Patrick Clancy, the ex-husband of Lindsay Clancy — the Massachusetts woman whose trial over the killing of her three young children ended in a mistrial — has spoken publicly about his decision to forgive her, saying he feared that without doing so, grief and anger would have destroyed him. In an interview with US broadcaster CBS, he described the tragedy and its aftermath with striking candour, pushing back against media portrayals of his ex-wife as a monster and calling instead for greater attention to perinatal mental health.

Prosecutors alleged that on 24 January 2023, Lindsay Clancy intentionally strangled her three children — Cora, aged five, Dawson, three, and Callan, just eight months old — at the family home in Duxbury, a coastal town of around 16,000 people south of Boston in Massachusetts. Clancy, now 36, did not deny causing the children's deaths, but her defence argued she could not be held legally responsible due to severe postpartum psychosis, a rare condition in which women who have recently given birth can experience episodes of mania, depression, or both. After jumping from a second-floor window following the killings, she was left paralysed and attended the seven-week trial in a wheelchair. Earlier this month, a judge declared a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

Patrick Clancy, who testified during the trial about his ex-wife's deteriorating mental health in the months before the killings, said he had not known how to respond to a postpartum illness.