What Patrick Clancy Said at Lindsay Clancy’s Murder Trial

In January 2023, Patrick Clancy left his Duxbury, Mass., home to pick up medicine and dinner for his family. Less than an hour later, he returned to find his wife, Lindsay, seriously injured outside following an apparent suicide attempt. Inside, he discovered their three young children—Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan—unresponsive in the basement. All eventually died.

Lindsay survived and was charged with killing all three children, beginning a criminal case that would focus heavily on her mental health and psychiatric treatment in the months before their deaths.

In the years that followed, Patrick became an important figure in the case, providing one of the fullest accounts of Lindsay’s deteriorating mental health and the couple’s efforts to find help before the killings. At the same time, he was left trying to understand what had happened to the wife he had known for nearly a decade and the family they had built together.

Patrick grew up in Scituate, Mass., with two sisters and attended Boston College High School. He later attended Washington College in Maryland before transferring to Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I., where he studied business and competed on the sailing team. After college, he built a career in technology sales, eventually working for Microsoft.

Patrick met Lindsay in 2013 through one of his cousins, who had been Lindsay’s college roommate. The two began dating that summer and married in December 2016. Their daughter, Cora, was born the following year, followed by Dawson in 2019 and Callan in 2022. By then, the family had settled in Duxbury, where Lindsay worked as a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital and Patrick worked largely from home in technology sales.

Patrick later described their family life after Callan’s birth as “great.” They spent the summer going to the beach, boating and visiting friends, and he testified that Lindsay appeared to be doing well. But as her return to work approached that fall, Patrick began to notice a change.

Lindsay had experienced anxiety about returning to work after her previous maternity leaves, but this time her struggles became more serious. By October 2022, she was having significant trouble sleeping. Over the following months, the couple sought help from doctors, emergency rooms and psychiatric programs as Lindsay struggled with worsening anxiety and depression.

By December, Patrick described Lindsay as severely sleep-deprived and highly anxious. She had been prescribed multiple psychiatric medications, and Patrick helped keep track of what she was taking. She also disclosed suicidal thoughts and, at one point, thoughts about harming the children.

On New Year’s Eve, Lindsay admitted herself to McLean Hospital, where she remained for several days before being discharged in early January 2023. Patrick understood his wife was seriously struggling but later said he knew little about postpartum mental illness and relied on the professionals treating her. In the weeks after she returned home, he believed she was improving.

That morning, Lindsay took Cora to a doctor’s appointment and spent time with the children; Patrick remembered it as one of her better days. That evening, Lindsay asked Patrick to pick up children’s medicine and takeout. When he returned, he found the house unusually quiet before discovering Lindsay badly injured outside beneath an upstairs window. She told him she had tried to kill herself and, when Patrick asked where the children were, said they were in the basement.

Patrick found Cora, Dawson and Callan there and attempted to resuscitate them as first responders arrived. Cora and Dawson died that night. Callan was airlifted to Boston Children’s Hospital but died four days later. Lindsay survived, though she remains permanently paralyzed from the waist down due to her injuries. She was eventually indicted on three counts each of murder and strangulation.

Days later, Patrick released a public statement remembering each of his children and asking people to forgive Lindsay “as I have.” He described the woman he knew as “generously loving and caring towards everyone” and said her love for their children had been as deep as his own.

Patrick has said he believes severe mental illness changed the woman he knew. After the deaths, he began contacting psychiatrists and postpartum experts, trying to understand how Lindsay’s condition could have progressed so dramatically.

He also began questioning the medical care she had received. In January 2026, Patrick filed a wrongful death lawsuit on his own behalf and as representative of his children’s estates against several of Lindsay’s medical providers. The complaint alleges that providers failed to adequately recognize and treat her deteriorating condition. Those allegations have not been proven in court.

His position toward Lindsay has so far remained largely unchanged. In a 2026 interview with 60 Minutes, he said Lindsay had never asked him for forgiveness; forgiving her was a choice he made himself.

When Lindsay went on trial in July 2026, her attorneys acknowledged that she killed the children but argued that postpartum psychosis left her not criminally responsible. Under Massachusetts law, prosecutors had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she was criminally responsible at the time of the killings. They maintained that Lindsay understood what she was doing and had deliberately sent Patrick out so she could be alone with the children.

Patrick became a key witness, testifying over two days about their marriage, Lindsay’s mental health decline, her treatment and the events of January 24. Patrick later said he suffered a severe panic attack shortly before jurors heard his 911 call but returned to court and finished his testimony.

After seven days of deliberations, jurors remained deadlocked, and a judge declared a mistrial on September 4, 2026. Eleven jurors favored finding Lindsay not criminally responsible, while one disagreed.

Soon afterward, her attorney filed a motion alleging that prosecutors hadn’t presented enough evidence to prove she was responsible for the murders, and requested that she be declared not guilty. On October 1, a judge denied the motion, stating that prosecution had shown it had enough evidence to proceed with the initial trial. Prosecutors have not announced whether they will retry her.

Patrick moved to New York City in April 2023, a few months after his children’s deaths. He later said he wanted to be somewhere he could grieve without being recognized. He and Lindsay subsequently divorced, although Patrick has continued to express support for her and his belief that severe mental illness was responsible for what happened.

In January 2024, Patrick met Dr. Rachel Danis through a New York City running club. They initially became friends, later began dating and married in April 2026. They now live in Manhattan and have said they hope to have children together. Patrick has said that any future children will grow up knowing about Cora, Dawson and Callan as their siblings.

Patrick has also spent the years since the deaths trying to better understand what happened to Lindsay. He has spoken with psychiatrists and postpartum specialists and has become more willing to discuss publicly what his family experienced and the limits of what he understood about Lindsay’s illness at the time.

Looking back, Patrick has resisted the idea that there was something obvious he should have recognized or done differently. “I think I did the best I could with what I had at the time,” he told 60 Minutes. “And I live with the outcome. I live with it every day.”