal fault, about how the medical system fails mothers, and about how men and women understand one another.
Patrick testified and soon found himself at the center of an online swarm of amateur detectives and influencers dissecting every detail. Some theories portrayed him as uncaring or unfaithful; others went further, casting him as the murderer of his own children.
“It’s painful to see. And it makes it difficult to be in public and it’s possible that some of those people, after seeing lie after lie after lie, they start to believe it and that’s what we’re left with,” he said.
One catalyst for the theories, he said, was his apparent stoicism on the witness stand. Patrick said testifying was extraordinarily difficult and that he suffered a “massive, traumatic” panic attack on the second day.
“They put me in an ambulance,” he said. “They offered me some medication, but I said, ‘I don’t want it, because I want to go back and I want to finish this so I can be done with this.’ And I went back and I finished the testimony.”
The trial ended with a hung jury earlier this month.
A new chapter, with his children still present
Patrick said reaching out to survivors and experts in postpartum health has helped him move forward. In April, he remarried Dr. Rachel Danis, a fertility doctor in New York City.
Danis said the two met in January 2024 at a New York City run club and got to know each other over coffee.
“Pat pulled out his phone to pay, and I noticed this adorable photo of children as the wallpaper,” Danis said. “I just asked, ‘Who are those cuties?’ And Pat said, ‘Those are my kids.’ And then I think I asked if they live in Massachusetts, and Pat said, ‘They died.’ And this is just at the cashier.”
Danis said she has tried to “take some of the weight from Pat.”
“I can’t bring his kids back,” she said. “But if I can honor them and allow Pat to grieve but also just continue to honor them in the present, it, I guess that’s all I can do.”
The couple is starting a family, and Patrick is preparing for the day he will tell his future child about their older siblings, Cora, Dawson and Callan.
“I think every parent can agree, you have different relationships with your kids, but they’re all your kids,” he said. “And I can’t wait to tell them about their brothers and sister.”