WARNING: This story contains very graphic and sensitive content.
The day after killing her three children Lauren Dickason told police she had been "thinking about it for sure" for a while, that she had not "felt normal" for months and that "something just snapped".
"Last night something just triggered me... so now I have three dead kids," she said during an interview with detectives the day after the alleged triple murder.
The defence questioned whether it was appropriate for police to interview Dickason when they did - but they are adamant she had been "medically cleared" and they had "no concerns" about proceeding.
Dickason, 42, is on trial in the High Court at Christchurch charged with murdering her daughters Liané, 6, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla.
The sisters were found dead in their beds by their father Graham Dickason when he returned home from a work function.
The family had only been in New Zealand for a matter of weeks after emigrating from South Africa.
Dickason admits smothering the children to death, but has pleaded not guilty to the murder charges by reason of insanity or infanticide.
While the Crown acknowledges Dickason suffered from sometimes-serious depression, it maintains she knew what she was doing when she killed the girls.
Last week, Crown Prosecutor Andrew McRae alleged Dickason was an angry and frustrated woman who was "resentful of how the children stood in the way of her relationship with her husband" and killed them "methodically and purposefully, perhaps even clinically".
The defence refutes that and says the woman was "very unwell", and while those close to her were worried, no one recognised how unwell she was "until it was too late".
Today the jury watched a video of Dickason’s interview with police the day after the girls died.
The officer who interviewed Dickason told the court she was "an articulate woman who was polite" and willingly engaged with police.
She was "quietly spoken" but maintained eye contact and understood what was happening to her.
The video interview spans about an hour. Some elements of the video have been suppressed.
"When I finished, I knew they were dead" - Lauren Dickason in her own words
During the interview, Dickason is tearful but speaks clearly and coherently. Her eyes are closed during much of her confession.
Dickason first spoke to the interviewing officer about the move to New Zealand saying the emigration process was "so overwhelming".
She indicated that requests from the family’s immigration advisor the morning the girls died had exacerbated her stress.
The jury heard yesterday that the advisor had been seeking further information about Dickason’s mental health history and about the treatment of Karla’s cleft lip.
The child was born with the condition but it had been surgically corrected and she was unlikely to need any further medical intervention.
"I don’t even know where to start... It just got too overwhelming - and with the new visa thing that came through yesterday I just see no hope for us here in the future," Dickason told the officer during the interview.
"Just getting on the aeroplane was enough of an effort, there was so much paperwork to be done and then there was the two weeks in MIQ which almost had us crazy.
"Something just snapped last night."
Dickason killed the girls about 20 minutes after her husband Graham left home to attend a work function.
The officer probed Dickason on the events of the night of the alleged murder.
"Basically the kids were being wild again, jumping on the couches, not listening to what I’m trying to tell them..." Dickason said in the video interview, which was played in open court.
"I have been thinking about it for sure… last night something just triggered me.
"I went to the garage, I saw some cable ties there. I thought that could possibly work.
Dickason’s recorded police interview described how she decided to put the children together in one room before using the cable ties on them.
When that was unsuccessful, she told police she suffocated them.
Dickason explained that she killed little Karla first, and why.
"I did the twins first... The first one was being really, really, really horrible to me lately," she explained.
"She has been biting me and hitting me and scratching me and throwing tantrums 24 hours a day - and I just don’t know how to manage that. That is why I did her first.
Dickason told police once she knew the girls were dead she "tucked them up" into their beds pulling their blankets over their heads.
"Then I decided I had to do something with myself… and I ran through the house and none of the knives were sharp and then I just started drinking my medication that I could find.
"I wanted to die."
As the video was played for the jury Dickason sat in court with her head in her hands and wept at times.
Her mother, in the public gallery and supported by her father, also covered her face with her hands and cried.
Was it appropriate for police to interview Dickason so soon? Defence probe process
Earlier today the jury heard how police collected Dickason from the hospital when she was discharged and carried out the interview.
They were satisfied the interview was appropriate and they could obtain "complete, accurate and reliable" information from her.
The defence grilled the interviewing officer on the process and whether Dickason should have been spoken to under the circumstances.
Lawyer Kerryn Beaton KC suggested someone in Dickason’s situation should have been interviewed later and that speaking to her so soon - particularly given the high-stress situation, possible shock and trauma, her ingestion of drugs and her psychological condition - was not appropriate or fair.
She asked the officer if there were concerns about the killer’s mental state and whether she was effectively fit to be formally interviewed.
The officer said Dickason had been "medically discharged" by the hospital and she expected that included she was considered mentally sound.
The officer said she spoke to Dickason after she had been in the care of medical teams for 20 hours and they told her "all medical treatment had been completed".
"I relied on the doctor saying she was medically cleared and was comfortable to be spoken with... she engaged, she was polite, there was nothing that cause me concern - notwithstanding the tragic circumstances," the told the court.
Beaton said being medically cleared "had nothing to do with psychological state" and suggested Dickason had been medically cleared for "psychological assessment" - not to go straight to a formal police interview.
"The police didn’t make any effort themselves to see if she should be spoken with someone - even an initial screening - before the interview started," she said.
The officer was adamant Dicakson was "in an appropriate state to be spoken with".
"There was nothing in the way that she presented that made me think she was not suitable to speak with," she said.
The trial so far - the other evidence presented to the jury
Earlier in the trial the jury heard evidence about information found on Dickason’s phone by forensic experts after the girls died.
She had carried out a number of searches about how to overdose children and what the lethal or fatal qualities of specific drugs were for kids.
Extensive evidence has also been given about Dickason’s life before the alleged murders, including her gruelling fertility journey and devastating loss of a baby daughter at 18 weeks’ gestation and her family’s move to New Zealand from South Africa in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Jurors heard two days of evidence from Dickason’s husband, who came home from a work function to find his three children dead in their beds.
A video of his police interview was played, and then Graham Dickason gave lengthy evidence and faced cross-examination by the defence.
The court also heard from those first to the scene after Graham Dickason found his children dead and from people who met the Dickason family after they arrived in Timaru, including the girls’ teachers.
Liané had been at school for two days and the twins just one when they died.
The trial, before Justice Cameron Mander, resumes at 10am.
It is expected to run for another two weeks at least.
