In the middle of the night, when fear and exhaustion had left few places to turn, Patrick Clancy sought answers from strangers online.
On Reddit, he described a family in crisis and asked questions that, in retrospect, are difficult to read. His posts reportedly detailed dramatic changes in his wife Lindsay Clancy’s behavior, including severe insomnia, weight loss, disturbing intrusive thoughts, and fears about what those thoughts might mean.
He was not writing as an investigator or a mental-health professional.
He was writing as a husband and father trying to understand what was happening inside his home.
The family’s story would eventually become one of the most closely watched criminal cases in Massachusetts. On January 24, 2023, Patrick Clancy returned home to a devastating scene involving his three children. The children — Cora, Dawson, and Callan — died, and Lindsay Clancy survived after attempting suicide, according to prosecutors and court records.
The events that followed raised difficult questions about mental illness, treatment, medication, postpartum psychiatric conditions, and whether warning signs had been recognized and adequately addressed before the tragedy.
Among the details that have drawn renewed attention are the family’s reported efforts to obtain psychiatric care in the months leading up to the children’s deaths.
