The anguished husband of the Boston nurse who strangled their three youngsters in a match of postpartum despair has opened up about what led as much as the life-altering tragedy, insisting he didn’t “marry a monster” earlier than the horrifying murders.
Patrick Clancy, 33, the daddy of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, had left their Duxbury, Mass., residence on Jan. 24, 2023, to choose up medication for one of many youngsters and dinner for the household, he advised The New Yorker in an interview revealed Monday.
His spouse, Lindsay Clancy, had been battling nervousness and insomnia introduced on by her being pregnant with Callan since mid-November, however issues gave the impression to be shifting again to regular within the household residence.
Lindsay had sought assist from a number of postpartum-mental-health specialists, however Patrick mentioned, to his data, she by no means obtained greater than a extreme analysis of generalized nervousness dysfunction.
Simply weeks earlier than the tragedy, Lindsay was delivered to the hospital on New Yr’s Eve after telling her husband she was having “thoughts of wanting to die,” feeling “numb,” and confessed to having “intrusive thoughts” of harming them.
She was admitted into an inpatient program at McLean Hospital, simply outdoors Boston, the next morning — however days after arriving, she texted Patrick, “I don’t belong here.”
5 days after being admitted, she denied having any extra intrusive ideas and was discharged with a prescription for an anti-depressant.
Two days after being discharged, they hosted a celebration at a trampoline park for his or her daughter Cora’s fifth birthday. Patrick famous that Lindsay’s temper through the celebration gave him “hope” that issues had been getting higher, noting that she had been sleeping higher and her temper was noticeably enhancing.
“I think it gave her hope, too,” he advised the outlet.
On the morning of Jan. 24, 2024, Patrick mentioned he woke as much as Lindsay and requested her the identical questions he had been since she was coping with her psychological well being struggles.
“How are you feeling? How did you sleep?” He recalled asking her, to which Lindsay replied she was feeling “good” and slept “pretty well.”
Patrick, who had had a busy day of labor, left Lindsay in command of their youngsters and even allowed her to take their daughter Cora to the physician with a abdomen ache.
He hoped the go to would assist his spouse come “back to reality” after weeks of enhancing.
However tragedy struck that night, after Lindsay requested him to choose up medication for Cora and dinner, he was at CVS when he instantly obtained the sensation one thing was incorrect.
Patrick mentioned he referred to as Lindsay to verify the model of drugs, however she didn’t choose up.
Minutes later, she referred to as him again, instructing him to choose up Pedia-Lax for Cora — however she appeared distracted by one thing within the 14-second name.
When he returned residence round 6 p.m., the home was quiet.
Patrick ran as much as the main bedroom to seek out the door was locked and needed to pressure his manner inside, the place he discovered the window open, blood splattered on the ground, and a bloody knife on the nightstand, he advised the outlet.
He then ran outdoors to seek out Lindsay barely acutely aware on the bottom, having jumped out their residence’s second-story window in a suicide try.
“What did you do?” he requested her, to which she replied, “I tried to kill myself.”
He then requested the place their youngsters had been, and she or he mentioned, “In the basement.”
Already on the cellphone with 911, that’s the place he discovered Cora, Dawson, and Callan with train bands nonetheless round their necks after Lindsay had allegedly killed them earlier than making an attempt to take her personal life.
When the paramedics arrived, he might be heard crying out from the basement, “She killed the kids!”
Regardless of his finest efforts to save lots of them, Cora and Dawson had been pronounced lifeless on the scene, and Callan died later within the hospital.
Within the aftermath of the tragedy, Patrick was staying with again his mother and father after burying his youngsters, and days earlier than Lindsay’s arraignment, he obtained a cellphone name from her.
“She did not sound like my wife,” Patrick advised the New Yorker of the trade, noting she sounded panicked and advised him a voice commanded her to kill their youngsters. After a minute on the cellphone, he ended the decision.
Six months after the killings, Patrick referred to as Lindsay on her thirty third birthday at her father’s suggestion, who advised him that she was in “tough shape and going downhill.”
Throughout their name, she advised him that “every day was the worst day of her life” and that “She misses her kids,” Patrick recalled.
“I know [it] sounds crazy to some people. But that’s the reality,” he defined.
They’ve spoken extra often since he mentioned.
Patrick finally requested her a couple of questions on what occurred that day.
“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 New Yorker.
“She said, ‘No, it just was like, a snap of the fingers.’”
He mentioned he requested Lindsay why she seemed up how lengthy it will take him to choose up dinner, to which she replied she was involved about him getting caught in site visitors.
“Then I said, ‘Did you Google Ways to kill?’ And she said, ‘Yeah, for myself, because I was suicidal for two months.’”
Patrick has made only some public statements because the tragedy.
Days after the killing, he requested folks to “find it deep within” themselves to forgive her, as he had carried out.
In April, Clancy ran the Boston Marathon to honor his children and raised over $73,000 for the hospital the place his youngest, Callan, was handled earlier than her demise.
Patrick mentioned he selected to talk with the New Yorker to cease “lies and misinformation” which have swirled as a result of curiosity round her upcoming homicide trial.
“I wasn’t married to a monster — I was married to someone who got sick,” he advised the outlet.
Lindsay has pleaded not responsible to 2 counts of homicide, three counts of strangulation, and three counts of assault and battery with a harmful weapon.
Her protection legal professional, Kevin Reddington, has indicated he plans an madness protection.
The prosecution, nonetheless, believes that since Lindsay was evaluated by psychological well being professionals earlier than and was advised she didn’t have post-partum despair and researched methods to kill on her mobile phone main as much as the murders, it might show it was premeditated.
A date for her trial has not but been set.
