We all wanted to believe Lauren Dickason was criminally insane when she murdered her own 3 children.
We simply could not imagine any scenario where a mother would willingly murder her own kids based on anything less than insanity.
The problem is, I simply never believed the defence managed to get even close to criminal insanity.
Yes she was depressed, yes she was having a hard time in a new country, yes it was extra stressful because of Covid but none of that even gets close to criminal insanity!
Criminal Insanity is an absolutely credible and righteous legal defence whereby a person can not tell the difference between right or wrong, where their logical functions as a rational human being have been severed from reality, and Lauren feeling depressed and sad sad doesn’t even get close to that psychological state.
She wasn’t hearing voices or seeing things that didn’t exist, she wasn’t disconnected from reality, Jesus wept, she was justifying the order of murder because the youngest one was ‘playing up’.
The Jury didn’t even give her infanticide, they sat there, watched her, breathed the same air as her and viewed the evidence and watched her as it was viewed and determined guilt.
In an age of subjective rage where ‘lived experience’ trumps objectivity, we have lulled ourselves into a micro aggression trigger culture where if we feel it, that’s all that matters, luckily for the justice of her children she murdered, that shit don’t fly in Court.
In our attempt to destigmatize depression, we have put mental health on a pedestal and treated it as some great victory of human experience that should be celebrated.
Lauren Dickason believed we would be sympathetic to her for murdering her children, she believed we should have felt sorry for her, she believed her experience trumped all else.
It didn’t.
The manner in which she strangled and suffocated her children to death, the time it would have taken to complete this, the way her eldest begged her and told her she was a good mummy – Lauren spent a lot of time ensuring her children died, she didn’t really put that level of determination into killing herself.
We all understand a moment of snapping, we can comprehend a psychotic episode where an individual can’t tell the difference between right and wrong and we build law that accepts and provides a defence to this part of human nature, but depression and feeling sad sad doesn’t allow carte blanche homicide.
She is looking at a prison sentence of between 25-30 years because the repugnance of her crimes requires a sentence the community accepts.
What a dreadful, awful and painful crime for everyone involved.
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Martyn – Why do I believe this verdict will be overturned within a few years?
Because you are Nathan.
Richard Christie – Solid answer
It appears that her sense of normality was completely maladjusted for a long time, and what amounts for pleas for help when she had expressed her ideation of killing her children to her husband more than once before was ignored and not seen to be the ticking time bomb it actually was. He clearly didn’t think she would/ could follow through and that her self medication would solve the problem, that moving to NZ would also help change her/ their reality. You could say her illness had developed from severe depression to a state of criminal insanity that was her reality for a long time and it wasn’t taken or understood to be the serious condition it was. The strain of the proces of immigration, combined with two weeks of hell in quarantine with children who were already driving her up the wall, resulted in her following through with her ideation of killing them after the grim reality of a depressing existence in Timaru confirmed her fears that moving to NZ was a big mistake. It must’ve seemed like the only way out, when she snapped and couldn’t take it any more, one week after the insane stress of quarantine, which for this deeply sick woman obviously had sent her right over the edge. That she didn’t manage to kill herself doesn’t mean that killing her children wasn’t a completely insane thing for her to do. Her long illness wasn’t taken seriously enough and once it developed into confessed/confided murderous ideations to her husband and she actually began to physically research how to do it, she should have been hospitalized and the children immediately removed from her care. Instead they chose to move to NZ.
Lone Comet. Many of us felt relief when we heard this verdict. At the same time, few of us are in the position to decide who is insane, and who isn’t.
In this country we are accustomed to men killing babies and children, without ever questioning their sanity. No man has experienced the anguish of being unable to conceive, experienced IVF and the effects of concomitant rounds of hormones, being the primary caregiver of littlies, including one with medical challenges, which seems to be the case here, with dad away weekends on hunting trips with his mates, out for dinner that night. Living in troubled Sth Africa.
