Nottingham Crown Court was told that the woman, Veronique John, 50, dialled 999 and confessed “I have stabbed my two children to death.” GuardianMrs. John killed her 7-year-old daughter Elizabeth and 11-year-old son Ethan because she did not want her husband to get custody of them.
She stabbed her son Ethan more than 20 times and caused brain damage to her daughter Elizabeth, and then found her husband Nathan John and stabbed him in the stomach as well.
During the facts hearing, it was revealed that Mrs John stabbed Ethan more than 20 times and caused brain damage to her daughter Elizabeth. She then went to a car wash wearing a dressing gown and stabbed her partner Nathan John in the stomach.
She then returned home, dialled 999 and said: “I am calling to tell you I have killed my two children.”
The charity shop worker reportedly told police who arrived at her home in Stoke-on-Trent on June 11 last year: “If you have a gun then shoot me. I’m not a monster – he was about to take the gun away from me.”
A day before the fatal attacks, John was arrested for allegedly attacking her husband with a piece of wood while their children were getting ready for bed because she suspected him of having an illicit relationship with someone else.
The court was told that there were significant difficulties in the relationship between John and her husband, and she did not want him to have a phone with internet access.
Prosecutor Peter Greaves-Smith said Mrs John’s “anger had been simmering beneath the surface” in the hours before the children’s deaths.
He said, “What happened on June 11 did not happen suddenly. Tensions had been building up in the days before that. That day she suddenly exploded, killed her children and attacked Nathan.”
Mr Grieves-Smith said Mrs John killed her children just hours after carrying out a “horrifying” internet search in which she asked “Can a foreigner be charged with murder in the UK?”
Ethan was pronounced dead after being found in the bedroom with a 17cm-long wound to his neck, while Elizabeth was found in the living room with a head injury and “three sharp force injuries”, including one to her stomach.
A neighbor said she “heard very loud screaming and crying which continued for some time” just minutes before John went to the car wash where her husband had stayed overnight, the jury was told.
The court was told that the 50-year-old woman later told questioning officers: “I did not want my husband to get them (the children).”
She added: “This is something I have been thinking about for a long time – killing myself and the children. Unless you guys give me the death penalty, I have nothing more to say.”
“I did it because I love my children – to protect the children. If I could be given the death penalty in any way, I would want that. I mean that 100%.”
Mrs John has been charged with murder, attempted murder and two counts of wounding but has been declared unfit to plead, Sky News reports.
She is currently being treated at a secure hospital and was not present in the dock to hear the Crown’s opening statement.
The case is still going on.
