Mother Found Guilty For Killing Her Two -Year Old Twins, Their Six -Years- Old Sister; Faces Life Sentence

By Babatunde Solanke

A Court in New Zealand has found a South African woman, Lauren Anne Dickason, guilty on Wednesday, August 16, 2023, for  murdering her three young daughters , saying she faced a life sentence for each killing.

Dickason killed her two-year-old twins and their six-year-old sister in September 2021 at their home in Timaru, a city on the South Island, about a month after the family had migrated from South Africa.

Local media reported that a majority verdict by a jury of eight women and four men said Dickason was not insane at the time of the killings and was guilty of murder, following a month-long high court trial in the city of Christchurch.

Her husband Graham had found the three children dead and his wife in a serious condition upon arriving home after a dinner with colleagues, the report said.

The prosecution said Dickason knew when she killed her daughters that what she was doing was morally wrong and the act was murder, it added.

Some of the jury were heard crying as they left the courtroom, the media report said.

The judge, Cameron Mander, remanded Dickason to custody in a hospital psychiatric unit until her sentencing.