Patrick Clancy, in his first television interview since a mistrial in his ex-wife’s murder case, said Lindsay Clancy never asked him to forgive her for killing their three children. He forgave her anyway.

“Has she ever asked for your forgiveness?” CBS correspondent Ross Douthat asked on 60 Minutes. “No. But I gave it to her,” Patrick replied. He said he did so because he believed mental illness caused the killings, and because withholding forgiveness would have “eaten [him] up inside forever.” He rejected headlines that called her a “killer mom,” “baby murderer,” or “monster.”

On Jan. 24, 2023, Lindsay Clancy, then a labor and delivery nurse, strangled Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan with exercise bands in the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home, then slashed her throat and wrists and jumped from a second-story window. She was left paralyzed. Patrick had been sent out on errands. He found Cora and Dawson dead in the basement. Callan was revived and lived four more days. Patrick said he held the baby in the hospital, told him “I’m so sorry,” and that Callan “died in my arms.”

He later asked Lindsay if she remembered what happened. She said it was “like a dream,” remembered the way someone recalls a dream after waking. Patrick described her decline beginning in fall 2022: sleepless nights, deepening depression, intrusive thoughts, repeated ER visits, and admission to a postpartum program and later McLean Psychiatric Hospital. Seventeen days after that hospitalization, the children were killed. He said he did not know how to manage postpartum illness and is “sure there are things that I didn’t see.” “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.” After the deaths he considered suicide and at one point did not think he would live to 35.

Lindsay’s defense argued she was not criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis. Prosecutors said she knew right from wrong and planned the killings. After a five-week trial, the jury split 11-1 in September 2026; one holdout refused to find her not guilty by reason of insanity, and a mistrial was declared. Prosecutors have not said whether they will retry her.

Patrick has since moved to New York City, remarried fertility doctor Rachel Danis, and said they are starting a family. He wants future children to know about Cora, Dawson, and Callan. He also criticized online conspiracy theories that blamed him for the deaths, calling them a distraction from perinatal mental health and harmful to his children’s legacy.

Sources

• New York Post, Zoe Hussain, Sept. 20, 2026
• CBS 60 Minutes interview with Ross Douthat
• NBC News, CNN, The New York Times, BBC, USA Today, Boston Globe, People, Rolling Stone