Patrick Clancy returned home to find his three children in the basement
Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
The husband of a mother who killed her three young children has recalled his wife’s response when he asked her what had happened.
Dad Patrick Clancy was out of the house for less than an hour on January 24, 2023, when he returned to find his wife, Lindsay, lying in their backyard in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
The mom had jumped out of their bedroom window after strangling the couple’s three children; Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, who was eight months old.
Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead the same day, while Callan passed away a few days later after being taken to hospital.
Lindsay survived the attempt to take her own life, though she was left paralyzed from the waist down. She has since been charged with two counts of murder, three counts of strangulation, and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
In the weeks leading up to their children’s deaths, Patrick described how Lindsay struggled with anxiety; she stopped socializing, lost her appetite, and suffered with sleep deprivation.
Lindsay, who worked as a labour nurse, admitted to killing the children, but she claimed she strangled them during a ‘moment of psychosis’ and pleaded not guilty to the charges against her.
In a new interview with The New Yorker, Patrick opened up about the deaths of his children and the moment he returned home to the horrific scene.
Having initially thought Lindsay might be giving their children a bath, Patrick realized something was wrong when he had to force himself into the master bedroom, which had been locked.
He found the window open, blood on the floor and a bloody knife on the nightstand.
The dad then found his wife outside, barely conscious. He asked, ‘what did you do?’, to which Lindsay replied: “I tried to kill myself.”
When he asked where their three children were, she responded: “In the basement.”
Patrick initially stayed with Lindsay until paramedics arrived, but he didn’t realize he was still on the phone to the emergency dispatcher when help arrived and he was able to rush into the basement to find his children.
A recording of the call heard the father shout, ‘Guys?’ into the basement.
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague has described how Patrick could then be heard ‘screaming in agony and shock’ as the children were found with exercise bands tied around their necks.
Later, after Lindsay had been taken into custody, Patrick asked her a number of questions in phone calls.
He recalled: “I think one of the first things I asked was, ‘Did you plan this? Is that why you sent me out?’ ”
In response, Lindsay allegedly made clear that the deaths were not something she’d planned.
“She said, ‘No, it just was, like, a snap of the fingers’,” Patrick said.
He also addressed the discovery that Lindsay had Googled ‘ways to kill’ prior to her children’s deaths, to which she said she had done it ‘for [herself].
“I was suicidal for two months,” Lindsay told him.
Looking back on his relationship with Lindsay, Patrick stressed that he ‘wasn’t married to a monster’, but was instead married to ‘someone who got sick’.
Lindsay’s case is still ongoing, though Patrick has expressed belief ‘it wasn’t her making those decisions’.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 to reach a 24-hour crisis center or you can webchat at 988lifeline.org. You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues or want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, the Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.