DUXBURY, Mass. — Patrick Clancy, whose wife Lindsay is accused of killing their three children inside their Duxbury home before attempting to take her own life in January 2023, opened up about the tragic loss of life in a new interview published on Monday.
Lindsay Clancy, 33, is charged with three counts of murder and strangulation in the deaths of her 5-year-old daughter, Cora, her 3-year-old son, Dawson, and her 8-month-old baby, Callan. She has pleaded not guilty.
Since the tragedy unfolded inside the family’s Summer Street home on the evening of Jan. 24, 2023, Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington has maintained that Clancy, whom he called a “troubled soul,” had been suffering from postpartum depression and that she was overmedicated at the time of the deaths of her three kids.
Prosecutors say Clancy used exercise bands to strangle her kids before jumping out of a window in a suicide attempt. Court documents also revealed that Clancy used her cell phone and her journal to document her mental state and her feelings about her children, in addition to keeping track of her medications and researching ways to kill.
Prior to the deaths of the kids, Clancy used maps on her phone to determine how long it would take to go to and from a restaurant and then texted her husband, Patrick, who was working in his home office, to pick up a takeout order.
Patrick agreed to pick up the food and while he was gone, his wife allegedly took the lives of their children. In February 2023, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague described in court the moment Patrick returned home with the takeout order.
Patrick was heard “screaming in agony and shock” as he located his children, face down on the floor, with the bands used to strangle them tied around their necks, according to Sprague. “He yells out, ‘She killed the kids!’” Sprague added.
Clancy, who was ordered to be committed at Tewksbury State Hospital in May 2023, suffered serious spinal injuries that left her paralyzed when she jumped from the window.
Patrick moved to midtown Manhattan in New York City to escape the media frenzy after the incident and later agreed to an interview with Eren Orbey of The New Yorker. That interview was made public on Oct. 14.
A few days before her arraignment, Lindsay called Patrick from a number he didn’t recognize and left a voicemail. He later learned it was Lindsay, calling from a psychologist’s phone number to say “she loved him,” the article stated.
Lindsay called back the next day and explained to Patrick that “she heard a voice commanding her to kill the children and then herself,” Orbey wrote.
Patrick told Orbey that Lindsay “did not sound” like his wife and he hung up the phone after about a minute.
As time passed, Patrick and Lindsay started to talk more frequently, which allowed them to “fill in the gaps,” according to the article.
“I think one of the first things I asked was, ‘Did you plan this? Is that why you sent me out?’” Patrick recalled to Orbey. “She said, ‘No, it just was, like, a snap of the fingers.’”
In the article, Patrick also spoke about how Lindsay was placed in an inpatient program at McLean Hospital after a trip to the emergency room at Massachusetts General Hospital on New Year’s Eve.
“Lindsay was discharged from McLean after only five days, with a prescription for the antidepressant amitriptyline, Pat recalled—her thirteenth medication in a span of four months. According to the prosecution, when she left the hospital, on January 5, she denied having any more intrusive thoughts,” the article stated.
“Lindsay seemed to have it together,” Patrick told Obrey. Just days later, their children were dead.
“If I could go back in time, I’d have called McLean and said, ‘Take her away, lock the door. Keep her in there for a year if you have to,’” Patrick said in the interview.
Patrick maintained in the article that he didn’t blame Lindsay for what happened and didn’t express anger with her.
Throughout the interview, Orbrey said Patrick “seemed keen to tell his version of the story,” with him regularly stating, “I wasn’t married to a monster. I was married to someone who got sick.”
Patrick also said in the interview that he recently found a buyer for their former Duxbury home.
“There’s no house anymore. There are no kids. All that’s left is me and Lindsay,” Patrick stated.
Patrick also revealed that Lindsay wants to tell her part of the story but her attorneys have advised against it.
Click here to read The New Yorker’s full interview.
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