Patrick Clancy said he had a “massive, traumatic panic attack” after testifying this summer in his ex-wife’s murder trial for killing their three children.
In an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Clancy, 38, said his heart “was pounding” after testifying about what happened on the night of the killings.
“They put me in an ambulance,” he said. “They offered me some medication, but I said, ‘I don’t want it, ‘cause I want to go back and I want to finish this so I can be done with this.’ And I went back, and I finished the testimony.”
The conversation marked Clancy’s first televised interview since the mistrial was declared earlier this month in the triple murder trial of his ex-wife, 36-year-old Lindsay Clancy, who has consistently admitted to killing her three children with exercise bands on Jan. 24, 2023. The case dominated national headlines, sparking conversations about maternal mental health and eventually becoming wrapped up in the political culture wars, with even President Donald Trump weighing in.
Patrick Clancy testified in the trial, which began in late July, over the course of two days. The panic attack, he said, occurred on the second day, when those in the courtroom heard the anguished 911 call he made upon returning to his Duxbury, Massachusetts, home and finding his ex-wife on the snowy ground following a suicide attempt, and his children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — strangled in the basement. Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, has argued she was experiencing postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings and should be found guilty by reason of insanity.
The judge presiding over the trial in Plymouth Superior Court impounded the 911 call to prevent its public release, and Patrick Clancy left the courtroom while it was played — the point at which he had the panic attack, he said. He told “60 Minutes” correspondent Ross Douthat that he knew the playing of the 911 call in court was “gonna be just horrific.”
Conspiracy theorists have argued that Patrick Clancy was somehow responsible for the death of his children despite his ex-wife’s detailed admissions to experts for the prosecution and in a civil lawsuit she field against several medical providers that she carried out the killings. Patrick Clancy was never charged or considered a suspect in the deaths.
He called the conspiracy theories “deeply harmful to the legacy of my children” and “a huge distraction from what really matters here, which is perinatal mental health.”
“It’s done real harm to real people,” he added, “myself included, but also others.”
The segment, which lasted just under 15 minutes, shed new light on how Patrick Clancy coped with, and tried to move forward after, losing his children. Immediately afterward, he said, he felt suicidal ideation.
“There was a time where I didn’t think I would live to see my 35th birthday,” he told Douthat. “And I was completely fine with it.”
Reaching out to experts in perinatal mental health to try to understand his ex-wife’s deterioration, he said, helped him move forward.
“I think mental illness has this ability to be tragically deceptive. So I’m sure there are things that I didn’t see,” he said.
Later, in the interview, when he recounted reaching out to the organization Postpartum Support International, he said he asked them, “‘What do you think happened?’ And we had some pretty deep conversations.”
He also told Douthat he dreams about his children “all the time.” In one dream, he recounted, “I’m in the kitchen at the house, and Cora walks in. And I just look at her and I — it was, like, I basically just said, ‘Where have you been?’ And she comes up to me and gives me a big hug. Those dreams are so real. It’s like I’m lucid in those dreams.”
Asked if his ex-wife ever asked for his forgiveness, Clancy replied, “No. But I gave it to her.”
About three months after the killings, Clancy said, he moved to New York City, where he has since built a new life. In April, he married Dr. Rachel Danis, a fertility doctor who joined him near the end of the interview. She confirmed the couple are starting a family.
Clancy said he “can’t wait to tell them about their brothers and sister.”
The highly anticipated interview comes as the prospect of a retrial is uncertain. Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz will decide whether to bring the case again and under which charges. The next court date in the case is Sept. 29.
Reddington, Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney, has said he would be open to a plea deal as long as it didn’t put her in prison.
In a statement previously issued on his client’s behalf, Patrick Clancy’s attorney, David Meier, said: “The prospect of reliving this tragedy through another trial is extraordinarily painful — for Patrick, for his family, and for all of us.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, 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.
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