The ex-husband of Lindsay Clancy gave his first televised interview to “60 Minutes” on CBS News on Sunday after a jury deadlocked in her trial for killing their three young children.
Patrick Clancy talked about the grief of losing his children and addressed social media conspiracy theories surrounding the case, which have included unfounded claims he was connected to the death of his children. His new wife, Dr. Rachel Danis, also joined him in the interview.
He also confirmed that he and Danis are starting a family, without offering further details.
“I think every parent can agree you have different relationships with your kids, but they’re all your kids. I can’t wait to tell them about their brothers and sister,” he said.
Patrick said he first started to notice that something wasn’t right with Lindsay in October of 2022, when she went a few nights without sleeping.
“She came downstairs one morning and said, ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night,’ so I said, ‘That’s awful, I’ll take the kids to school. You just focus on getting caught up on sleep.'”
He said he didn’t know anything at the time about postpartum depression.
“I could piece together what it was like to be really anxious or depressed, but I didn’t know how to manage a postpartum illness,” he said. “I think mental illness has this ability to be tragically deceptive, so I’m sure there were things I didn’t see.”
Patrick said he struggled to help Lindsay navigate the medical system.
“I think December, December 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.”
Lindsay returned home on Jan. 7, 2023, for their daughter Cora’s birthday. Seventeen days later, she strangled her three children. Cora and Dawson, the two oldest, died that night, but the youngest, 8-month-old Callan, lived for four more days.
“So I didn’t have all the details of Callan’s condition. I just knew they got a heartbeat back, so I remember that night I really thought there was a chance that Callan would live, and I remember thinking, ‘Just give me one, give me one kid,’ and I would raise him as best I could, give him the best life I possibly could, and I would tell him about his brother and sister,” Patrick said. “I was holding out hope for that, and when I got to the hospital and saw the doctor, I saw the look on her face and knew it wasn’t going to be a good prognosis.”
“I’m so grateful for those four days I had with him. I said, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and I got to hold him, I got to lay down next to him, and he died in my arms.”
Patrick also spoke about why he ultimately chose to forgive Lindsay.
More on the Lindsay Clancy case
“I saw headlines that said, ‘Killer Mom’, ‘Baby Murderer’, and ‘Monster’, and none of them were accurate. I believe it was her mental illness that caused that,” he said. “When it comes to forgiveness, I felt that if I didn’t get there, I would be eaten up inside forever.”
Patrick said he asked Lindsay if she remembered what she did, and she told him, “it was like a dream.”
Asked if he feels like he failed, Patrick said, “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.”
He also revealed that he had suicidal thoughts himself.
“There was a day I didn’t think I’d live to see my 35th birthday, and I was completely fine with it.”
He said he dreams about his children “all the time,” recounting one dream about six months or a year after they died where Cora walked in and he said ‘Where have you been?’ and she came up to him and gave him a big hug.
“Those dreams are so real. It’s like I’m lucid in those dreams.”
As for the online rumors that circulated about Patrick during the trial, he said they were “deeply harmful” to his children’s legacy.
“It is a huge distraction from what really matters here, which is perinatal health, and it’s done real harm to people, myself included. 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.”
Danis also joined the interview briefly, recounting how she met Patrick at a run club, and the two were married in New York City in April of 2026.
“I always try to take some of the weight from Pat,” she said. “I can’t bring his kids back, but if I can honor them and allow Pat to grieve, but also continue to honor them in the present, I guess that’s all I can do.”..
If you or someone you know is struggling or in emotional distress, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.
Earlier this month, 11 of 12 jurors were ready to clear Lindsay Clancy of criminal responsibility, with the majority feeling that the Massachusetts mom was in the grip of a rare condition called postpartum psychosis when she strangled her kids in 2023. But a lone juror sided with the prosecutors, who had argued that Clancy knew what she was doing. The deadlock forced a judge to declare a mistrial on Sept. 4.
During the trial, neither side disputed that Clancy strangled her children, Cora, Dawson and Callan, in the family’s home before trying to end her own life. But her attorney said she was a loving mother experiencing deep delusions and other mental health problems, for which she had been getting treatment.
The Plymouth County district attorney has yet to say whether he’ll seek to put Clancy on trial again.
