South African mother convicted of killing three daughters in New Zealand

On Wednesday, a jury in New Zealand found a South African lady guilty of killing her three young daughters and said she would receive a life sentence for each of the murders.

About a month after the family had immigrated from South Africa, in September 2021, Lauren Anne Dickason killed her two-year-old twins and their six-year-old sister at their house in Timaru, a city on the South Island.

Following a month-long high court trial in the city of Christchurch, local media reported that a jury of eight women and four men found Dickason guilty of murder and found him not crazy at the time of the crimes.

The report stated that when her husband Graham returned home from a dinner with coworkers, he discovered his wife in a critical condition and the three children dead.

The prosecution added that Dickason understood killing her girls constituted murder and that what she was doing was morally wrong.
As they left the courthouse, the jury was reportedly overheard crying in some cases, according to media reports.

Prior to being sentenced, Dickason was remanded to jail in a hospital’s psychiatric ward by Judge Cameron Mander.

Since the murders, she has been in the hospital.