The final witness in the murder trial of South African doctor Lauren Dickason told the High Court in New Zealand this week that she had thought murdering her children and killing herself would be a “happy ending” and, in contrast to an earlier witness, he believed the defence of insanity and infanticide “was available to her”.
Dickason is accused of murder after strangling and smothering Liané (6) and two-year-old twins Maya and Karla on 16 September 2021. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges, reports News24.
Last week, forensic psychiatrist Dr Simone McLeavey, testifying as a state witness and who had interviewed Dickason six days after the murders on her arrival at Hillmorton Hospital’s forensic psychiatric unit, had said that stopping her anti-depressant medication could have been a factor that prompted Dickason to kill her three daughters, and that she believed the defences of insanity and infanticide were not valid.
Yesterday, forensic psychologist Dr Ghazi Metoui, giving evidence in support of the defence, said after interviewing Dickason for around 20 hours, he believed the defence of insanity and infanticide was available to her.
Dickason had reportedly said that while the pregnancies were scary, she felt happiness and joy at the impending arrival of each child, but antidepressants were prescribed for her the day after the twins’ birth when she experienced a complication and was “hysterical” about “dying and leave the girls without a mother”.
Dickason felt isolated and “trapped” by motherhood, Metoui said, and was envious of her husband’s life away from home. She started having thoughts of harming the children, and when she shared these with her husband, he reacted with anger. Dickason felt “immense shame and guilt”.
She told Metoui her first thoughts of harming the children were when the twins were six months old.
The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated her depression and anxiety and she embarked on a health and wellness programme. By early 2021 she “felt the best … in years” and “subsequently decided to stop her antidepressants”, said Metoui.
She did this without consulting her doctor, added Metoui, and believed being off her antidepressants would be seen more favourably by the New Zealand immigration authorities.
Metoui said in the lead-up to the day of the children’s deaths, she had felt “miserable” and “lost” after moving to Timaru.
When her husband noticed her crying the night before the murder, she told him she was feeling overwhelmed. She said she wanted the children to go away so the couple could talk, but he became angry and said the children were not going to go away.
On the day of the murder, a request from New Zealand Immigration for psychiatrist reports on her depression concerned her, and she felt her mental health status would “entirely derail” the family’s immigration efforts.
She said her thoughts of harming the children returned.
After giving the girls dinner, she had gone to the garage and noticed cable ties her husband had bought earlier.
“Those feelings … came back. I felt terrified, out of control.”
Shortly after her husband left for dinner with colleagues, Dickason decide she was going to “end everything”.
“I wanted to die and take them with me, I didn’t want to leave them behind. I loved them too much.”
Dickason told Metoui her mind constantly wavered between thinking she’d done the right thing and feeling tremendous regret.
She said the murders and her attempted suicide were “supposed to be a happy ending”.
Last week, in earlier testimony, McLeavey said Dickason was probably suffering from a continuation of her already existing major depressive disorder, with postpartum onset at the time of the killings.
McLeavey said there was evidence of remission from the postpartum depression in early 2021 – around the time Dickason stopped taking anti-depressants – but that the drugs were vital for the treatment of depression, and discontinuing them may have “led to the breakdown she was trying to avoid”.
She said she did not believe Dickason was incapable of understanding the nature of her actions.
“She intended for the victims to die and was aware her actions could result in the deaths,” said McLeavey. “I am of the opinion she would not be eligible for an insanity defence.”
There was no indication Dickason killed her children “out of love” but that it was a manifestation of “control” and may have been premeditated, she added. She believed Dickason had a negative distortion of reality but not to the extent of psychosis.
The defence’s expert, forensic psychiatrist Dr Justin Barry-Walsh, told the court he had previously assessed individuals charged with filicide – the killing of a child by a parent – and believed both defences of insanity and infanticide were available to Dickason.
In his experience, people with depression “hide their symptoms” at times, and that during their interviews, Dickason “conveyed a sense of hopelessness” and cried most of the time.
Dickason reportedly told him that it was only when charge sheets were brought into her hospital room after the murders that she realised she had killed them.
She reportedly said the move to New Zealand had been “the biggest mistake they’d made”.
The trial continues.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
No evidence of insanity when Dickason killed children, court hears
Dickason’s mother testifies in New Zealand murder trial
Doctor who killed children diagnosed with post-partum depression, court hears