Patrick Clancy, the father whose three children were killed by his ex-wife Lindsay Clancy in January 2023, revealed in his first televised interview that he has remarried and is expecting a child, a step forward from a grief few can imagine.
Clancy sat down with CBS correspondent Ross Douthat for a 60 Minutes special that aired Sunday on CBS News, his first on-camera appearance since his ex-wife's murder trial ended in a mistrial. His new wife, Dr. Rachel Danis, a fertility doctor, appeared alongside him. The next morning on CBS Mornings, Douthat confirmed that Danis is pregnant.
The interview covered the worst night of Clancy's life, the conspiracy theories that followed, his decision to forgive the woman who killed his children, and the panic attack that nearly ended his testimony at trial. For a man who once said he did not expect to survive to his 35th birthday, the news of a coming child marks a turn that even he seemed to approach with a mixture of wonder and weight.
On the evening of January 24, 2023, Patrick Clancy left home to pick up food and prescriptions. When he returned, he found his three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in the basement. Lindsay Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, had admitted to killing all three. She then jumped from a second-floor window.
Cora and Dawson were declared dead that night. Callan was airlifted to Boston Children's Hospital, where he clung to life for four more days.
Clancy described those four days in terms that no parent should ever have to use. He held out hope that his youngest son would survive.
"I remember just thinking, 'Just gimme one. Just gimme 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."
But when he arrived at the hospital and saw the doctor's face, he knew. Callan died in his father's arms. Clancy said he spent those final days writing tributes to each of his three children while holding Callan's hand.
Patrick Clancy was the first witness called at Lindsay Clancy's murder trial. The experience nearly broke him physically. On the second day of his testimony, prosecutors played the 911 call from the night of January 24th, a recording Clancy said he knew would be "just horrific."
He described what happened next in plain terms:
"I went to a back room, and I started having this massive traumatic panic attack. My heart was pounding. And they put me in an ambulance. They offered me some medication, but I said, 'I, I don't want it, 'cause I want to go back and I want to finish this so I can be done with this.' And I went back and I finished the testimony."
That a grieving father had to be loaded into an ambulance during his own testimony, and then walked back in to finish, says more about what this case has demanded of Patrick Clancy than any editorial observation could. The trial ultimately ended in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict.
Lindsay Clancy's defense team argued that postpartum psychosis left her unable to appreciate her actions. She acknowledged strangling her three children but claimed the episode was beyond her control. An anonymous juror who spoke publicly after the mistrial admitted she had originally believed Clancy was guilty but changed her vote, citing "significant doubt" and what she called gray areas in the case. The jury deliberated for more than 36 hours over seven days before Judge William Sullivan declared the mistrial.
That juror's candid admission, "Originally, I felt as though she was guilty and she was criminally responsible for it. And maybe I still believe that in a certain way", captured the deep division the case produced. A single holdout juror prevented what would have been a unanimous not-guilty verdict, leaving the case in legal limbo.
One of the most striking moments in the 60 Minutes interview came when Clancy addressed forgiveness. Asked whether Lindsay had ever sought it, he was direct.
"No. But I gave it to her."
He rejected the labels that had followed his ex-wife through the press. According to Fox News's coverage of the interview, Clancy said Lindsay had described her memory of the killings as "dreamlike", remembered "much in the way you would remember a dream after waking up."
Clancy himself pushed back on the tabloid framing:
"I saw headlines that said, you know, 'Killer Mom,' and 'Baby Murderer,' 'Monster.' And none of 'em were accurate. I believe that it was her mental illness that caused that. So I shared those words."
He added that forgiveness was partly self-preservation: "I also felt that if I didn't get there, I would be eaten up inside forever." Whether one agrees with his view of Lindsay Clancy's culpability or not, his reasoning was clear-eyed and unsentimental. He was not excusing what happened. He was refusing to let it consume the rest of his life.
Lindsay Clancy has been held at a state-run hospital since 2023. She still faces murder charges, and the question of whether prosecutors will seek a retrial remains open. The case has drawn intense public attention, including calls from elected officials for severe punishment and a broader national debate about how the justice system handles defendants who claim severe mental illness.
Clancy used the interview to confront online conspiracy theories that have accused him of involvement in his children's deaths. He called them "deeply harmful to the legacy of my children" and a distraction from what he believes is the real issue, perinatal mental health.
"It's painful to see. It makes it difficult to be in public, and it's possible that some of those people, after seeing lie after lie after lie, they start to believe it, and that's what we're left with."
His lawyer has warned of legal action against those spreading the theories, though no specific names or lawsuits were disclosed. The intense public scrutiny surrounding the trial, including incidents involving jurors themselves, has made the case a flashpoint for misinformation and online harassment.
Clancy framed the conspiracy theories not as a personal grievance but as a public harm: "It is a huge distraction from what really matters here, which is perinatal mental health. And it's done real harm to real people, myself included but also others."
Patrick Clancy met Dr. Rachel Danis at a running club in New York in January 2024, almost exactly a year after the killings. Danis, a fertility doctor, described learning about his children in the most ordinary of settings.
"Pat pulled out his phone to pay, and I noticed this adorable photo of children as the wallpaper. And I just asked, 'Who are those cuties?' And Pat said, 'Those are my kids.' And then I think I asked if they live in Massachusetts, and Pat said, 'They died.' And this is just at the cashier."
She said she was overwhelmed: "I guess I had so many questions, and yet at the same time I didn't know exactly what to ask." The couple married in April. When Douthat asked on the 60 Minutes broadcast whether they were "starting a family," Danis answered simply: "Yeah."
Douthat later acknowledged on CBS Mornings that his phrasing had been understated. "Maybe starting a family was too coy a way of asking it," he said, before confirming directly: "They are having a child."
Clancy spoke about his future children with the same directness that marked the rest of the interview. He said he still dreams about Cora, Dawson, and Callan, "it's like I'm lucid in those dreams", and that he looks forward to telling any new children about the siblings they will never meet.
"I think every parent can agree, you have different relationships with your kids, but they're all your kids. And I can't wait to tell them about their brothers and sister."
Clancy did not minimize how close he came to giving up. He told Douthat flatly that after losing his children, he did not expect to survive.
"I didn't think I would live to see my 35th birthday. And I was completely fine with it."
That he is now married, expecting a child, and sitting for a national television interview does not erase what happened on January 24, 2023. Nothing will. But Patrick Clancy's willingness to speak, about the worst night of his life, about the system that could not reach a verdict, about the strangers online who accuse him of crimes he did not commit, reflects a man who has decided that survival itself is an act of loyalty to the three children he lost.
No amount of forgiveness, no new marriage, and no future child will bring back Cora, Dawson, and Callan. But choosing to keep living, and to say so publicly, is the kind of courage that doesn't make headlines as easily as outrage does.
