Patrick Clancy told CBS that he chose to forgive his ex-wife Lindsay for the deaths of their three young children, saying the alternative would have consumed him, a revelation that came alongside news he and his new wife are expecting a baby.
Clancy sat down with his new wife, fertility doctor Rachel Danis, for their first joint interview on CBS "60 Minutes," where he described a deliberate decision to extend forgiveness to a woman who never sought it. The interview aired as the couple prepares to welcome their first child together, a detail the New York Post reported was confirmed on "CBS Mornings" by interviewer Ross Douthat.
Douthat told anchor Nate Burleson he had been "too coy" during the sit-down when he asked the couple whether they were "starting a family." On "CBS Mornings," he dropped the vagueness: "Yes, they're having a child."
The couple had already been spotted days before the September 4 mistrial in Lindsay Clancy's murder case, walking hand-in-hand through New York, Danis's midsection showing signs of a bump beneath a white jacket. Patrick Clancy also made clear the two planned to have more than one child together.
In the "60 Minutes" interview, Patrick Clancy pushed back on the tabloid shorthand that followed the case from its earliest days. He addressed the coverage directly:
"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."
Lindsay Clancy faces three counts of first-degree murder for the January 2023 strangulation deaths of the couple's three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, just 8 months old. Her defense team has argued she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis at the time. The jury deadlocked twice before the judge declared a mistrial on September 4.
Patrick Clancy's willingness to attribute the killings to mental illness rather than malice is not new. During the murder trial itself, he testified on the witness stand and described Lindsay as a loving mother who would make up songs with the children and cook them special meals like green eggs and ham.
He went further in a GoFundMe statement that Fox News reported on, asking the public directly for grace:
"I want to ask all of you that you find it deep within yourselves to forgive Lindsay, as I have... The real Lindsay was generously loving and caring towards everyone."
On "60 Minutes," Clancy framed his decision to forgive in terms that had nothing to do with Lindsay's remorse, because, by his account, she never expressed any.
"And I think when it comes to forgiveness, I also felt that if I didn't get there, I would be eaten up inside forever."
That distinction matters. Clancy did not describe a reconciliation or a mutual reckoning. He described a man choosing not to let bitterness define the rest of his life after burying three children under the age of six. Whether that choice strikes observers as extraordinary or incomprehensible, it is plainly deliberate.
Since the killings, Clancy has divorced Lindsay, remarried, and relocated to New York City. He has also become a public advocate for perinatal mental health awareness in memory of Cora, Dawson, and Callan.
The trial itself produced moments that underscored how unusual Clancy's posture has been. A hospital chaplain testified that Lindsay Clancy said "I am so glad my children are safe" just days after the killings. Defense attorney Donna Rotunno pointed to testimony from Susan Clancy, Patrick's mother, as "an unbelievable show of humanity," noting that the elder Clancy nodded to Lindsay as she left the courtroom.
After the mistrial and the backlash surrounding a holdout juror, the case's procedural future remains uncertain. Lindsay Clancy's lawyer has since asked a judge to investigate the holdout juror's phone records. The juror's own attorney says the juror received death threats.
Patrick Clancy's interview landed at a moment when the legal proceedings around his ex-wife remain unresolved. The mistrial left open whether prosecutors will seek a retrial, and Lindsay Clancy's defense team has pursued aggressive post-trial maneuvers, including a controversial pardon request that legal observers have questioned on jurisdictional grounds.
Meanwhile, Lindsay Clancy's own lawyer has said she "constantly" pleads for her children in the wake of the mistrial, a detail that sits in sharp contrast with Patrick Clancy's account that she never asked him for forgiveness.
Clancy spoke about the baby on the way with a simplicity that cut through the weight of everything behind it:
"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."
He did not say the new child would replace the three he lost. He said the opposite, that the children who came before would be part of the story he tells the children who come after. For a man who buried a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and an infant, that is not moving on. It is carrying forward.
Whatever a jury eventually decides about Lindsay Clancy's culpability, Patrick Clancy has already rendered his own verdict, and chosen to build a life on the other side of it.