Patrick Clancy’s Remarriage Triggered What Backlash?

Tony Brueski (0:01)

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

Tony Brueski (0:08)

Outside the courtroom, there has been an ugly spectacle playing out around Patrick Clancy and the LindsayClancy case. The man moved to New York, remarried, and has tried to put one foot in front of the other. Instead of letting him heal, the Internet has turned into a mob, snapping photos of him on the street, tracking his personal life, and furious that he isn't publicly mourning the right way. Let's talk about this weird, aggressive urge people have to police the surviving father's grief. To do that, Robin Dreeke is with me, retired FBI special agent, chief of the counterintelligence behavioral analysis. Oh, I'm getting word.

We might actually have another.

Robin Dreeke (0:51)

We have more of Kevin on the steps of the courthouse.

Robin Dreeke (0:55)

Why did it go his way?

Robin Dreeke (0:57)

Oh my gosh.

Tony Brueski (0:58)

Here he is again. He's looks like he's racing.

Robin Dreeke (1:04)

He's trying to to bring all that. So look at that ring of fire.

Robin Dreeke (1:20)

Tony, I'd love to say that you have too much time on your hands, but how much content you put out so you don't.

Tony Brueski (1:26)

Can I please host that game show? Please.

Robin Dreeke (1:28)

Can I host that?

Robin Dreeke (1:29)

Yes, he took the physical challenge. Let's watch that again. Here we go. Here we go.

Tony Brueski (1:38)

Mark Summers is a magically also de-aged. Mark is back to being about 28

Robin Dreeke (1:44)

You know, you should have done, it's having getting off his Harley to do it.

Robin Dreeke (1:47)

Yeah. It's Kevin.

Tony Brueski (1:53)

He's making it through.

Robin Dreeke (1:55)

Freaking AI is scaring it. Here we go. He'd like to bring it fire.

Tony Brueski (2:04)

I'd love to see Kevin Reddington do the moonwalk. Just so if you ever want to work on something, have him do like a Michael Jackson dance or something.

Robin Dreeke (2:11)

As he hops off his Harley, because I still think that Harley is part of who he is.

Robin Dreeke (2:15)

Oh, my goodness.

Robin Dreeke (2:17)

So yeah, the Patrick question.

Tony Brueski (2:19)

Yeah. So, I mean, people have literally taken creep shots of this guy getting coffee in Manhattan and posted them online with captions.

Look at him. He doesn't even care about his babies in the dry. I mean, shit like that. I mean, when did true crime fandom cross the line into thinking we have the right to stalk a surviving parent and grade his pain?

Robin Dreeke (2:47)

So we've covered this a lot with Siobhan, and there's a lot of things that play into this, his courtroom demeanor, the fact that he got married three years, and so we've been talking about, well, how long is too long to grieve? We have all these little data points, but I've been really thinking hard about this, and that's because as you all know, Tony Todd and Lisa, I had a clip that came out on Lisa Belou's Women of Influence podcast that was talking about how Patrick stood with Lindsay, the family stood with Lindsay, co-workers stood with Lindsay, and I got absolutely eviscerated for saying the words, Patrick stood with Lindsay.

I thought about this and trying to understand why, because when I said stood with Lindsay or stands with Lindsay, I meant that he supported her and the psychotic break because he was part of her life and he knows that wasn't her. That's the intent of my message. But the word stood with Lindsay. That's what got played on. That's what people are hammering. So when I thought about that, I said, why were those words so triggering?

And when you take that optic back, here's what I really, really think this is about. And all these other data points too. But one of the major data points is human beings, we pick up on creepy. And when people make us feel creepy, we have a visceral reaction to it. We don't know why, but just make us feel creepy. Years ago, I looked at what makes us feel creepy. It's incongruence between what we see and what we expect from a baseline. And so I've been focusing on Patrick's behavior in there and how it was him grieving. Siobhan said the same thing, he's got walls up. Can you imagine the survivor guilt he has and all these other things that played into how he's trying to cope and move on with his life. But what I really think was when people were hammering me for saying he stood with Lindsay, it doesn't look like he stands with Lindsay. And what I mean is, what I think people are picking up on, and I get it now, I don't think it makes any sense, but here's what it is. Everyone else that I've mentioned that we're saying is on Lindsay's side, where are all of them?