On January 24, 2023, Clancy told her husband, Patrick, that she was drained after spending the day caring for their three small children. Too exhausted to make dinner, she asked whether he could run a quick errand: pick up children’s medicine and collect a takeout order.
Patrick, then 36, a software sales employee at Microsoft, agreed without hesitation. But when he arrived back at the family’s home in Duxbury, an affluent coastal suburb south of Boston, less than an hour later at about 6 p.m., he walked into a scene that shattered the life they had built.
Believing his wife might be upstairs bathing the children, he went to look for her. Instead, he found the couple’s second-floor bedroom door locked and forced it open. Inside, blood marked the floor, a bloodied knife sat on the nightstand, and cold air filled the room from an open window.
Patrick then rushed downstairs and found his wife outside, barely conscious. She had cut her wrists and neck before going out the window and falling roughly 20 feet onto the frozen ground below. She told him she had tried to take her own life and, when he asked about the children, said they were in the basement.
After calling 911, Patrick remained beside her for about 10 minutes, fearing she might not survive long enough for paramedics to reach the Duxbury home.
Once emergency crews arrived, he hurried back inside to search for the children: five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan. They were in the basement, as she had said. All three had been strangled with resistance bands.
