The grieving husband of a nurse who murdered their three children has revealed their terrifying phone call that day and the chilling reason she strangled them.
Patrick Clancy returned home to find Lindsay with cuts to her neck and wrists and Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months, dead in the basement.
His wife had brutally murdered them before throwing herself out the window of their mansion in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023.
In a heartbreaking new interview, Patrick discussed his journey through that fateful day and shared how he and Lindsay – who is now paralyzed – have dealt with each other since.
In one chilling extract he told the New Yorker he had called her from a CVS store and when she called him back she was normal but ‘seemed to be in the middle of something’.
Patrick returned home that day to find his children strangled in the basement
Still, he says he doesn’t blame her for the vicious murders she committed. “I wasn’t married to a monster, I was married to someone who got sick,” he said.
He said she suffered from anxiety and had been institutionalized in the months before the brutal murders.
He also said that just a few days before her arraignment in October, he got a voicemail from a phone number he didn’t recognize — only to later find out it was Lindsay, calling from a psychologist’s phone number to say she was from loved him.
When he called back the next day, Lindsay explained that she heard a voice ordering her to kill the children and then herself because it was her “last chance.”
“She didn’t sound like my wife,” Clancy said of the call.
Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months, were all killed
He returned to their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts to find Lindsay semi-conscious in the backyard and the children with exercise bands still around their necks.
It took another six months before the couple spoke again, and Lindsay told her husband that every day was the worst day of her life.
“She misses her kids,” Clancy said. “I know it sounds crazy to some people. But that’s the reality.’
Lindsay’s friends also previously shared that she often joked about having enough kids to fill a “baseball team,” and that she was “born to be a mother.”
But Lindsay apparently began struggling with anxiety shortly after the birth of her youngest son, Callan, who was murdered when he was just eight months old.
She told Patrick she wanted to go on Zoloft as she prepared to return to work, and went to see a virtual therapist.
However, those virtual visits focused more on medication management, Patrick said.
Patrick Clancy has revealed the horrific phone call he had to his wife Lindsay on the day of January 24, 2023 when she strangled their three children
Lindsay’s friends have said that she often joked about having enough children to fill a “baseball team,” and that she was “born to be a mother.”
By mid-November 2022, Lindsay lost her appetite and largely stopped socializing.
She also started having trouble sleeping, prompting doctors to prescribe even more medications.
Lindsay’s lawyers have since argued that “horrific overmedication” is to blame for her mental decline, with prosecutors even revealing in court that her blood samples showed seven different medications.
Investigators found bottles of diazepam, amitriptyline and trazodone, all antidepressants, from the family home.
All three had been prescribed to Lindsay 16 days before the traumatic incident.
Lindsay apparently began struggling with her mental health after the birth of her youngest son
On the day of the murders, Lindsay was concerned about her daughter’s stomach ache
In late December, Lindsay insisted she needed to go to a hospital, telling Patrick, “I have thoughts of wanting to die, and I feel numb to it.”
Around the same time, Lindsay also confessed to having unwanted thoughts about hurting her children, Patrick later told police.
Then, in early January, Lindsay checked herself into McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility.
But when Patrick visited her later that week, they saw a clearly agitated person pacing the hallways and talking to himself, he said.
“There were people there who were clearly crazy,” he said. “Lindsay seemed to have it all figured out.” He added that she even texted him: “I don’t belong here.”
She was released from the hospital after just five days with a prescription for an antidepressant and denied having any more intrusive thoughts.
Patrick had thought she was doing better, and on the morning of January 24, she even told him she was feeling “fine” and had slept “pretty well.”
She took the young girl to a pediatrician and asked Patrick to pick up some medicine for her
Later that day, she became concerned about her daughter’s stomach pain and took the young girl to a pediatrician.
Lindsay texted Patrick around 5 p.m. to pick up Pedia-Lax for Cora and takeout for dinner.
He didn’t think the request was that important at the time because he thought she was doing better, he revealed.
But he said: ‘If I could go back in time, I would have called McLean and said, ‘Take her away, lock the door and keep her there for a year, if that’s what it took.’
He noted that she seemed “really well” that day. ‘So what do you do? Someone is having a great day. Should I call the hotline?’
Lindsay had been institutionalized shortly before the murders, but Patrick thought she was doing better
However, when he returned home, he found blood on the bedroom floor and a bloody knife.
He found Lindsay barely conscious in the backyard and asked her, “What did you do?” to which she replied, “I tried to commit suicide.”
Patrick then asked where the children were, to which she replied, “in the basement.” There he found Cora, Dawson and Callan, with the exercise bands still around their necks.
He tried to remove them and begged each child to breathe before declaring them dead.
In the aftermath, Patrick said he asked his wife a few questions about what happened that day.
“I think one of the first things I asked was, ‘Did you plan this?’ Is that why you sent me on my way?’, he said. “She said, ‘No, it was just a wink.’
He said he asked why she was looking up to see how long it would take for him to pick up the food, to which she replied that she was worried about him getting stuck in traffic.
“Then I said, ‘Have you Googled ‘Ways to Kill?’ And she said, ‘Yes, for myself, because I was suicidal for two months.’
Lindsay has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder, three counts of strangulation and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Lindsay has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder, three counts of strangulation and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Attorney Kevin Reddington, who has indicated he is planning an insanity defense, painted a picture of a woman struggling with mental illness.
“This is in no way a situation that was planned,” he said. “This was a situation that was clearly the product of mental illness.”
But the prosecutor countered that Clancy had previously been evaluated by mental health professionals and was told she did not have postpartum depression.
They claimed that Lindsay had been researching ways to kill via her cell phone in the days leading up to the murders, and suggested that her suicide attempt had been staged.
A date for her trial has not yet been set.