Andrew McGinley has spoken out against online conspiracists who are linking his estranged wife’s 2020 killing of their three children to the Lindsay Clancy case in Massachusetts.
McGinley, 58, told the Irish Mirror that social media users have been drawing comparisons between Deirdre Morley and Clancy, often just to stir controversy and gain attention. “A lot of people online are comparing the two cases and people have made comments about Deirdre, the kids and me,” he said. “They’re often just doing it just to be controversial and get a handful of likes.”
The Dublin father said he recognized a painful pattern in how the public has treated both families. “I empathize with them both in that people are choosing sides. That’s what happened in our case,” he continued. “People are speculating and posting lies online. It’s just not right. The facts are the facts.”
McGinley’s remarks come as Patrick Clancy, husband of the Massachusetts mother who killed her three children in January 2023, faces his own wave of online harassment. One Facebook user made an unfounded claim suggesting Patrick Clancy might have studied the Morley case and attempted to “recreate” it, according to the coverage.
Patrick Clancy’s attorney, Howard Cooper, has forcefully pushed back against what he called an “escalating campaign of misinformation.” In a statement to Boston 25 News, Cooper said, “This campaign, now fueled by insatiable media coverage, remains at a fever pitch and has resulted in real-life threats to his reputation, livelihood, and life,” He added, “Enough is enough — this spread of blatant and baseless falsehoods must stop.”
The timing and parallels between the two cases have fueled the online speculation. Morley, a 44-year-old pediatric nurse, smothered her three children with duct tape and plastic bags on Jan. 24, 2020. Three years later to the day, Clancy, a 36-year-old labor and delivery nurse, strangled her three children before attempting suicide through pills, wrist and neck cuts, and a jump from a second-story window.
Both women had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, according to psychiatric testimony. Both had filed lawsuits against their health-care providers. Both had two sons and a daughter whose first names shared the same initials — Morley’s children were Conor, 9, Darragh, 7, and Carla, 3, while Clancy’s were Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months.
The outcomes of their legal cases diverged sharply. A Dublin jury of 10 men and two women found Morley not guilty by reason of insanity after four and a half hours of deliberation in 2021. Clancy’s case proceeded through the Massachusetts criminal justice system on different terms.
Morley had struggled with depression for roughly a decade by the time of the killings and had spent at least a year seeking psychiatric help, according to the coverage. She told police she believed she had “irreparably damaged” her children and needed to end their suffering. “They were broken like me because I couldn’t parent them. I couldn’t be resilient,” she told investigators. “The feelings intensified that I needed to go.”
The night before the killings, Morley had crushed more than six morphine tablets into her sons’ cereal in an unsuccessful attempt to kill them. She told psychiatrists she felt “relieved” when they spat out the poisoned food.
The following day, she described a moment when “something clicked” while she was with her son Darragh. “I could do it now … I could smother him now,” she recalled thinking, according to the Irish Times. She put thick brown tape over the 7-year-old’s mouth, placed a bag over his head, and put a cushion on top. After killing him, she decided she “couldn’t leave any of them behind” and repeated the method with 3-year-old Carla, even holding the girl’s nose when she detected breathing.
Morley then collected her oldest child from school at lunchtime and proposed a “game” involving tape over his mouth. “Stop, mammy,” Conor, 9, said as she twisted a plastic bag over his head. “I’m sorry, Conor,” she told him, later stating she felt unable to stop herself.
After the killings, she packed pills and wine and left home after 4 p.m. Intending to die by suicide before her husband returned from a work trip. A car crash foiled the plan, and a passerby drove her home.
McGinley has channeled his grief into advocacy, telling an Irish podcast last year that while he had considered selling everything to work in a Caribbean “beach bar,” he felt compelled to work toward change. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try and make changes that could help protect children in the future,” he said.
His feelings toward Morley remain raw. “As a woman that I loved up until the 24th of January, 2020, I now hate the fact that I have to breathe the same air as her,” he told the Irish Times. “That’s not a nice thing to say, but that’s how I’ve been left feeling.”
Morley remains at Dublin’s Central Mental Hospital, though she was granted day leave privileges in early 2025, according to the Irish Times. Her lawsuit against her health-care provider is still pending.
The Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the Clancy case, did not respond to questions about whether the Massachusetts killings could have been a copycat crime or mere coincidence. Clancy’s internet search history presented at trial showed no searches for the Morley case.