Ex-husband forgives mother in children's deaths case, cites mental illness

Patrick Clancy sat down with CBS News to speak about something most people would find impossible to articulate: forgiving the person who killed his three children. On January 24, 2023, in their Duxbury, Massachusetts home, his then-wife Lindsay Clancy strangled their children—Cora, five years old; Dawson, three; and Callan, eight months. After the killings, Lindsay jumped from a second-floor window and survived, though the fall left her paralyzed. She has never disputed that she killed them.

The case went to trial this year, but the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on whether she was guilty of murder. A judge declared a mistrial earlier in September, leaving the legal question unresolved. Prosecutors have not yet said whether they will pursue a retrial. What remains clear is that Patrick Clancy has chosen a path that defies the public narrative that consumed the case: he has forgiven her, and he attributes what happened to severe mental illness, not malice.

"I would have been eaten up inside forever" had he not reached that place of forgiveness, he told CBS. Lindsay's legal team argued throughout the trial that she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, a rare condition in which women in the postpartum period can experience mania, depression, or a combination of both. Patrick testified about his ex-wife's deteriorating mental health in the months after she gave birth. "I didn't know how to manage a postpartum illness," he said in the interview. "I think mental illness has this ability to be tragically deceptive."

The headlines that circulated during and after the trial—"Killer Mom," "Baby Murderer," "Monster"—struck him as fundamentally inaccurate. "I believe that it was her mental illness that caused that," he said. "So I shared those words. And I think when it comes to forgiveness, I also felt that if I didn't get there, I would be eaten up inside forever." When asked whether he felt he had failed in some way during the period leading up to the killings, he was direct: "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."

The grief that followed was nearly unbearable. In the weeks after the tragedy, Patrick struggled with suicidal thoughts. "I didn't think I would live to see my 35th birthday," he said. "And I was completely fine with it." The seven-week trial brought him into the public eye in ways he had not anticipated. Online, he became a target of speculation and accusation—some people claimed he bore responsibility for the murders, others suggested he was complicit in a cover-up. Tabloids photographed him traveling and with his new wife, Rachel Danis, fueling further conjecture.

The scrutiny was, he said, "deeply harmful to the legacy of my children. It is a huge distraction from what really matters here, which is perinatal mental health." The intensity of the attention made it difficult for him to exist in public. He eventually moved from Duxbury to New York City in search of anonymity. Now he is building a new family with Danis and thinking about the future. He wants to tell his future children about their siblings. "I think every parent can agree, 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."

The case itself remains in legal limbo. A hearing is scheduled for September 29 at Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts. What happens next—whether prosecutors will seek a new trial, whether the legal system will find a way to resolve the question of guilt—remains unknown. What is known is that Patrick Clancy has chosen to speak publicly about forgiveness, about the deceptiveness of mental illness, and about the cost of grief. He has chosen to protect the memory of his children from the distortions of public judgment.