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Patrick Clancy, the father of three children strangled in their Massachusetts home, was the first witness Monday in his ex-wife’s murder trial, giving jurors a harrowing account of the mental decline he saw before their deaths.
He was the first witness called in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, who is charged with murder in the deaths of the couple’s three children in January 2023. Prosecutors said he acted deliberately, while defense lawyers argued that severe mental illness was what drove him to the act.
Patrick described watching his ex-wife fall into a “massive spiral” after she started taking Seroquel, testifying that she lost weight, became severely depressed and began to express suicidal thoughts.
“It’s bad,” he said when asked how Lindsay was physically after starting treatment. “That’s really where her big spiral started. She started losing a lot of weight, and she got really depressed, and she was really struggling.”
LINDSAY CLANCY’S HUSBAND WOULD TESTIFY ABOUT HER IN THE DEATH TRIAL OF THEIR THREE CHILDREN.
Patrick Clancy made the decision on Monday and described watching his wife collapse in a “huge speech” before strangling their three young children at the family home in Massachusetts. (Greg Derr/Pool/The Patriot Ledger)
Patrick also revealed that Lindsay told him that he was dealing with disturbing thoughts about hurting their children, although he denied that he had a plan and said that these thoughts were disturbing him.
“I never saw Lindsay hurt the children,” he told jurors.
Patrick Clancy leaves Plymouth Superior Court, in Plymouth, Mass., Monday, July 27, 2026. His ex-wife, Lindsay Clancy, is charged with murdering their three children. (David McGlynn of Fox News Digital)
Margaret McLean, a former criminal prosecutor and trial lawyer who teaches law at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, said Patrick’s limited delivery did nothing to hide the grief of a father forced to follow the months leading up to his children’s deaths.
“I think his behavior on the stand is really serious. He talks like it is,” McLean told Fox News Digital. “You can see the pain in this man’s eyes, in his face. You can see that he was upset up there, and it’s a terrible thing that you have to talk about it again.”
McLean said Patrick seemed to separate his emotions as he listened carefully to questions and gave direct answers.
“He has to get through this,” she said. “He has to listen to questions and give answers as best he can, and I think he’s doing that.”
Lindsay Clancy reacts as details of her children’s deaths are read in court on Monday. (Greg Derr/Pool/The Patriot Ledger)
HEATED LINDSAY CLANCY COURTROOM TURNS INTO 911 CALL, CRIME SCENE PHOTOS SET THE SCENE FOR MOTHER’S MURDER.
Patrick revealed that he did not care about the children’s safety when Lindsay began to discuss that disturbing thoughts were telling her to harm herself and her children. After a while of discussing his thoughts, he would be seen preparing lunch for the children, playing with them or getting them ready for bed.
Patrick told jurors he panicked after Lindsay was prescribed 13 psychiatric medications in the months before the murder and that he insisted on meeting her in person because he believed there was a “disconnect” between the severity of her condition and the short therapy sessions she was receiving.
“It seemed like a lot of his phone appointments were very quick, and there wasn’t, like, a lot of attention,” he said.
Patrick also described taking Lindsay to the hospital’s emergency department and helping her get into McLean Hospital after she continued to express suicidal thoughts.
He stated that he would have “paid anything” if insurance had prevented him from being hospitalized.
Lindsay Clancy has been charged with three counts each of murder in the deaths of her five-year-old daughter Cora, 5, 3-year-old Dawson and 7-month-old son, Callan, in 2023. He denied the charges. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via Pool)
The evidence could leave jurors questioning whether the warning created an adequate response, McLean said, while cautioning against placing the blame on Patrick or family members who may not have understood the dangers.
“A lot of people don’t understand mental health today, so I don’t blame him at all,” McLean said. “Anybody could have done what they did, but that part scared me.”
WATCH: Lindsay Clancy flexes her muscles as judges hear about her three children
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Patrick’s testimony followed very different opening statements from the prosecution and the defense.
Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham told jurors that Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, were “deliberately and carefully murdered” by their mother on Jan. 24, 2023.
Buckingham alleged that Clancy deliberately sent Patrick to their Duxbury home to collect medicine and food, giving himself enough time to strangle each child with an exercise band before attempting to kill himself.
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McLean said Buckingham provided the judges with a “cold, calculated approach” while personalizing each child’s interests and focusing on the time and physical effort required to accomplish the three separate chokes.
“The prosecutor did that because he [Buckingham] you want the judge to remember that the act of strangulation takes time and physical effort,” McLean said. “It takes a conscious choice to go on three separate occasions.”
Plymouth County District Attorney Shanan Buckingham delivered her opening statement in court Monday. (Greg Derr/Pool/The Patriot Ledger)
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The Commonwealth’s strategy, he said, is to reject the defense’s plea that Clancy suffered a sudden psychotic attack and instead portray him as organized, purposeful and controlled.
During opening statements, defense attorney Kevin Reddington admitted that Clancy killed the children but argued that the only reasonable argument was what was going through her mind.
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“You know you killed these kids,” Reddington told jurors. “The issue that should be looked into is what was going on in that woman’s mind.”
McLean described the concession as a calculated move by the veteran trial attorney.
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“In doing so, he is trying to strip the prosecution of its shock value and force the jury to look at Lindsay Clancy’s mental capacity,” he said.
Reddington argued that Clancy had no reason to kill the children he loved and raised. He also released graphic hospital photos showing Clancy with injuries to his neck and wrists.
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Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial is expected to last six to eight weeks, with a witness list containing more than 200 names. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via Pool)
McLean said the defense was planning Clancy’s disability “not because of a crime, but as a sad last sign of a complete postpartum mental break.”
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Clancy, a former nurse-midwife at Massachusetts General Hospital, pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and strangulation. Her lawyers do not deny that she killed the children but argue that she was innocent due to severe postpartum depression.
Judge William Sullivan told jurors that the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy was guilty when the children were killed.
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“It will be black and white for some people, it will be gray for other people,” said McLean. “It will be one of the most difficult things this judge, or any judge, will ever have to decide.”
