WARNING: This post contains content that may upset some readers.
Disturbing details about the deaths of little Liané (6), Maya and Karla Dickason (both 2) in September 2021 were heard this week in the High Court in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Lauren Dickason’s legal team this week called several witnesses, including her mother and a respected forensic psychiatrist, in an attempt to convince the jury that Dickason killed her children “out of love”.
According to these witnesses, Dickason loved her children immensely, but she suffered from a severe mental disorder; a mental disorder that meant Dickason didn’t realize what she was doing to her children was morally wrong, psychiatrist dr. Susan Hatters-Friedman testifies.
The jury would also hear from Hatters-Friedman about Dickason’s last conversations with her little girls and how she ended up killing them.
It has come to light that little Karla was killed first on the fateful night of September 16, 2021. After the children’s deaths, Dickason admitted to the police that she “did Karla first” because the little girl was “really horrible” to her at that stage.
Karla reportedly bit and scratched her mother.
Dickason also explained to the police that Liané “didn’t have ears”.
According to Dickason, Liané was “angry” on the night in question, while Dickason initially tried to kill her and her sisters with cable ties. The children were later suffocated.
“She was very angry and wanted to know why I was doing this to them because I’m the best mom and she loves me,” Dickason said, according to police.
However, that evening Dickason explained to the children why she was killing them. “Mum is very sick and going to die. I can’t leave you behind, because I don’t know who will look after you.”
Dickason told Hatters-Friedman during an interview that she initially wanted to kill herself with the cable ties, but then saw with the children how long it took. She then tried to take her own life with a knife, but it was too blunt. After this she drank the first medication she could lay her hands on.
Dickason pulled sheets over the girls’ faces because she didn’t want her or her husband, Graham, to see them.
Dickason later woke up in hospital and would later admit to Hatters-Friedman that it was “hell” and confusing because she wasn’t supposed to wake up again
The jury also heard that in the run-up to her three children’s deaths, Dickason often had dark thoughts and even images in her head about killing her children.
Nevertheless, Hatters-Friedman maintained in her testimony this week that the children’s deaths were not pre-planned and infanticide (infanticide) due to the serious mental disorder Dickason was suffering from at that stage.
New Zealand law defines infanticide as the killing of children up to the age of ten. It regards infanticide as a much lesser crime than murder – with a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
However, the state believes it was calculated and pre-planned.
State prosecutor Andrew McRae hinted during his cross-examination of Hatters-Friedman that Dickason may have killed the girls to take revenge on Graham.
The court already heard during the first week of the trial that shortly after the murder, Graham told a colleague and his wife that Dickason had killed the children “to hurt him”.
Hatters-Friedman disagreed with this.
“He was in shock, his children had just been killed.”
The trial resumes on Monday.
Source: The information about the trial is used in terms of an agreement with Stuff Limited.
