Lauren Dickason trial: Killer mum ‘clearly distraught and depressed’ after deaths of daughters but psych expert firm she was not ‘insane’

WARNING: This story contains graphic and sensitive content.

The trial for Lauren Dickason is now in its 13th day and the jury continues to hear evidence from psychiatric experts about the accused murderer’s state of mind in the lead-up to the day she killed her three little girls.

The expert evidence - which is extremely detailed - is expected to continue for most of this week.

Dickason allegedly murdered Liane, 6, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla at their Timaru home in September 2021 shortly after the family emigrated from Pretoria, South Africa.

The 42-year-old admits to killing the girls but pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and has mounted a defence of insanity or infanticide.

Today marks day 13 of her trial in the High Court at Christchurch before Justice Cameron Mander and a jury.

Lauren Anne Dickason appears in court on the first day of her two-week trial for the murder of her three children.

So far extensive evidence has been presented about Dickason’s life - her upbringing, marriage, the gruelling fertility treatment she underwent to have children and her long battle with anxiety and depression.

Expert witnesses are now being called.

The jury will hear from five psychiatric experts - two for the Crown and three for the defence - who have been tasked with giving formal opinions on whether Dickason was insane at the time of the alleged murders and if this is a case of infanticide.

On Friday forensic and reproductive psychiatrist Dr Susan Hatters-Friedman gave evidence supporting the defence.

After assessing Dickason and her case she concluded that there was a clear example of an altruistic motive - where a parent kills “out of love” rather than out of anger or hate.

She believed Dickason was “severely depressed and had developed psychotic thinking.

“It is my opinion that at the time of her alleged offending Lauren Dickason was labouring under a disease of the mind to such an extent that it rendered her incapable of knowing that the act was morally wrong,” she opined.

“She conceptualised that [killing the children] was the right thing to do.”

Dickason allegedly killed 6-year-old Liané, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla at their Timaru home on September 16.

The jury then heard from Dr Erik Monasterio, an expert supporting the Crown case.

He said there was no doubt that Dickason had a mental illness but it did not extend far enough for her to have a defence of insanity or infanticide.

Further, he found there was no evidence of an altruistic motive and it was more likely that Dickason killed out of “anger and frustration.

“She systematically strangled the children and seemingly methodically checked for vital signs before resorting to smothering them until they were dead,” he said.

“The alleged offences are unlikely to have been impulsive.

“In my opinion, as the defendant maintained awareness and behaved systematically, there is no evidence that she was in an automat state or that she did not understand the nature and quality of her actions at the material time.”

Monasterio said given Dickason had battled depression since she was 15 she could not claim her “disase of the mind” was connected to childbirth, thus removing infanticide as a defence.

“She had a history of these symptoms before pregnancy… the depressive disorder… occurred well before the defendant’s pregnancy… the depression was already there before she gave birth so it cannot be called postpartum,” he said.

“It is likely that the effects of pregnancy and adaptation to the demands of motherhood and the care of three young children contributed too - but did not fully account for the defendant’s major depressive disorder at the time of the children’s birth.

“There is no evidence the defendant has an infanticide defence available.”

Justice Cameron Mander. Photo / NZME

Defence lawyer Anne Toohey has been cross-examining Monasterio since yesterday, grilling him on the information he used to come to his conclusion.

She has put a number of points to him suggesting his opinion is not accurate.

Monasterio said his evidence was a view based on the information he had analysed and his interviews with Dickason.

He said his view was “not definitive.

“The definitive view sits with the jury,” he said.

He agreed Dickason was “clearly distraught and depressed” after she killed her children - as seen in her video interview with police.

However he was firm in his conclusion.

Dickason ‘distressed’ after meetings with Monasterio - defence question claims of ‘good rapport’

Toohey put to Monasterio that the accused was distressed after her sessions with him and grilled him about the process.

She was on 24-hour suicide watch at Hillmorton Hospital at the time- meaning a nurse was monitoring her every minute of the day including while she was sleeping.

Regular notes were taken on Dickason’s condition and comments made to staff.

Clinical notes provided to the court showed after the first interview she was “subsequently briefly tearful and anxious” and requested medication to calm her down.

Monasterio said that was to be expected given the nature of their meeting and the things discussed.

After the second visit, Dickason was noted to be upset but “not to the level of being distraught (or) anguish” but told staff Monasterio “pushed me very hard on small details”.

“I have never talked that much in my life,” Dickason told staff, adding her throat was sore as a result.

“Tears were close to the surface,” the clinical notes said.

Staff noted that following the third session Dickason was “tearful and distressed after interview”.

Monasterio told Toohey that “context is everything” and he believed Dickason was upset about the content of their discussions rather than the discussions themselves.

“Those interviews were to carefully assess what had happened -

“I would expect a defendant facing those types of charges… to be distraught and distressed and that is what has happened here,” he told the court.

Family thought to be at the centre of a fatal shooting in Timaru today. Graham and Lauren Dickason's daughters Liane, Maya and Karla (twins) believed to have died at the address in Queen Street Timaru Photo/Supplied Facebook accounts

He said he regularly asked Dickason if she was coping.

“She advised me it was ok,” he said.

“Obviously, it was a challenging situation… those feelings after are entirely what you would expect.”

Toohey put to Monasterio that he did not have “good rapport” with Dickason, based on notes following their fourth meeting.

She had wanted to speak further to Monasterio as her “thought processes have become more clear” since their last session.

While earlier she was “unable to comprehend what had actually happened” she now had more clarity and wanted to share more about the killings with him.

After the interview she was distressed and told staff she “felt like a liar” and that she was “adamant she had not changed story”.

Monasterio acknowledged the process would have been “confronting” but maintained Dickason disclosed information at the fourth interview that she had previously “denied”.

He told the jury Dickason engaged willingly with her and he felt she was comfortable with him.

She never opted to stop interviews and he did not consider at any time she had any issues about the interviews or his process.

“I have put facts before the court and how those are interpreted will eventually be a matter for the jury,” he said.

Toohey accused Monasterio of being biased towards Dickason - that he disliked her personally and that influenced his findings.

She noted he had made comments about her being a person of “privilege coming to a place of less privilege” and had been “quite critical” of the accused.

“You just don’t like her, do you?” Toohey said.

“I disagree,” said Monasterio, explaining that every comment he made about Dickason was part of his analysis of whether she was insane at the time of the killings.

His evidence continues.

The King v Lauren Anne Dickason - the trial so far:

Lauren Anne Dickason is on trial in the High Court at Christchurch before Justice Cameron Mander and a jury of eight women and four men.

The Crown alleges Dickason murdered the children in a “calculated” way because she was frustrated, angry and resentful of them.

Graham and Lauren Dickason with their children before the triple homicide. Photo / Supplied

It acknowledges Dickason suffered from sometimes-serious depression, it maintains she knew what she was doing when she killed the girls.

Last week, Crown Prosecutor Andrew McRae alleged Dickason was an angry and frustrated woman who was “resentful of how the children stood in the way of her relationship with her husband” and killed them “methodically and purposefully, perhaps even clinically”.

The defence says Dickason was a severely mentally disturbed woman in the depths of postpartum depression and did not know the act of killing the children was morally wrong at the time of their deaths.

Further, it says she was “in such a dark place” she had decided to kill herself and felt “it was the right thing to do” to “take the girls with her”.

The trial is expected to run for at least another week.