Warning: This story contains evidence from the trial which some readers may find extremely upsetting.
Lauren Dickason has told a psychiatrist she felt guilty about killing her three children but was unable to recognise the moral wrongfulness of her actions.
It took the murder-accused mum weeks for the numbness she felt after the alleged offending to wear off and the result of her actions to set in, forensic psychiatrist Justin Barry-Walsh said.
"[Lauren] would do anything to change what happened but she still sometimes feels like she did the right thing," said Dr Barry-Walsh, who was summoned by the defence.
Dr Barry-Walsh believes Lauren was suffering from a severe and increasing depression when she killed her daughters, driven by the idea she and her kids would be better off dead.
He told the jury if he had seen Lauren on the day of the alleged offending and learned of her history he would admit her to a psychiatric hospital.
Over the course of the trial, the jury will hear from five mental health experts who assessed Dickason after the children's death - three called by the defence and two by the Crown.
She is accused of murdering her little girls - 6-year-old Liané and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla - at their Timaru home on September 16, 2021.
The children were found dead by their dad Graham Dickason after he returned home from a work function.
Lauren has admitted to killing her children by smothering them to death but pleaded not guilty to murder. Her defence is arguing insanity and infanticide - that she did not know what she was doing at the time of the killings.
However, the Crown alleges Lauren is guilty of murder, saying she was aware of her actions before, during and after the crime.
The trial continues for its seventeenth day at the High Court in Christchurch before a jury of eight women and four men.
Lauren unsure whether killings were right or wrong
Dr Barry-Walsh has extensive experience in cases of filicide and infanticide and interviewed Lauren on four occasions. He believes Lauren has a defence of infanticide and insanity.
On Tuesday, Dr Barry-Walsh said during his interviews with Lauren, she was unable to recognise the moral wrongfulness of killing her three children.
"When I asked her about it, even this year, she still was ambivalent about it," he told the jury.
At the grips of a rapidly worsening depression, Lauren viewed the world through a negative and nihilistic lens - so much so that she believed she and her children would be better off dead, Dr Barry-Walsh said.
During the psychiatrist's first interview with Lauren in October 2021, she believed the killing was morally correct, he said.
"She said she started questioning the rightness or wrongness more rigorously two to three months after the hospitalisation. She stated now she would do anything to change what had happened," Dr Barry-Walsh said.
But despite feeling guilt about her children's deaths, she continued to express ambivalence over whether it was morally right or wrong, he told the jury.
Dr Barry-Walsh told the court he believes Lauren met the threshold to be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
'I would have admitted her'
Dr Barry-Walsh has extensive experience in cases of filicide and infanticide and interviewed Lauren on four occasions. He believes Lauren has a defence of infanticide and insanity.
On Tuesday, Dr Barry-Walsh told the jury Lauren's depression was so severe at the time she killed her children he would have admitted her to hospital had he seen her.
He is at is of the view that Lauren most likely hadn't recovered from her depression in 2021, as Dr McLeavey and Dr Monasterio suggested earlier in the trial, and rather than having two separate problems with mood she had changes in her level of depression over time.
"My view is that based on all the information we have, including the history… that she probably was getting better during that time and it was possible that if she had continued on that pathway and she had not stopped anti-depressions that improvement would have got to the point where she would have reached the state that Dr McLeavey referred to. But it is my view, [it's] not likely that she had achieved that."
Dr Barry-Walsh then described the severity of Lauren's depression around the time of the alleged offending. She wasn't showering, spent hours at the supermarket, communicating less, was closed off, had thoughts about harming her children and then there was the act itself.
"She did this extraordinary and awful thing at a time that she was getting more depressed."
"This is a woman with no history of previous offending… who comes to New Zealand and kills the three of them in a sustained and deliberate way over 20 minutes to half an hour."
When asked by the defence, Dr Barry-Walsh said he would have admitted Lauren on September 16, 2021 if he had assessed her.
"If I had seen her that day, got the history of depressive symptoms, got the history that at times she has had thoughts of harming her children, noting the fact she had only her husband and children with her in the new country, I would have admitted her," he told the jury.
