Mom’s chillingly calm phrases to her three daughters earlier than she killed them
Lauren Anne Dickason showing in court docket (Image: Handout)
A New Zealand court docket heard the sickening phrases a mom mentioned to her daughters earlier than smothering all three of them to dying.
Lauren Anne Dickason, 42, is on trial within the High Court in Christchurch after being charged with murdering her daughters – Liane, 6, and twins Maya and Karla, aged 2.
Father Graham Dickason discovered his daughters lifeless at their house in Timaru on New Zealand’s South Island on September 16, 2021.
Ms Dickason has admitted to killing her kids however denies it was homicide. Her defence claims she shouldn’t be responsible by purpose of madness.
The court docket heard on Thursday that earlier than killing them, Ms Dickason informed her daughters: “Mummy’s very sick and is going to die”.
Psychiatrist Dr Susan Hatters-Friedman, who interviewed the accused over 4 days, mentioned Ms Dickason informed her kids: “I can’t leave you behind because I don’t know who’s going to look after you.”
Dr Hatters-Friedman “literally wrote the book on how to carry out psychiatric evaluations of mothers who have killed their children”, defence lawyer Anne Toohey informed the jury yesterday.
The psychiatrist revealed the killer informed her she regularly had ideas and pictures in her thoughts about killing her kids – however informed nobody about them within the weeks earlier than they died, reported the New Zealand Herald.
She mentioned that in 2019, Dickason informed her husband: “I want to make the kids quiet.”
When requested how, she responded: “Maybe put a pillow over their heads.”
Ms Dickason informed the psychatrist she by no means supposed to do it to the youngsters and “just wanted peace and quiet for 30 minutes”.
However, she was upset when her husband reacted with anger and referred to as her mom spherical to the home.
Ms Dickason approached her husband once more – twice – about “scary” ideas of wounding the women.
The first time Graham Dickason “asked if she could promise not to hurt them”. She promised, and informed him she “had a feeling but not a plan”.
Liane, 6, with twins Maya and Karla, 2 (Image: Facebook)
But the ideas intensified in 2021, she informed the physician, saying: “An image flashed into my head of sedating the girls, putting them in bath, cutting their femoral arteries… and putting them to bed.”
As she informed her husband about this she mentioned she was “horrified” and “scared”. In response, Graham informed her to “put on your big girl panties” and pull herself collectively for him and the women, she claimed.
She additionally declined his suggestion of a psychiatric ward as it might “mess up” their plans to to migrate to New Zealand from South Africa.
When the household have been packing to depart, the youngsters have been enjoying with a packet of zip ties – bought to maintain suitcases securely closed. But Lauren informed Dr Hatters-Friedman she hid them out of worry for what she may do, after imagining them hurting the youngsters.
On the day she killed her kids, which was simply weeks after that they had moved to New Zealand, Ms Dickason felt “anxiety was eating a hole in my stomach” and he or she could not suppose straight, she informed the psychiatrist.
Her kids have been then appearing up and fighing and the mum was afraid of what she may do to them – earlier than lastly deciding she could not face any extra of it.
Her lawyer Anne Toohey mentioned her shopper was “disturbed” and struggling extreme postpartum despair, including: “All of the defence experts agree that there was an altruistic motive… That means that Lauren killed her children out of love.”
Ms Dickason’s mom Wendy Fawkes additionally gave proof on Wednesday, saying her had modified, stopped speaking and was very flat within the lead as much as the alleged murders, main her to be “extremely worried”.
The prosecution acknowledges she suffered from severe despair, however maintains she knew what she was doing when she killed her three ladies, the court docket heard.
Crown Prosecutor Andrew McRae alleged the mom was an indignant, annoyed and resented “how the children stood in the way of her relationship with her husband”, telling the court docket Ms Dickason killed her kids “methodically and purposefully, perhaps even clinically”.
On Tuesday, a police interview was performed to the court docket the place Ms Dickason mentioned she killed one among her twins first as a result of she was the “worst behaved”.
Ms Dickason mentioned Karla had been “really horrible” to her, biting and hitting her and “throwing tantrums 24 hours a day”.
The officer who performed the interview added to the court docket Ms Dickason was “polite” and “articulate”.
She smothered the women round 20 minutes after her husband left for a piece occasion.
The trial is predicted to run for at the very least one other two weeks, with consultants to talk on whether or not they imagine Ms Dickason was insane.
The trial continues.
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