The Dickason Family Tragedy - Part Two: Very Sick or Very Wicked?

A Moment In Crime

This is the second in a two-part episode.

In 2023 South African doctor Lauren Anne Dickason was found guilty of murdering her daughters Liane, 6, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla at their Timaru home.

She and her husband Graham - an ortopaedic surgeon - had emigrated to New Zealand just weeks earlier seeking a better, safer life for their young children.

Dickason killed the little girls 20 minutes after her husband left for a work function. He found the siblings dead in their beds when he arrived home.

Dickason admitted smothering the children but claimed she was so mentally unwell she could not be held criminally responsible for their deaths.

After an exhaustive five-week trial last year, a jury rejected her defence of insanity or infanticide and convicted the woman of murder.

In this episode of A Moment In Crime senior journalist Anna Leask looks back at the murders and the aftermath. Leask covered the story from the day the girls died, attending every day of Dickasons high profile trial and her later sentencing.

The Dickason Family Tragedy is told in two parts. In part one Leask explained the family's background and what brought them to New Zealand, as well as what happened that awful day in 2021.

In this episode Leask focuses on Dickason's trial - what the jury heard, the verdict, sentencing and what it was like inside the courtroom at pivotal moments.

The double episode contains descriptions of the Dickason children's deaths and also refer to mental health, self harm, pregnancy loss and fertility issues. Both parts of A Moment In Crime - The Dickason Family Tragedy are intended for mature audiences.

To read Leask's full coverage of the case click here.

To read Justice Cameron Mander's full sentencing remarks via the Ministry of Justice website, click here.

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