Patrick Clancy, the husband of a Massachusetts labor and delivery nurse who allegedly strangled their three young children to death last year, said in a new interview that his wife was not a "monster."
"I wasn't married to a monster – I was married to someone who got sick," he told The New Yorker.
Lindsay Clancy allegedly strangled Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, before hurling herself out a window on Jan. 24, 2023. Her husband, Patrick, told the New Yorker that he had left the house to buy medicine for one of the children.
Lindsay, then 32, sought help from several postpartum mental health specialists for anxiety and insomnia brought on by her latest childbirth. Patrick said she never received more than a diagnosis of severe generalized anxiety disorder, though.
On New Year's Eve, several weeks before the killings, Patrick took his wife to the hospital after she told him she had "thoughts of wanting to die," felt "numb" and confessed to having "intrusive thoughts" of harming the three children.
Days after starting an inpatient program at McLean Hospital outside of Boston, Lindsay texted Patrick "I don't belong here." She returned to their home in Duxbury five days after she was admitted, telling doctors that she no longer had intrusive thoughts and was prescribed an anti-depressant.
Two days after Lindsay was discharged, she and Patrick hosted a party for Cora's 5th birthday at a trampoline park. Lindsay had been sleeping better, and her mood during the party gave Patrick "hope" that her condition was improving, he said.
"I think it gave her hope too," he told the New Yorker.
On the morning of Jan. 24, Patrick recalled asking Lindsay how she was feeling and how she slept, to which she replied she was feeling "good" and slept "pretty well." That morning, she took her eldest daughter to the doctor for a stomach ache. Patrick said he hoped the medical visit would bring his wife "back to reality."
That evening, Patrick recalled, his wife asked him to pick up dinner and Cora's medication from the pharmacy. He said he felt something was off after he left the house. When he called Lindsay to confirm the brand of medicine their daughter needed, she initially did not answer.
When Lindsay called back a minute later, Patrick told police later, she seemed like she was in the middle of something during the 14-second phone call.
When Patrick returned home around 6 p.m., it was quiet. He had to force his way into the locked master bedroom, he recalled. There, he found the window open, a bloody knife on the nightstand and blood spattered on the floor.
He found his wife lying on the ground outside. She had jumped out of a second-story window in an attempt to take her own life.
"What did you do?" he asked her, to which she replied, "I tried to kill myself."
When Patrick asked where their children were, Lindsay replied, "In the basement."
Patrick was already on the phone with 911 when he found Cora, Dawson and Callan with exercise bands still around their necks. When paramedics arrived, Patrick could be heard yelling "She killed the kids!" from the basement, the New Yorker reported.
The two eldest children were pronounced dead at the scene; Callan died later in the hospital.
Patrick, who was staying with his parents in the aftermath of the tragedy, received a phone call from Lindsay days before her arraignment.
"She did not sound like my wife," Patrick told the New Yorker of the exchange, saying she sounded panicked and told him a voice commanded her to kill their children because it was her "last chance." After a minute on the phone, he ended the call.
Six months later, on Lindsay's 33rd birthday, Patrick called; her father suggested he reach out because the woman was in "tough shape and going downhill."
During that call, she told Patrick that "every day was the worst day of her life."
"She misses her kids," Patrick said, according to the New Yorker. "Which I know sounds crazy to some people. But that’s the reality."
Since that phone call, Patrick said, the pair have spoken more regularly.
"I think one of the first things I asked was, ‘Did you plan this? Is that why you sent me out?’" he recounted to the outlet. "She said, ‘No, it just was like, a snap of the fingers.’"
In the same line of questioning, he asked Lindsay why she looked up how long it would take him to pick up dinner, a detail revealed in search warrant affidavits unsealed last October.
Lindsay said that she had been concerned about Patrick getting stuck in rush hour traffic.
"Then I said, ‘Did you Google ways to kill?’ And she said, ‘Yeah, for myself, because I was suicidal for two months,'" Patrick said.
Patrick, who has since moved into an apartment in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, chose to speak with the New Yorker to quash the "lies and misinformation" swirling around Lindsay's criminal case.
"There’s no house anymore," he told the outlet after he sold the Duxbury home where his children died. "There are no kids. All that’s left is me and Lindsay."
Kevin Reddington, Lindsay's defense attorney, told the outlet that he plans an insanity defense for his client, who has been charged with murdering her children. Fox News Digital could not reach Reddington for comment at press time.
However, prosecutors believe that the killings could have been premeditated because she sought help from mental health professionals, was told that she did not have post-partum depression and researched methods to kill on her phone leading up to the murders.
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A date has not yet been set for Lindsay's trial.