We know nothing, and nor do men always listen. One whose wife overdosed, said he didn’t believe her when she said she was suicidal because she was so stressed, saying that she had ‘no reason to be stressed.’ Another told a suicidal wife, that she wouldn’t have the guts to commit suicide. I would expect there to be an appeal, because I doubt that normal mothers kill their children, or are murderers. If psychiatrists can’t agree, then non-experts are in no position to lay down the law, such as it is.
You have hit the nail on the head HoV about non experts of mental health having to give judgement, very apparent from people’s thinking here who can’t understand that the trial was to establish if she was a sane or insane murderer . think this was a very wrong conclusion of a jury who are not equiped to evaluate a complex murder trial like this. It was not the right judgement in my opinion, but very hard to get past her crazy logic to kill innocent children, her own that she went through gruelling IVF to have. Who knows if she really wanted them or was pressured by her husband and society – the king/queen/ princess teeshirt speak volumes and clearly she wasn’t equipped for the pressure
of parenthood because of her seemingly life long illness.
NZ has shocking stats on child murder, killed violently by disturbed uncontrollably angry men in the main. But this women, without a shadow of a doubt for me, based on just what I read in the papers, was not a murderer by overture of insanity. It’s too bad her husband peeled off back to SA when he should have been helping the jury understand what he clearly knew about his wife.
This lady also had at least one late miscarriage, over 20+ weeks, another uniquely female experience which can have long lasting effects; we have miscarriage support groups now. Such a miscarriage can be incredibly physically painful, like a very elongated labour. Mine were. If preceded by medically advised bed rest, there’s a melee of emotions happening, which men do not always relate well to. They’d been in Timaru barely a week, in a horrid industrial-looking habitat, and any emigration, even a wanted or welcome one, can be massively and unexpectedly clobbering. It does look as if the immigration itself was ill-advised if the mother already had a challenging mental health history and ongoing behavioural issues with the kiddies. All in all, it is so sad. Her reaction in the park, or the botanical gardens that day, sounded like a twilight zone experience. She’d lost her already fragile moorings. Prefer not to comment on her husband, he’s now been subjected to a catastrophic experience too.
I agree with the verdict while also acknowledging that she had issues. Many people have issues but they do not kill 3 of their young children (or anyone else) so while I believe her ultimate future is a matter for her & God (He is more forgiving than most people) she has to receive whatever society deems appropriate. I find it hard to believe that if she had been in a good marriage that the deaths would have happened & I get the impression that her husband did not understand her issues.
Lone Comet. This has been a tragic case. She didn’t like NZ from the word go. She complained about everything. One wonders what her reality was like back in South Africa .Why did they come to NZ in the first place and to small town NZ . Also coming in the middle of a pandemic wouldn’t have helped. Those jurors deserve a medal, the case was harrowing and lets not forget the jurors are ordinary “joe public”. There is a misconception that mentally ill people do harm to other people, the vast majority only hurt themselves. Hindsight is a wonderful thing after the event. This criminal act will have changed their family’s lives forever. RIP little ones.
Excellent Comment.
No normal mothers do not kill their children. But there is a real lack of understanding about the stresses of motherhood particularly with new borns.
The complaints about the accommodation, Timaru and other things, she sounded like a spoilt bitch… but whose idea was it to come here where she had no support systems and her husband and parents knew she was really unwell before they left.
Back in SA she had home help, often home help means a nanny someone who is constantly there helping.
I am horrified at the idea that this woman is going to prison for 20 plus years. Tell me the point of that, who will that appease exactly, what will it serve… will she murder someone else NO, will she be saner when she comes out, I doubt it, will she commit suicide, quite likely.
One more point, having a depressive illness to the extent it had developed in her means she was only able to see life from the crushing reality of her illness. Her daughter even knew that as she was trying to comfort her mother while she was killing her. Utterly tragic. I hope that this decision is overturned, although her life must be a living nightmare forever, no matter what happens to her
11 out of 12 random laymen found her guilty because we don’t understand mental illness in New Zealand.
