Patrick Clancy's Date Asked One Question and Heard THIS

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dreeke.

Tony Brueski (0:08)

The final part of the conversation that we're going to have here today about the Patrick Clancy interview from 60 Minutes focuses on survival. Patrick left for New York City to disappear into the crowd, eventually met his new wife, Rachel, and is now navigating the complex reality of starting a new family. As we jump into this conversation, please hit like if you've not already done so. It helps feed us out there to everyone else, so they know we're talking about this, and they can join in the conversation too. We'd love for you to give us your thoughts in the comment section as we get into this. Robin Dreeke, retired FBI special agent, master class instructor, right? There we go, there's.

He is with us as always. Patrick described crying on Fifth Avenue. Started crying his eyes out, he said, and no one cared. He walked out of, was it the gym or he walked out of something and he was?

Robin Dreeke (1:03)

St. Patrick's, he laid a candle for him.

Tony Brueski (1:04)

Yeah, it was at St. Patrick's. It was his first birthday, first birthday of Callan.

It was Callan's first birthday and he wanted to recognize it, celebrate it in some way. He went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, walked out and was crying. And he said, and no one cared, people kept walking by, it's the streets of New York City. And he thought, this is where I need to be. Patrick moved to New York just so he could cry on the streets and be ignored, to be amongst people, but not recognized by people, just being in the company of other human beings. There's something really profound about that, about that crowd of strangers being in it and just wanting to be left alone.

I understand, I know people who have moved to New York City and started this new life. He needed to start his life over completely, like reset 1,000% as much as he possibly could. What was your reaction to him talking about that experience in New York walking out of the cathedral?

Robin Dreeke (2:04)

You know, there's two different takes on that one, I think. You have the take where, like you said, wanted to be left alone. And when I heard the words and no one cared, I took it from the standpoint he felt alone.

And alone with his grief, alone because, I mean, seriously, and this is why I'm glad he found some groups, because who's experienced that?

It's why when people come back from war and horrendous things that you've witnessed, there's, you try to find a support group because literally you can't communicate with anyone because you have no idea what kind of experience they've been through. My take on it was when he walked out of there and he said, I felt complete and no one cared because he felt no one cared, because no one around him understands what he's been through and all the, and when you're full of hate and judgment, it's even worse. You want to talk about standing completely alone? I can't imagine where he'd be if he didn't find Rachel, because he would feel completely alone. He left where his family lives. He left that entire area. He went to a new job. I mean, because he had to leave because the pain, can you imagine the overwhelming pain of having to clean his house out? He talked about, you know, the interviewer asked him what he saves, and he saved a couple of toys, and he had the helicopter that his son had and used to play with. I mean, how do you do that? And then he felt so alone because no one cared. I mean, this is, I still can't believe, that's why I love when we'll talk to Siobhan later this week. You know, what he's been able to work through and communicate in such a healthy way at this point is pretty profound to me.

Tony Brueski (3:48)

Yeah.

I mean, New York City would be a great place to go and reset the slate as best as you can and be amongst humans, but almost be, you know, just one of so many that it allows you to have somewhat of an anonymity in that time. He admitted, there was a time where I didn't think I would see my 35th birthday and I was completely fine with it.

Robin Dreeke (4:16)

Yep.

Tony Brueski (4:16)

I think that confirmed a lot of our suspicions about where he was at because people wanted to criticize him for taking that trip. He went on a vacation. No, he went and stayed in hostels because he didn't want to stay in actual hotels around children and such around Europe and tried to get his head on straight as best as he possibly could wanting to die. I think I said early on when we learned about that. I'm like, yeah, and he probably was not necessarily planning on coming back. It sounds like he didn't know if he would be in that time period or whatever he was doing in those months and immediate year following, if he would survive. But he was able to find some grounding.