Patrick Clancy’s wife, Rachel Danis, has opened up about how her family and friends responded when the couple began dating.
“Everyone paused—understandably so,” Rachel told 60 Minutes in a Sept. 20 interview. Part of the discussion was released Sept. 22 as an extended conversation with the couple. “I say ‘everyone’—I had told a couple of close friends.”
Rachel, a fertility doctor who married Patrick in April, said relatives also began to piece together the relationship based on her plans. “I think family members were picking up on it because they would ask what I’m doing that weekend or that evening and I would mention Pat,” she said. “So, people were catching on.”
“I think people were worried,” she added.
Rachel, who has confirmed that she and Patrick are starting a family, said she told her loved ones why the relationship ultimately made her feel at peace.
“I would say, and still say, it was the first time Sundays felt like Saturdays,” she said. “So, I didn’t have a reason to stop. Life just got a lot calmer for me and while I did have hesitations, Pat was saying that he wants the same things that I do.”
The couple met in January 2024, a year after Patrick’s former wife, Lindsay Clancy, killed their children—5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan—at their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Patrick had since moved to New York City, where he later met Rachel while running in Central Park.
Rachel said she discovered Patrick was a father on their first date after noticing photos of his children on his phone’s background.
After learning that the children had died, Rachel said she was left with countless questions. “And yet at the same time I didn’t know exactly what to ask,” she recalled.
A few months later, Patrick went to watch Rachel compete in a half-marathon, where he met her sister Lauren, who has Down syndrome.
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“I think you can tell a lot about someone when they’re interacting with a person with special needs,” Rachel said. “Pat was really friendly, really warm.”
She recalled that the group later sat together at a picnic table. “I didn’t know at the time—but Pat had taken a candid photo of me with Lauren and we were just hugging,” Rachel said.
“I just love her so much,” Rachel said of her sister, becoming emotional. “And Pat really saw what matters to me.”
What Happens Next for Lindsay Clancy?
Lindsay admitted to strangling her children on Jan. 24, 2023. Her attorneys argued that she was experiencing postpartum psychosis at the time, while prosecutors maintained that she deliberately killed the children and was criminally responsible for their deaths.
A judge declared a mistrial on Sept. 4 after jurors reached an 11-1 deadlock in favor of finding Lindsay not guilty by reason of insanity.
Lindsay remains at a hospital in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Her next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 29 for a status conference.
On Sept. 21, defense attorney Kevin Reddington asked for the murder case to be dismissed, according to the Associated Press.
Reddington also filed a motion seeking an investigation into Michael Desronvil, the lone holdout juror who voted to convict Lindsay, according to NBC News.
Desronvil’s attorney Edward Andrew Paltzik responded on X, calling the motion “Looney Tunes” and “a full-frontal attack on the U.S. Constitution.”
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