Indian-origin woman found guilty of killing her daughters
September 22nd, 2009 - 4:10 pm ICT by IANSLondon, Sep 22 (IANS) An Indian-origin woman was to be sentenced Tuesday after being found guilty of murdering her two teenaged daughters in a frenzied knife attack at her home in Cambridgeshire.
Rekha Kumari-Baker, 41, admitted killing Davina, 16 and Jasmine, 13, but denied premeditated murder on grounds of diminished responsibility.
A jury at Cambridge Crown Court took only 35 minutes Monday to convict Kumari-Baker, who killed Davina and Jasmine with a kitchen knife as they lay sleeping in their beds June 2007.
The court heard there was “much contention” between the defendant and her ex-husband David Baker over the care and custody of their children.
In a savage attack, the mother stabbed Davina 39 times as she fought to save herself. Jasmine received fewer wounds because she succumbed to the attack more easily.
After killing the girls, Kumari-Baker, a hotel worker, rang a friend to say: “I have done something terrible.”
In a hand-written note she left at the murder scene, she wrote: “I don’t want them to get hurt as I did.”
She concluded the note by writing: “My kids will not be a burden to anyone anymore.”
After the verdicts, police inspector Jim McCrorie said: “In 25 years in the police service I have never before investigated such an upsetting or sickening crime. ”
A psychiatrist told jurors the mother, who had also ended a relationship with her boyfriend, may have been “retaliating” against men.
In the note, Kumari-Baker wrote: “Jeff hurt me so much I cannot explain.”
Meanwhile, Cambridgeshire County Council announced it was launching a serious case review to look into what happened, as the spotlight turned on the role of the local authority and their handling of the family.
The trial heard that teachers at Davina’s former school had a number of concerns about her and held several meetings with Kumari-Baker in 2004, during one of which the mother told her daughter: “I wish you were dead.”
Her local doctor told the court that in 2003 Kumari-Baker was diagnosed as suffering from “reactive stress with mild depressive features” and referred to a counsellor.
In a statement read out by his brother, the girls’ father David Baker said of Kumari-Baker: “I take comfort in the knowledge that I will in time be with my girls again. She will not.”
“Not a day passes when I don’t think of my girls. Part of my heart was taken when they died and I long for the day when we shall be reunited.”
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Tags: contention, crown court, david baker, defendant, diminished responsibility, hotel worker, indian origin, jasmine, jurors, kitchen knife, knife attack, local authority, murder scene, police inspector, police service, psychiatrist, rekha, savage attack, teenaged daughters, wounds