Mind you it was prison or mental hospital, given how bad both are and that she’s unlikely to get help either way I’m not sure which is worse.
Just a troll what does your comment say about our justice system, I think our justice system is not fit for purpose speaking from being a victim’s point of view. And all the shite about supporting victims more due to it being election time is all phoney bullshit.
I think the jury did their best and there seemed, from what I read, that there was some premeditation going on with her having practiced using cable ties in SA, saying she wanted to kill them and planning which child to kill first. What I do not understand is why we do not have a verdict of guilty but insane in this country. If it is clear that the person did commit the crime,why shouldn’t they be found “not guilty by reason of insanity”?
Lone Coment based on some of your comments if every mother killed their kids due to the many stresses many people face in life, we would see a lot more cases like this. I think why they found her guilty was due to a number of issues, this crime seemed premeditated and some of the comments she made about killing one child first were horrid. And then she said she stopped taking her meds and this is common with people with mental illnesses. My sister use to do the same we had to put her on a compulsory order to protect her from herself and others that may harm her, we also had to commit her for a period of time. She (my sister) has never been a danger to anyone else despite having a mental illness for 37 years. I know everyone is different but why did her family especially her husband allow her to come here with her having a mental illness particularly with her threats to do bad things. And why did her husband not get her a nanny or someone to help her mind the kids for some relief. This trail would have costs us taxpayers millions of dollars so we need to ensure people who have health problems don’t come cause at the moment we can’t even look after our own. This trail was traumatizing many NZers did not want to talk about it especially people with children.
I think there are no winners in this case and that the law needs a certain amount of review in this regard. I’m not sure – purely insane or not insane quite cuts it. Did she knowingly kill her kids yes, did she get the verdict the law proscribes yes. Is it all clear cut and approrpriate? I dont think so.
I blame the husband who as a medical professional should have known better. Not being supported by your partner appropriately does happen to women all the time. (Probably to men also)
I had 3 years of staring at a wall with PTSD and my husband did nothing but work and take up the slack. In many ways he was absolutely heroic, but what wasnt so heroic was his inability to really talk to me or propel me to get help. It took 3 years before he figured out things werent magically getting better. and then we started the process of diagnosis and eventual recovery.
So I look at the husband quite differently, especially since he legged it back to South Africa. The moment she said she might harm the children, he should have intervened and ensured she got the care she needed, was taking her meds and attending her appointments. I’d expect any decent Dad to do this, especially one who will have been trained in mental health to a reasonable extent.
I think a part of the truth also was, their relationship was falling apart and he probably had a mindset that said “He didnt need any more of her drama”. Sad all round especially for the little ones whose lives were snuffed out because the parents werent able to put them first.
The husband legged it back to South Africa because his kids were murdered by his wife, she was in custody, and he had no other family in New Zealand.
I so much agree with your take. Mine is similar https://sararar.medium.com/lauren-dickason-the-devouring-mother-de1c8becad48
I think people just do not believe in narcissistic mothers. It’s so sad. No one ever believes the children of narcissists.
Your article is amazing Sara
True that Sara.
Heaps of mothers have kids that drive them up the wall. They manage to have the self control to not murder them. This case is clear cut to me. She killed her kids, and the jury determined that she was in sound mind when she did it.
I think we turn too many things into a ‘mental health’ issues nowadays.
Millsy, with respect for your opinion, “being driven up the wall by kids” is a totally different situation in comparison to a traumatic hormone driven mental illness such as Post Natal Depression. The latter being a complete nightmare for both the sufferer living in an extremely dark lonely place, out of touch with reality, as well as being a very frightening and upsetting experience for family and close friends.
Having been there as a first time mother, believe me when I say it’s a living hell! It was far more than “being driven up the wall.”
IMO PND brings a whole new level to depression and mental illness!
That said, while I don’t condone the actions of Ms Dickason and neither should they be condoned, but I do think some understanding of her situation and illness which drove her to kill her children is needed.
