Mum pleads guilty to the murder and attempted murder of her two infant sons

A harrowing murder trial was dramatically halted on Friday after a Co. Antrim woman admitted the murder and attempted murder of her two infant sons and was handed a life sentence.

On day ten of the trial at Antrim Crown Court, defence QC Kieran Mallon had been set to begin calling defence evidence, but instead he told Judge Patricia Smyth he was now not in a position to “present evidence of diminished responsibility” and was therefore asking for the two charges to be put to the defendant again.

Sitting in the dock beside her solicitor, the 41-year-old showed little or no emotion as the charges of murder and attempted murder were put to her, bending down into the microphone to say simply “guilty” to each charge.

Having thanked the seven men and five women of the jury for their service in this “harrowing and particularly distressing trial” and instructing the foreman to record a verdict of “guilty by confession,” Judge Smyth ordered the killer to stand.

“You have pleaded guilty to the murder of your son and also to the attempted murder of your other son and the only sentence that I can impose is of life imprisonment,” she told the defendant, explaining that once various reports have been compiled, she would set the minimum tariff she will spend in jail before she can even be considered for relapse on licence.

During the course of the prosecution case, the jury heard evidence that 2 March 2020 began like any other Monday morning when everyone got up early and left for school and work by 9am.

Within an hour, one child would be dead with his mother and brother rushed to hospital for life-saving surgery.

The boys’ father gave evidence that he “kissed the boys and told them I loved them” before he went to work.

He would soon receive a phone call from the defendant asking if they “could talk”. When he suggested leaving the issue until after he finished work, the defendant sent him a text message saying “f*** you.”

Within 20 minutes, she sent a series of chilling and shocking messages in quick succession, telling the panic-stricken dad “I’ve killed the bots and I’m dying too… the bots… the bots… the boys.”

Calling for an ambulance as a work colleague drove him home, the boys’ father forced open the locked front door and, with paramedics following close behind him, ran upstairs to his bedroom to find his fiancé and his two infant sons lying together in a blood-saturated bed - the 6” vegetable paring knife lying close by.

“I think once I seen my son was lifeless and his little brother started making noises, I just collapsed on the floor,” he told the jury, his voice cracking with emotion.

He was ushered downstairs as paramedics and the air ambulance crew worked to save his family.

The first police officer at the scene described how the boys’ father was “frantic, totally panicked… white, almost grey… crying uncontrollably".

“He was standing, leaning, falling to the floor sometimes, over the central island in the kitchen saying things like ‘the boys are dead, she’s killed my boys’ and just crying,” said Const. Kerrigan. “He was just completely broken.”

The jury heard that when she stabbed the oldest victim, the little boy’s mother had inflicted injuries which caused his "fairly rapid death".

His little brother was millimetres from suffering the same fate while the boys’ mother, the defendant, was taken to hospital by the air ambulance as she had stabbed herself and had taken an overdose as well.

She had written a series of notes that morning, declaring: “I’m doing this to hurt the ones who have hurt me and the one who is continuing to hurt me.

“I’m taking my kids with me because I can’t leave them with their dad; he is a horrible person; doesn’t have any empathy; please understand I LOVE my kids; I REALLY don’t want to do this; I don’t want to do this but I feel I have no choice.”

The jury were told at the start of the trial there was no dispute about who caused the injuries, but rather their issue would be to determine whether or not the defendant was suffering from such a significant abnormality of mind that her decision making, judgement and appreciation of consequences was significantly impaired.

In relation to that issue, the jury heard background evidence from the boys’ father and the defendant’s ex-husband as well as her two older, teenage children who all told them the defendant was violent and aggressive to her respective partners.

The boys’ dad testified that she can be “a fantastic mum” but that also there were:

• Numerous “yelling matches,” many of them recorded on his mobile phone for his own “protection;”

• He felt as though he was living “with two different people;”

• He considered contacting social services;

• The defendant took an overdose and forcibly punched herself in the belly while pregnant with the boy she would later kill;

• That her teenage children from her first marriage were aware that she engaged in self-harm and had seen her assault both their dad and the younger boys’ dad.

• While both men told the jury they did not believe the defendant had ever threatened to harm the children, her teenage son told police he had heard her “threaten to hurt” them before.

He told detectives that during one of the regular arguments between his mum and her partner, “I think she threatened to harm them that night” when she also threatened to kill herself.

“I think I have heard her say it before when they were arguing but I don’t know when that was,” said the boy.

The jury watched three videos, recorded by the boys’ dad, which graphically illustrated life in their home, with the first two capturing a blazing and angry argument nine months before the murder, and the third recorded just the night before the boys were stabbed.

Their father, the defendant and a number of jurors were clearly overcome by emotion as they watched the seven-second clip of the defendant holding her 11-month-old son by both hands, helping him walk around the central island in the kitchen as he and his big brother chase a skipping lamb - their laughter and giggles filling the room.

Less than 24 hours later, the boys would suffer multiple stab wounds inflicted by their own mum.

It had been the Crown's case that when their mother stabbed them, she intended either to kill them or at least to cause her infant sons really serious harm, but the defence had argued that, at the time, she was suffering from an abnormality of mind which substantially impaired her thinking, decision making and perception of consequences.

By pleading guilty on Friday the mother has abandoned that stance and has accepted that, as the detectives put to her during police interviews, she “knew what [she was] doing.”

“You murdered your child and attempted to murder the other and it’s only through medical intervention that he was saved,” said the detective who asked her directly: “Did you intend to kill the boys?”

“No, no, I would not even have dreamt of it,” she told police.

“Do you accept that you killed your son?” the officer demanded to know but the boys’ mother told them “how can I - I loved them so much?”