A sad but correct verdict
I’ve been following the Dickason trial where she is charged with murdering her three daughters. I don’t want to comment on the specifics of this case, as it is before a jury but I wanted to share my reaction to when the news of their deaths was first reported.
When I heard they had been killed by their mother, my instinctive reaction was to almost feel sorry for her, and just conclude she must be mad, not bad. I was thinking “Oh the poor woman, she’ll have to live with this for the rest of her life”.
But I know that if I read about a father killing his three children, my instinctive reaction would be a deep deep despising of the man, and I would be concluding he is evil. I would want him strapped to Ixion’s flaming wheel as punishment.
So I went into the trial with an instinctive sympathy for Lauren Dickason. But that soon changed as the facts emerged. I won’t go into all of them here, but the fact she had researched methods, had resented the kids as they got on better with the father did not paint to me a picture of a temporary moment of insanity.
The expert evidence of the prosecution seemed persuasive that while she was deeply stressed and depressed, she was not insane. Some of the things she complained about the kids doing, are things almost all parents have had to cope with. And it is very sad she couldn’t cope and didn’t get enough support, but that can not excuse what she did. I do still feel sorry for her, but only a fraction of the sorrow for the father and the rest of the family. And I actually shudder as I think about the poor kids.
So a very very sad case. The murder convictions are correct and a life sentence inevitable for a triple murder.
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