I am surprised that more has not been made of her having not been the childrens biological mother. As a seemingly “fragile” (for want of a better word) person, she may have had that thought in her mind. She said in court, or prior when interviewed, that she hadn’t really bonded with the kids. She also said she felt they preferred their father. From the transcripts of her interviews it almost seemed like she was jealous of the relationship between her husband and his children. It is a very sad situation altogether.
And there’s a criminal in this story who wasn’t on the stand – the medical professionals who allowed her to undergo 17 ROUNDS of IVF treatments. I can’t imagine what that would do to a woman’s mental state. I think they’re culpable.
KateNZ I agree with you about 17 rounds of IVF being quite shocking. It’s yet another emotionally whacking invasive treatment unique to women, just as women have endured generations of routine oral contraceptive meds, with men not subjected to similar routine experiences. The IVF was this lady’s choice, but it was a harrowing one.
It’s worth noting how, on the whole, women, the child bearers, birthers, and mothers, have been more circumspect about this heartbreaking tragedy than the men who seem to see everything in black and white in the same sort of way that they expect to barge into our toilet spaces as some sort of right.
Providing a service with a success rate in the region of 2% is no where near criminaly insane as murder just run the doctors through your wonderful and robust social media network for all we care.
I was surprised to see she was a doctor herself.
I think the verdict was the right one…an appeal is guaranteed.
What astonishes me in all of this is that some of you are saying
‘this is the right decision’
I am sure none of you were in the court hearing every single sentence so how you can decide that is beyond me.
It was the right decision as the NZ law stands right now.
But the law hasnt changed in probably nearly a century and no longer reflects our current understanding of mental health issues. But I concur, I doubt it was an easy job for the jury and do not envy them the task. I dont know what I would think in their place.
How do you know Fantail, did you spend the entire legal proceeding in the court?
Otherwise you don’t know like most of us.
Did you read the considered opinion Michal?
It was the right decision as the NZ law stands right now.
We need to have an ethical position that enables us to decide things for ourselves, think around the matter for an understanding, just not obey and agree with laws set up by our government or other powerful body. That is if we want to be individuals of worth and to be respected. If we don’t want that there is no point in having elections or aiming to have a democracy.
Ummm – I just made it up Michal. Of course I did.
The jury gets instructed on the letter of the law by the judge and in fact are often given written guidelines so they can deliberate fully, not just on whether it seems fair or whatever but on exactly how each crime is described. The jury could go in there and to a man decide she is not guilty but they would then be under instruction to look at the charges and be told to make sure they had met the legal standard for their decision.
Why I know there is a problem with the current law in these cases is because I have listened to and read various accounts by eminent KCs and Legal Academics and Mental Health Advocates and the key discussion has been around exactly what I said. “The law as it stands today doesnt really allow for any decision outside of someone being delusional or not and whether or not there are other mental health considerations that should be considered. Hence you will see comments in the MSM of it being said that the judge will have a very hard time deciding on sentencing. Why because he too has sentencing guidelines but may have some leeway to reflect the verdict in a way that takes account of the potential issues meaning, he can throw the book at her if he thinks she is just a narcissist or he can go for a sentence which he thinks takes into account the complexity of the case.
But by all mean Michal, I pulled it all out of my ass like a minimal but consistent handful of posters on here do.
Michal, the statement made to determine the decision came down to one statement made to police by Lauren during her interview…
“The first twin [Karla] was being really, really, really horrible to me lately. She’s been biting me and hitting me and scratching me and throwing tantrums 24 hours a day and I just don’t know how to manage that. That’s why I did her first.”
Sorry Michal but this was calculated.
Parents who kill children are under different stresses than soldiers on a battlefield when they kill. But they have their own private battle field and it is a pity that we cannot have compassion and support available for all parents to the extent they feel they need.