"If she declined treatment I would have thought she readily met the criteria for compulsory treatment under the Mental Health Act."
'Terrible guilt'
Dr Barry-Walsh told the court at the High Court in Christchurch on Tuesday Lauren feels guilty about killing her children - but sometimes still feels it was the right thing to do.
Lauren described to him the stresses which tipped her over the edge before the alleged offending, he said, which included the experience involving the "creepy" man taking photos of her children at the park, immigration requesting further information about her mental health and Karla's cleft palate.
"I can not do another day of this. I had nothing left in my tank," she said.
She told the psychiatrist she had an out-of-body experience when she killed her children, feeling as though it wasn't her doing it, Dr Barry-Walsh said.
"I was not prepared to leave the kids. I did not want them to have another mother. I did not want to leave Graham with the burden," Lauren told the psychiatrist.
"The world was such a mess it seemed better if they were dead as well."
She told Dr Barry-Walsh she wanted to die so badly and didn't want to leave her children behind, he said.
"It seemed like the logical thing to do."
Lauren remembers waking up in the hospital, "shocked, sad and angry" she was still alive, Dr Barry-Walsh said. It wasn't until she was shown the police charge sheet that she realised she had taken the lives of her children, she told the psychiatrist.
Lauren still believed killing her children was the right thing to do until about a week after their deaths, Dr Barry-Walsh said.
During one of their interviews, he said she told him she now wished she could go back 12 weeks to make them stay in South Africa. Lauren said the biggest mistake she made was "coming to a country we hadn't seen" and claims she told about 15 people she was not doing OK before leaving.
Dr Barry-Walsh said Lauren began feeling "terrible guilt" weeks after she was sent to Hillmorton Hospital's psychiatric ward.
"[Lauren] would do anything to change what happened but she still sometimes feels like she did the right thing."
She told him the numbness had worn off and it felt "horrible" and "ugly", praying to god every night that she wouldn't wake up in the morning, he said.
"I was missing my girls so much," she told him.
Was Lauren angry?
The Crown has grilled Dr Barry-Walsh over not including content from the police interview that could give the impression Lauren was angry at her children in his report.
On Tuesday, Crown Prosecutor Andrew McRae cross-examined Dr Barry-Walsh after he told the court he believes Lauren has an insanity and infanticide defence.
He pointed to statements Lauren gave the detective which could indicate she was angry at her children such as: "The first twin [Karla] was being 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."
"The content that you haven't inserted… into your report is the content about the girls' behaviour and her anger towards them," McRae asked.
Dr Barry-Walsh said Lauren did not explicitly say she was angry and while that could be an understandable response it is not clear that was how she felt.
"It's difficult for me to see how even if there was much more evidence of anger… that, that would explain how she's able to commit this extraordinary offence where she's killed three people in such a methodical way."
Dr Barry-Walsh also believes Lauren could have still been affected by drugs during the police interview which was conducted the day after she killed her children and attempted suicide.
McRae moved on to the issue of psychosis. Dr Barry-Walsh agreed with the lawyer that there was nothing identified in the presentation of Lauren or in her history that would suggest she experienced psychosis, such as delusions or hallucinations, other than around the thinking of her children.
McRae put to Dr Barry-Walsh that the delusion Lauren claims she had that her kids were better off dead relies wholeheartedly on Lauren's account, to which the psychiatrist agreed.
The trial continues before Justice Cameron Mander.
Where to find help and support:
- Shine (domestic violence) - 0508 744 633
- Women's Refuge - 0800 733 843 (0800 REFUGE)
- Need to Talk? - Call or text 1737
- What's Up - 0800 WHATS UP (0800 942 8787)
- Lifeline - 0800 543 354
- Youthline - 0800 376 633, text 234, email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat
- Samaritans - 0800 726 666
- Depression Helpline - 0800 111 757
- Suicide Crisis Helpline - 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
- Shakti Community Council - 0800 742 584
