Patrick Clancy sat for his first public interview about the January 2023 killings of his three children by their mother, Lindsay Clancy, and what she told him afterward may be the most disturbing detail of all.
When Patrick asked his then-wife whether she remembered strangling five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan in their Duxbury, Massachusetts home, Lindsay did not deny it. She did not break down. She told him the killings felt "like a dream", the way someone might recall fragments after waking up.
Patrick shared that detail on CBS in an interview that aired Sunday night, his first time speaking publicly about the night he lost everything and the long aftermath that nearly cost him his own life.
Patrick testified at Lindsay's trial that she had asked him to go pick up a takeout order and medicine for Cora on the evening of the killings. He left. When he returned, he found Lindsay lying in the backyard. The children were in the basement. Cora and Dawson were already dead.
Callan, eight months old, was still alive. Patrick rushed him to the hospital.
Patrick told CBS interviewer Ross Douthat that he believed his youngest son had a chance:
"I really thought there was a chance that Callan would live."
But the moment he arrived at the hospital, he saw the doctor's face and knew the prognosis was grim. Callan's heart kept beating for four more days. Patrick stayed with him.
"Callan's heart kept beating for four days. I'm so grateful for those four days that I had with him. And I'm so grateful he hung on."
During those four days, Patrick recalled bargaining with himself, pleading internally for just one child to survive:
"Just gimme one. Just gimme 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."
Callan died in his father's arms.
Patrick described the month before the killings as Lindsay's lowest point. When Callan was about five months old, she came downstairs one morning and told Patrick she had not slept at all.
"She came downstairs one morning, and she said, 'I didn't sleep at all last night.' And so I said, you know, 'That's awful.' And, 'I'll take the kids to school. You just focus on getting caught up on sleep.'"
It got worse. Patrick said December brought a severe lack of sleep, deep depression, and intrusive thoughts. Lindsay went to the hospital at the end of that month and checked herself into an inpatient program at McLean Hospital in Boston by New Year's Day.
"December was, it was a big struggle for her, just a huge lack of sleep, deep, deep depression, intrusive thoughts, and, at the end of that month she went to the hospital."
Weeks later, she killed all three children.
Lindsay Clancy pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, citing severe postpartum depression and psychosis. She has never denied killing the children.
Patrick took the stand at Lindsay's trial. He knew the worst moment was coming, the 911 call. The public was barred from hearing it, but everyone inside the courtroom, including Patrick, had to listen.
"We did take a break right before they played the 911 call, which I knew was gonna be just horrific."
He left the courtroom and collapsed into a massive panic attack. Paramedics arrived. They put him in an ambulance and offered medication. He refused it.
"I, I don't want it, because I want to go back and I want to finish this so I can be done with this."
He went back in and finished testifying.
Patrick told Douthat that the aftermath pushed him to the edge. He did not expect to survive it.
"There was a time where I didn't think I would live to see my 35th birthday, and I was completely fine with it."
When Douthat asked whether Patrick felt he had failed his family during Lindsay's decline, Patrick answered plainly:
"I think I did the best I could with what I had at the time. And I live with the outcome. I live with it every day."
Patrick has since remarried. He and Dr. Rachel Danis wed in April in New York City, where they now live. She joined him toward the end of the interview. Patrick said they are starting a family.
"I think every parent can agree, you have different relationships with your kids, but they're all your kids. And I can't wait to tell them about their brothers and sister."
Three children are gone. Their father refused to follow them. That he can sit in front of a camera and talk about telling future kids about the siblings they will never meet is not closure. It is survival, bare, stubborn, and earned one day at a time.
