A 42-year-old mother who allegedly killed all of her three children sent chilling text messages about them, reports reveal.
Lauren Anne Dickason is currently on trial in the High Court in Christchurch after her children – Liane, 6, and twins Karla and Maya, 2, were all found dead at their family home in New Zealand.
The mother admitted to killing her daughters but denied it was murder, with her defense claiming she was not guilty by reason of insanity.
According to the New Zealand Herald, the court heard disturbing messages that revealed how the mother felt frustrated about her three daughters.
Messages from 2016 to hours before her children were killed were also read out during the hearing.
One message read: “Liane … kept me awake until 3am but I sent her to school otherwise I would strangle her. She moans all the f***ing time.”
In another text, Dickason said that she and her husband Graham decided “that our children will not abuse and scream at us and hit us any further.”
“From one on they will get hidings and all their nice things will be held back until they start showing some respect,” she said.
“Tonight they threw corn at me and said the meat is disgusting. Then they hit me when I told them off. Maybe the twins are just in terrible twos but f***, they are going to kill me. I was so angry tonight, I was shaking.”
Another text read: “(The kids) sniff me out wherever I go and if they can’t find me they start screaming hysterically.”
Dickason also said that her children ‘really tire me out physically and emotionally.’
In another text, Dickason said she needed ‘help with learning to cope with motherhood.’
The Crown recognized that the mother suffered from depression but insisted she knew what she was doing when she took the lives of her children.
However, the defense argued and said the mother of ‘very unwell’ and no one recognized it ‘until it was too late.’
Her lawyer, Kerryn Beaton KC, told the jury: “This tragic event happened because Lauren was in such a dark place so removed from reality, so suicidal, so disordered in her thinking that when she decided to kill herself that night, she thought she had to take the girls with her.”
The trial continues.
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