Patrick Clancy, the father of three children killed in his family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts home, has spoken publicly for the first time about their deaths, his decision to forgive his ex-wife Lindsay, and the online harassment that followed her mistrial.
In an interview with correspondent Ross Douthat on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Clancy described the final days of his youngest child, Callan, and the deaths of his older children, 5-year-old Cora and 3-year-old Dawson. The interview aired after a Plymouth County jury deadlocked in Lindsay Clancy’s triple-murder trial, resulting in a mistrial declared by Judge William Sullivan on Sept. 4. Jurors split 11-1, with the majority favoring a finding that she was not criminally responsible due to postpartum psychosis and one juror holding out for conviction. Prosecutors have not said whether they will retry the case.
Clancy told Douthat that after Cora and Dawson were found dead, doctors managed to restore Callan’s heartbeat, giving him hope his youngest son might survive.
“I remember that night, I really thought there was a chance that Callan would live,” Clancy said. “And 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. And I’d tell him about his brother and sister.”
Clancy said that hope collapsed when he arrived at Boston Children’s Hospital and saw a doctor’s expression. Callan’s heart kept beating for four more days. Clancy recalled apologizing to his son and lying beside him at the end.
“I said, ‘I’m so sorry,'” he told Douthat. “And I got to hold him. I got to lay down next to him. And he died in my arms.”
While Callan was hospitalized, Clancy said he held his son’s hand and wrote about all three children, worried their memories would fade otherwise. Those writings included forgiveness for Lindsay, though he said she has never asked him for it.
“I saw headlines that said, you know, ‘killer mom’ and ‘baby murderer,’ ‘monster,’ and none of them were accurate,” Clancy said. “I believe that it was her mental illness that caused that.”
He said he feared what withholding forgiveness would do to him. “I felt that if I didn’t get there, I would be eaten up inside,” he said. When he asked Lindsay whether she remembered killing their children, he said she described it as dreamlike. “She said it was like a dream, and she remembered it much in the way you would remember a dream after waking up,” he told Douthat.
Clancy said he has struggled with how much he could have done as her condition worsened. “I think I did the best I could with what I had at the time, and I live with the outcome,” he said. “I live with it every day.” He said his grief grew so severe that he once doubted he would reach his 35th birthday, and “was completely fine with it.”
A move to New York
Clancy eventually left Duxbury for New York City, seeking anonymity in his grief. Five weeks after relocating, on what would have been Callan’s first birthday, he visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral, lit a candle and told his son, “I love you, buddy.”
“And I walk out on Fifth Avenue and I start crying my eyes out, and nobody cared,” Clancy recalled. “I thought, this is where I need to be. I can grieve.”
His Manhattan apartment still holds reminders of his children, including a stuffed sloth Cora carried everywhere and a photograph of Callan wearing an oversized bow tie. Clancy said the children also appear to him in vivid dreams, including one in which Cora walked into the kitchen of their former Duxbury home and hugged him. “I just looked at her and it was like I basically just said, ‘Where have you been?'” he said. “Those dreams are so real.”
Online attacks after the mistrial
Douthat described a wave of online speculation and “trial by TikTok” following the mistrial, with commentators and influencers spreading unfounded claims portraying Clancy as uncaring, unfaithful or somehow responsible for his children’s deaths.
“It’s deeply harmful to the legacy of my children,” Clancy said. “It is a huge distraction from what really matters here, which is perinatal mental health, and it’s done real harm to real people.”
He said repeated false claims risk becoming accepted as fact. “After seeing lie after lie after lie, they start to believe it,” Clancy said. “And that’s what we’re left with.” He said he has turned to Postpartum Support International and psychiatrists to help process what happened.
A new marriage
Clancy’s wife, Dr. Rachel Danis, joined him for the interview. She recalled learning about his children after spotting their photo on his phone during a coffee outing. “I just asked, ‘Who are those cuties?'” Danis told Douthat. “And Pat had said, ‘Those are my kids.'” When she asked if they lived in Massachusetts, Clancy told her they had died.
The couple met through a New York running club in January 2024 and married in New York City this past April. They have discussed starting a family, and Clancy said any future children would be part of the same family as Cora, Dawson and Callan. “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.”
