More than a decade after Steven D’Achille lost his wife, Alexis, to postpartum psychosis, he’s watching another family endure an unimaginable tragedy.
As the trial of Lindsay Clancy continues in Massachusetts, D’Achille says he can’t help but see painful similarities to his own story.
Clancy is facing first-degree murder charges in the deaths of her three children—Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months—who were killed inside the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home in January 2023. Her mental state at the time of the killings has become a central issue in the case.
For D’Achille, following the trial has been painful in part because of what his own family endured. After the birth of their first child, daughter Adriana, in 2013, D’Achille says Alexis developed postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. As he desperately tried to find her the care she needed, her condition worsened. Alexis died by suicide when Adriana was just 6 weeks old.
In a recent Facebook post, D’Achille admitted he’d been hesitant to follow the Clancy proceedings because hearing details of the case brings him back to that time.
“Just bits and pieces because the PTSD of hearing parts sends chills down my spine and lights a fire full of rage in me,” he wrote.
But while much of the public conversation has focused on Clancy herself, D’Achille believes there’s a bigger question people should be asking.
“How Did We Get Here?”
“I wish there was more compassion,” D’Achille tells Parade. “Instead of just saying, ‘Here’s this monster, here’s what happened,’ I wish they would lead with, ‘How did we get here?’ Sometimes you have to point the finger at the healthcare system.”
I first spoke with D’Achille in 2019, six years after Alexis died by suicide while experiencing postpartum psychosis, just six weeks after the birth of their daughter. Since then, he has devoted his life to maternal mental health advocacy, helping establish the Alexis Joy D’Achille Center for Perinatal Mental Health in Pittsburgh and working with families across the country seeking treatment and support.
Seven years later, his message has only grown stronger.
“I still believe postpartum mental health isn’t a women’s health issue,” he says. “It’s a family health issue.”
‘It Was Too Late to Do Research’
During his testimony in late July, Patrick Clancy described trying to navigate Lindsay’s increasingly complex mental health treatment before the deaths of their children. He testified that after Lindsay spent five days at McLean Hospital, the couple left with medication recommendations but without the kind of roadmap he believed they needed for what came next. (Since the tragedies, Patrick and Lindsay have divorced).
Patrick recalled being told to research providers himself—an experience that resonated with D’Achille.
“It was too late to do research,” D’Achille says.
D’Achille remembers being similarly overwhelmed while trying to find help for Alexis in 2013.
“I was Googling. I had the Yellow Pages—the phone book—open,” he recalls. “I was desperate to just get ahold of any kind of psychologist, psychiatrist. At that time, I didn’t even know the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist.”
That’s why D’Achille sees a contradiction in telling fathers they must advocate for their partners while giving them few tools to understand an extraordinarily complicated illness.
“We’re dads. We’re not healthcare professionals,” he says. “They’re asking dads to research and do homework [on] one of the most complex health issues there is. We’re supposed to figure it out, which feels impossible.”
‘How Can You Advocate If You Don’t Know What to Ask?’
Back when we first spoke in 2019, D’Achille urged husbands to become their wives’ biggest advocates. Today, he says that advice still stands—but with one important caveat.
“How can you advocate for somebody when you don’t even know what to ask?” he says.
Instead of waiting until after a baby is born, he believes fathers should be involved throughout pregnancy—attending appointments, learning warning signs and building relationships with healthcare providers long before a crisis develops.
“I still believe women become mothers the day they find out they’re pregnant,” he says. “Fathers become fathers when they bring their child home from the hospital. Those 40 weeks are a missed opportunity.”
Related: What Is Postpartum Depression?
Patrick Clancy Reached Out After the Tragedy
D’Achille also revealed something he has rarely discussed publicly: Patrick Clancy contacted him shortly after the deaths of the Clancy children.
“We’ve talked for years,” D’Achille says. “He reached out to me very soon after everything happened. He found my story online and said, ‘I want to create change.'”
Rather than judging Patrick or his wife, D’Achille says his heart breaks for the family. “I know Patrick’s wife was a good person,” he says. “She was just sick.”
He says that’s why he hopes the trial leads to meaningful changes in maternal mental healthcare instead of simply fueling public outrage.
“I would be putting the whole country on notice,” he says. “The healthcare system let them down.”
Related: Lindsay Clancy’s Ex-Husband Makes Passionate Plea to Judge Regarding Crime Scene Photos
‘The Care She Deserved Did Not Exist’
Although conversations surrounding the trial often center on criminal responsibility, D’Achille believes they’re overlooking a larger systemic failure.
“The simple reality is we ended up in this situation because my wife got sick and the care she deserved did not exist,” he says.
He believes the same questions should be asked today.
“If these facilities existed everywhere,” he says, referring to specialized perinatal mental health centers like the one named after Alexis in Pittsburgh, “I’d like to think they’d [the Clancys] still be a happy family today.”
For D’Achille, that’s the legacy he hopes both Alexis’ story and the Clancy case leave behind—not one of blame, but of change. “I know our facility works,” he says. “Almost every day someone comes up to me and tells me it saved their wife’s life, their daughter’s life or their own life.”
“That’s what I want people talking about.”
Next: Free Mental Health Resources
If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “HOME” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or visit their website.
This story was originally published by Parade on Aug 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.