Mother who killed her three daughters sentenced to 18 years in prison in New Zealand

In a statement to local media after her conviction, Dickason said she had “abandoned” her children and her husband, who has since returned to South Africa.

“I take responsibility for our three beautiful girls being taken from this world,” she said.

“I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest and most sincere remorse for the extreme pain and suffering I have caused my children and family through my actions.”

Judge Cameron Mander did not impose a minimum non-parole period on Dickason when he handed down his sentence. Dickason avoided a life sentence, the usual punishment for murder in New Zealand.

Dickason was found guilty last August of triple murder for suffocating her two-year-old twins, Maya and Karla, and her six-year-old first daughter, Liane.

The murders took place in September 2021 at their Timaru home while her husband was out for dinner with colleagues. When he returned home, he found the bodies of his children.

The family had only moved from South Africa to New Zealand a few weeks earlier.

During his trial last year, Dickason admitted to killing the girls but pleaded insanity and infanticide due to the stress of the move.

Under New Zealand law, a mother can claim infanticide as a defense if she caused the death of her child because she was “mentally disturbed at the time of the act.”

According to local media reports, Dickason’s lawyer had argued that a psychiatric hospital would be the most appropriate place for her.

ryj/mtp