Mrs Dickason came from a different country and culture. I think there is a strong masculinity prevalent in SA. I think. She may have been persuaded that they would have been better off here but still not wanted to come. At home she could manage to have a career with home help and a little help from her husband and had some family and friends. Here she was much more alone, unfamiliar with her contacts, probably feeling alone with little support. She might have lost her medical certification through not being able to practice and manage everything else. Perhaps she had lost things that held her life together and made it worth living.
I know only the bare bones of it and much of the above is conjecture of likelihood. Many people are in a hole in our society and are getting into depressions. If we had a decent
government to vote for that supported our parents who are nurturing NZs future, we might lift ourselves to better mental health, but it keeps getting worse. And so it goes…
100% Grey. Too much judgement, too little caring by poll led governments.
Stress Charts to fill out to see if you are likely to crack up! It is easy to judge others and find fault but we are all driven by our emotions and thoughts we humans, and each person brings a different receptivity and response to them. We need guidelines and role models and practice in using our brains and controls and releases. Codified here, this seems a simple example – Perceived Stress Scale 10 (10 questions – PSS10).
https://www.mindtools.com/avn893g/the-holmes-and-rahe-stress-scale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale
https://www.stress.org/holmes-rahe-stress-inventory
150 points or less | a relatively low amount of life change and a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown
150 to 300 points | 50% chance of health breakdown in the next 2 years
300 points or more | 80% chance of health breakdown in the next 2 years, according to the Holmes-Rahe statistical prediction model
https://www.simplypsychology.org/srrs.html
https://www.das.nh.gov/wellness/docs/percieved%20stress%20scale.pdf
https://www.bemindfulonline.com/test-your-stress
Detail here – Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) NovoPsych
https://novopsych.com.au › … psychological stress chart from novopsych.com.au
The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10; Cohen, Kamarch, & Mermelstein,1983) is a popular tool for measuring psychological stress.
If someone killed your children for no reason, other than their lawyers putting it down to temporary insanity, then you would want to see damn good irrefutable evidence that this really was their mental state, and not just something they, or their lawyers thought up, as a possible explanation to set before the court, hearing the case. Otherwise anyone could kill anyone, and say they had temporary insanity. It doesn’t matter whether the children are your own children or someone elses, you cannot kill them no matter what. The mental heath proffessional testimony was expert opinion, but still only opinion, and what goes on in the mind of anyone, in the split second they commit a murderous act, is truly only known to that person. Most, though not many would admit, have had a murderous thought at some time, but most would just ignore it, or walk away, or take a deep breath, or do a million other alternative options, instead of going through with it.
But it’s the decision you make in that spit second, about whether you snuff out another humans life for good, that determines whether you carry on your life as normal, or you spend decades incarcerated in prison or a forensic unit, but it’s your choice, and once decided cannot be undone. It’s not really even relevent whether the accused, is a good or bad person or a meth addict or a doctor or a gang member, just the choice they make, and the experts opining on that choice. If someone says they are insane at the time, have they done anything else on that day, that would indicate this? Her google searching, methods to kill her children, shows premeditation. Is there a place for the use in murder cases, for Pentothal or lie detector tests, to gain further understanding of intent. There is always room for doubt, but is it reasonsble doubt, and is it something that can really ever be known. Mental illness is not uncommon, and many will be touched by it at some point, but proving your mental state is enough to make you not know that killing someone is wrong, is a tall order. Just as trying to convince the powers that be, that you can innocently buy mushrooms from a supermarket or asian store, which happened to contain deathcap mushrooms, will also be an extremely tall order. More males are convicted of murder than females, and this could be because there are more male murderers, or that there are more females who have gotten away with murder, or a combination, and I suspect the latter.
