Mentally ill woman who killed eight children escapes charges

SYDNEY — An Australian motherwhokilledsevenofher children and a niece in a brutal case that shocked the country will not stand trial after being deemed of “unsound mind”, a court has ruled.

The bodies of the victims, aged between 2 and 14, were found stabbed to death at a home in the northern city of Cairns in December 2014.

Raina Mersane Ina Thaiday, also known as Mersane Warria, was charged with murdering the four girls and four boys after being found by police at the scene of the crime with 35 self-inflicted stab wounds.

In a ruling reached last monthbutonlymadepublicon Thursday, the Queensland Mental Health Court found she could not be held criminally responsible as she had suffered a psychotic episode from an undiagnosedmentalcondition.

“At the time of the killing, Mrs. Thaiday was suffering from a mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia, and had no capacity to know what she was doing was wrong,” said her psychiatrist.

“In fact, to her way of thinking at that time, what she was doing was the best thing she could do for her children; she was trying to save them.”

Thaiday, 40, is being held in a high-security mental health institute and it is unclear if she will ever be released.

Court records revealed her condition had been getting worse in the lead up to the killings, to the point where she believed there were evil spirits in her home.

“I am the chosen one. I have the power to kill people and to curse people. You hurt my kids, I hurt them first. You stab my kids, I stab them first. If you kill them, I will kill them,” she is alleged to have been ranting in the street on the night of the murder.