S. African mother found guilty of murdering three daughters in New Zealand

A New Zealand jury on Wednesday found a south African woman guilty of murdering her three young daughters after rejecting her defense that she was so mentally ill at the time she couldn’t be held responsible.

Lauren Dickason, 42, had earlier admitted killing her 2-year-old twin daughters Maya and Karla, and their 6-year-old sister Lianè, at their home in the town of Timaru nearly two years ago.

She had pleaded not guilty to murder, arguing she was suffering severe depression that could be traced back to postpartum depression.

Prosecutors acknowledged Dickason had suffered from depression but said it wasn’t enough to warrant a medical defense. They said she killed her children out of anger and resentment.

They pointed to Dickason’s troubling phone messages and online history in the weeks before the killings, including comments about wanting to kill her children and Google searches for “most effective overdose in kids.”