Well thought out and entirely reasonable and rational Kim. Unfortunately society is not that for any length of time. One thing will not be permitted ‘here’, but the thing twice as bad and repeated multiple times ‘there’. We have to be aware of our society’s duplicity. And so I say, why don’t we help our parents, why are we not there for them when under stress, tiredness, loss of livelihood, no accommodation, no basics in a reliable form, water heating etc? We find that wells are contaminated with nitrogen? or something and that can have an end result of ‘blue’ babies. Is that right, I think I’ve read that? We expect much, demand much, from parents coping with demanding, helpless and vulnerable babies, while the adults become vulnerable themselves with such unfamiliar burdens, and society’s response in the neoliberal economic culture is to pass health and safety laws or treat the parents like a business, or confiscate babies; censure rather than nurture parents as a warm, humanist society would. We need to be there for parents when wanted, with both advice or if needed, a helping hand in the home – like the visiting carers for the elderly. Funds spent on baby and parent care in the home would burgeon into huge benefits for the nation. While old people’s ease and gratitude is minor in comparison.
Taking the high moral ground condemning, when we come from such a deceptive changing, often low ground, is not a decent or principled approach but that’s what Polite Society does. But Society doesn’t follow up its high ideals with ethical, practical support and caring assured for each other, and that means all others.
Yep grey and I keep thinking about twins. My best mate had them and I had to look after them for a day at almost 2, neither kid was difficult. I have kids of my own but it was exhausting and you literally had to have eyes in the back of your head. Multiples are really hard to cope with without help plus the woman had another child.
I too have had IVF and that kills all natural ‘sexual’ interaction in a real sense and in general, its an anxious process and very hard to feel relaxed. 13 times would be a monstrous cost but I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that Fertility specialists dont recommend you keep going after 5 or 6 goes because the risk/ reward equation isnt good and IVF combined with infertility can be a marriage killer.
So lots to unpack here. even the statement, X was acting up so I did her first (appalling thing to say yes) said to me a couple of things. She was being honest not lying or covering up which typically murderers do. The statement clearly shows how out of touch with reality she was if she openly said that to police. Yes this could relate to narcissism but it could also relate to something more dissociative (Dont know too much about mental health in general so I am surmising) and seems a very disconnected thing to say from someone who was intelligent enough to be a medical professional.
Even the statements, she felt lonely, the kids prefer Dad to me, I feel lonely, I think are quite normal feelings for stay at home Mums especially if you are depressed and have no friends.
“ In our attempt to destigmatize depression, we have put mental health on a pedestal and treated it as some great victory of human experience that should be celebrated.”
Great comment from Martyn. Exhibit B being of course, Shaneen Lal.
To me, she appears to be a full blown narcissist. She only had children to raise her social status and was resentful of them since their births. Doctor God Syndrome. A very “sick” / dangerous woman who will not be allowed any freedom in this life. Hideous. The kiddies are safe now, bless them.
So when did she say she only had children to raise her social status.
Yours is the same as many others making up things in order to say she is guilty of murder.
You and I were not sitting in on the trial I am sure so therefore you and I cannot make a full decision on the facts.
I’ll second your comment Sinic (I know!). I think she’s might be an actual psychopath, narcissist with all the extras.
Psychopaths are real and more common than we think, not all are killers.
As none of us were part of the jury I think we should respect the job they did and leave it as that.
Mental Health services are crap no doubt about it – but there are things in this case I have no idea about and never will so it is between the courts, whanau and law.
Stop making stories with assumptions about such cases personally as some places just don’t warrant opinions when you don’t have many if any of the facts.
Our immigration laws are fucked. What is she still doing in NZ? Why are we now going to pay for a lifetime of prison? Why is not deported? I can say all this because I once was such an immigrant. There is no ‘good behaviour or commit no crimes’ deportation clause whatsoever in our NZ paperwork. That’s insane.
501 her ass back to Saffaland!!!
…and hard screen all of those Japies wanting to emigrate here.
I think the condemnatory, punishing comments about this woman are indications of the failures of males to fully enter into humanity and concern about others, and true community within society, and from females, to perch above everyone and preach from a supposed higher level of probity. Humanity can go low beyond what anyone can imagine, and trying to better our societal and personal behaviour and moral understandings and attitudes, is a task beyond climbing Everest – to the moon?