WARNING: This story contains graphic and sensitive content.
The jury in Lauren Dickason’s murder trial is set to see a video of her interview with police, during which she confesses how she killed her three young daughters - and why.
The interview and the admissions Dickason made were described in detail last week when the Crown opened its case in the High Court at Christchurch.
However, today the jury will hear the murder-accused describe how she killed her children in her own words.
Dickason, 42, is on trial in the High Court at Christchurch charged with murdering her daughters Liane, 6, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla.
The sisters were found dead in their beds by their father Graham Dickason when he returned home from a work function.
The family had only been in New Zealand for a matter of weeks after emigrating from South Africa.
Dickason admits smothering the children to death, but has pleaded not guilty to the murder charges by reason of insanity or infanticide.
While the Crown acknowledges Dickason suffered from sometimes-serious depression, it maintains she knew what she was doing when she killed the girls.
Last week, Crown Prosecutor Andrew McRae alleged Dickason was an angry and frustrated woman who was “resentful of how the children stood in the way of her relationship with her husband” and killed them “methodically and purposefully, perhaps even clinically”.
The defence refutes that and says the woman was “very unwell”, and while those close to her were worried, no one recognised how unwell she was “until it was too late”.
Today, the jury will be shown Dickason’s evidential interview with police, carried out a day after the children died.
The interview goes for just over an hour.
Crown prosecutor Andrew McCrae has already told the jury - in his opening address on the first day of the trial - what they can expect to hear from the murder-accused.
He said Dickason told police the tragedy unfolded about 20 minutes after Graham Dickason left for a work function.
“They were watching television when they started with the normal high jinks - jumping on the couches, pushing each other around, just not calming down for bedtime and just being out of control,” she said.
“They don’t listen to me at all - like, I’ll say something to them, and it’s just like water off a duck’s back.”
Dickason told police since her family arrived in New Zealand - including a stint in managed isolation - she’d had no time with her husband without the children.
“He hasn’t even held my hand. And last night, there was always a kid or something in between us. We’re missing each other,” Dickason told police.
McRae told the jury the Crown’s case was that Dickason killed little Karla first.
“The first one was being really, really, really horrible to me lately,” she said.
“She has 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 is why I did her first.”
Dickason went on to say she killed Liane next and then Maya, who was sleeping.
McRae said Dickason indicated to police “that she hadn’t felt normal”.
“We were happy and we had a big garden where we lived [in South Africa] and we could have a trampoline and a jungle gym, and it was just nice.
“And Graham and I were getting along so well, and then … all the immigration stuff started … and I just think we made a very bad decision.”
Dickason opened up more to police during the interview about the alleged murders.
“As soon as I picked up Karla [from preschool], she threw a huge tantrum in the car,” she said.
“The kids came home, they played rough and tumble, jumped all over each other again - we had to go have stitches in MIQ because they wouldn’t listen to us.
“I just feel that we don’t have parenting styles that work for us at the moment, I just feel lost.
“As soon as the twins saw [Graham when he returned from work], they started screaming at him.”
She spoke about feeding the children dinner and being surprised they ate because they were usually picky with food.
“And they had the bottles and settled down in front of the TV, and then Graham left.
“Then they started … their high jinks again, and that’s when I just couldn’t anymore.
“I was tired, screaming, and I was saying ‘no’.”
Yesterday, the jury heard evidence about information found on Dickason’s phone by forensic experts after the girls died.
She had carried out a number of searches about how to overdose children and what the lethal or fatal qualities of specific drugs were for kids.
During the first week of the trial, the jury heard extensive evidence about Dickason’s life before the alleged murders, including her gruelling fertility journey and devastating loss of a baby daughter at 18 weeks’ gestation and her family’s move to New Zealand from South Africa in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Jurors heard two days of evidence from Dickason’s husband, who came home from a work function to find his three children dead in their beds.
A video of his police interview was played, and then Graham Dickason gave lengthy evidence and faced cross-examination by the defence.
The court also heard from those first to the scene after Graham Dickason found his children dead and from people who met the Dickason family after they arrived in Timaru, including the girls’ teachers.
Liane had been at school for two days and the twins just one when they died.
The trial, before Justice Cameron Mander, resumes at 10am.
It is expected to run for another two weeks at least.