Patrick Clancy opens up about grief, his children and moving forward

Patrick Clancy said he felt he had no purpose after his three children were killed.

"There was a time where I didn't think I would live to see my 35th birthday," Clancy, 36, said in an interview with 60 Minutes. "And I was completely fine with it."

His interview with correspondent Ross Douthat comes after his ex-wife's mistrial earlier this month. The court has yet to determine whether Patrick's ex-wife, Lindsay Clancy, will be retried for the killings of their children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan. It also comes as Patrick and his wife, Rachel Danis, face intense public scrutiny, becoming the subjects of online suspicion and speculation on social media.

In October 2022, five months after Callan's birth, Patrick said Lindsay told him she had gone a few nights without sleeping.

Over the next two months, Lindsay made repeated emergency room visits. She admitted herself to a program for patients with postpartum depression and was discharged after a day of treatment. Lindsay was also prescribed an escalating number of prescription drugs.

Patrick said he struggled to help his wife navigate the medical system and did not know how to manage a postpartum illness.

"I think mental illness has this ability to be tragically deceptive," he said.

December was the low point, Patrick said. "It was a big struggle for her — just a huge lack of sleep, deep, deep depression, intrusive thoughts."

Lindsay checked herself into McLean Psychiatric Hospital on New Year's Eve. She was treated for depression and released days later, making it home in time to celebrate Cora's birthday on Jan. 7.

Less than three weeks later, Patrick said he came home from an errand to find Lindsay lying in the backyard, her throat and wrists cut, paralyzed after jumping from an upstairs window.

He said he found his children strangled in the basement. Cora and Dawson were dead. Callan was airlifted to Boston Children's Hospital.

"I really thought there was a chance that Callan would live," Patrick recalled. "I remember just thinking, 'Just give me one. Just give me one kid, and I would raise him as best I could, and I would give him the best life I possibly could. I'd tell him about his brother and sister.' And I was holding out hope for that."

"I got to hold him. I got to lay down next to him. And he died in my arms," Patrick said.

In the days after the tragedy, Patrick wrote tributes to each of his three children and decided to publicly forgive Lindsay.