By: Natasha Archary

Lauren Dickason has been sentenced to 18-years in a mental health facility in Christchurch, New Zealand after being convicted of the murders of her 3 daughters.
The South African mother and medical doctor suffocated her 3 daughters, Liane, 6 and twin girls Maya Karla, who were only 2-years old in September 2021.
Dickason, her husband Graham and their 3 girls relocated to New Zealand, from Pretoria, a few weeks prior to the 42-year old admitting to killing her children, claiming she was severely depressed.
The mother first tried to kill her daughters using cable ties, but then suffocated them with pillows, thereafter placing them in their beds, and attempting to take her own life with a concoction of pills.
She did this while her husband was at a work dinner on 16 September, 2021.
Her husband, an orthopedic surgeon, returned home to find his children were all dead.
Lauren Dickason pleaded insanity, and while she admitted to killing her daughters, attempted to defend her actions by claiming infanticide.
Infanticide, is when a woman fatally harms her child due to an imbalance of her mind from the effects of childbirth, or breastfeeding.
Dickason was convicted of the heinous crime in 2023 and sentencing concluded this week, with the 41-year old receiving an 18-year term at the Hillmorton mental health facility, with no minimum term of imprisonment.
After her sentence, Lauren Dickason delivered a statement, saying she failed her daughters and their family.
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