WARNING: This story contains graphic and sensitive content.
Murder. Infanticide. Insanity.
In just two days the jury in the triple murder trial for Lauren Dickason will be sent out to deliberate and will make a decision on her fate.
Did she murder her three little girls out of frustration and anger and a need to have control over her family?
Was she so mentally disturbed as a result of becoming a mother that she has a partial defence of infanticide?
Or was she so severely depressed, delusional and psychotic that she is not guilty by reason of insanity?
Dickason, 42, admits smothering Liane, 6, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla - to death at their Timaru home in September 2021.
But she denies it was murder.
The trial began on July 17 and over the past four weeks a jury of eight women and four men have heard extensive evidence about Dickason’s life before and after she and her family emigrated to New Zealand from South Africa a month before the children died.
Dickason’s actions on the day of the alleged murders were canvassed at length along with her lifelong battle with a major depressive disorder, her gruelling fertility journey including at least 16 rounds of IVF and the loss of a baby early in a pregnancy, and her struggles with motherhood.
Yesterday the jury heard final closing addresses from the Crown and defence.
Prosecutor Andrew McRae said it was “clear” Dickason murdered her three little girls out of anger and her “need for control” over her family.
And while she was “significantly unwell” with depression, her condition was not bad enough for her to have a defence of insanity or infanticide.
“She ought to still be held fully responsible for what she’s done,” he said.
“She was significantly unwell with depression … but she wasn’t so unwell she has a medical defence available to her.
“On the contrary … her actions are explained by two primary drivers - her anger at her children’s behaviour and her need for control - in that isolated moment, there was a loss of control in the context of the situation she was in.
“Once she started doing what she was doing to the girls there was no turning back.”
“The Crown say she was not insane … she was not so unwell she did not know her actions were morally wrong.”
McRae said the jury should be “sceptical” of Dickason’s claims she killed the girls because she did not want to “leave them behind” when she committed suicide.
“It was an act done out of anger as a consequence of the children’s behaviour at the time,” McRae told the court.
“The defendant knew … she was going to kill them, she knew the nature of the act, she knew the consequence… and she proceeded regardless.”
“The Crown accept that Mrs Dickason was unwell … but what happened here was a perfect storm… that caused her to snap.
“The inevitable conclusion is that the medical defence is not available - and as hard as it might be the only verdict available is guilty murder... it is clear.
“You will be sure.”
Dickason’s lawyer Kerryn Beaton KC said her client admitted the “horrific and shocking” facts of the case - but there is no way her actions were murder.
Rather, they were the actions of a deeply unwell woman who could not bear to live another day and decided to die - and to “protect” her children, decided to take them with her.
“Her beautiful girls, who she loved so much… the deaths don’t have anything to with anger or resentment - and have everything to do with what was a severe mental illness,” said Beaton.
She acknowledged that the jury had heard “harrowing” details and the trial was “a very hard case”.
“The Crown told you that… this is about anger and about control - and not about a medical defence, not about mental illness.
“But mothers don’t kill their children the way that Lauren did just because they’re angry or resentful or stressed.
“We have all been angry, resentful, stressed and anxious ourselves. They are normal human emotions and responses but we haven’t gone and done anything remotely like what Lauren did - let alone in such a violent and harrowing way.”
Beaton said there was one reason Dickason killed the girls - because she “was experiencing a major episode severity that not only did she think she had to kill herself, but she had to take her girls with her.”
Dickason “knew she was struggling” leading up to the family’s emigration to New Zealand, Beaton said.
“And she knew when she got here that she was unwell… She was severely unwell by the 16th of September, 2021 and the people close to Lauren knew… but they didn’t recognise it for what it was.
“They thought pushing through… was the answer, that coming to New Zealand would reduce the stress on Lauren and things would get better, but they didn’t.
“Coming to New Zealand did not fix anything for Lauren… she was so unwell. Things were so dark for her.”
Beaton said Dickason’s depression was undeniably connected to having children.
She also said her client had given honest and open accounts of what happened - to every expert, doctor, police officer who asked.
“Lauren had been severely depressed… she attempted to kill herself in the same incident as killing her children - that was out of love for her children and her depressed and psychotic state.
“She saw this filicide/suicide as a way out for her and for the children. She didn’t want to leave the children behind… and she believed in her depressed state also that her children were a burden on her husband, that they’d all be better off (dead).
“Of course, this isn’t true and it’s completely awful, but Lauren Dickason was so convinced of this.”
The trial continues.
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