Lauren Dickason told New Zealand police the day after killing her three children that she had been “thinking about it” for a while, that she had not “felt normal” for months and that “something just snapped” in her.
Her tearful confession video was played to the court in Christchurch on Tuesday where Dickason is charged with murdering Liané, 6, and twins Karla and Maya, 2, on September 16 2021, less than a month after they emigrated to New Zealand from Pretoria.
The former orthopaedic doctor has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity or infanticide. Under New Zealand law, “infanticide” is a crime similar to culpable homicide and can be invoked by women who argue their minds were temporarily “disturbed”. The maximum prison term is three years.
The Otago Daily Times and New Zealand Herald quote her telling police: “Last night something just triggered me ... so now I have three dead kids.”
She tried to end her own life after the triple murder, saying the stress of emigration had worsened her long-standing problem with depression.
On what happened before strangling and smothering the children, Dickason told detectives: “The kids were being wild again, jumping on the couches, not listening to what I’m trying to tell them ...
“I have been thinking about it for sure ... last night something just triggered me. I went to the garage, I saw some cable ties there. I thought that could possibly work.”
'I snapped, now I have three dead kids': Lauren Dickason's confession
Lauren Dickason told New Zealand police the day after killing her three children that she had been “thinking about it” for a while, that she had not “felt normal” for months and that “something just snapped” in her.
Her tearful confession video was played to the court in Christchurch on Tuesday where Dickason is charged with murdering Liané, 6, and twins Karla and Maya, 2, on September 16 2021, less than a month after they emigrated to New Zealand from Pretoria.
The former orthopaedic doctor has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity or infanticide. Under New Zealand law, “infanticide” is a crime similar to culpable homicide and can be invoked by women who argue their minds were temporarily “disturbed”. The maximum prison term is three years.
The Otago Daily Times and New Zealand Herald quote her telling police: “Last night something just triggered me ... so now I have three dead kids.”
She tried to end her own life after the triple murder, saying the stress of emigration had worsened her long-standing problem with depression.
On what happened before strangling and smothering the children, Dickason told detectives: “The kids were being wild again, jumping on the couches, not listening to what I’m trying to tell them ...
“I have been thinking about it for sure ... last night something just triggered me. I went to the garage, I saw some cable ties there. I thought that could possibly work.”
She took them into one of the bedrooms and put the cable ties on them, pretending they were making necklaces, according to earlier testimony in the trial. When the attempt at strangulation failed, she suffocated them.
Dickason explained that she killed Karla first, then her eldest child followed by the second twin.
“The first one was being really, really, really horrible to me lately,” she told police. “She has been biting me and hitting me and scratching me and throwing tantrums 24 hours a day — and I just don’t know how to manage that. That is why I did her first.”
Dickason told police once she knew the girls were dead she “tucked them up” into their beds, pulling their blankets over their heads.
“Then I decided I had to do something with myself ... and I ran through the house and none of the knives were sharp and then I just started drinking my medication that I could find. I wanted to die.”
The trial continues.
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