A mother who fatally stabbed her two young sons as they slept had carried out disturbing Google searches involving killing, body parts, suicide, divorce and “mommy murderers”, court documents show.
The woman, who cannot be named, made increasingly grim online searches in the weeks before the deaths of her sons, aged nine and 11.
Her troubling internet history was outlined in a statement of facts presented to the NSW Supreme Court during proceedings over the children’s deaths.
On Thursday, Justice Richard Cavanagh found the woman was not criminally responsible, ruling that her mental illness had left her incapable of reasoning.
Court documents indicate that her decline began in August 2024, after she learned that the father of her children was expecting a baby with his new partner.
On August 9 — one month before her sons were killed — the 42-year-old, who was severely anxious and depressed, began searching online for information about “bodies”.
The next day, she searched for “suicide parents and kids”. A day later, she looked up a news report headlined “10-year-old with throat slashed identified”.
The article concerned Sophie Wang, the Gold Coast schoolgirl allegedly murdered by her 46-year-old mother at their Carrara home.
On the night of August 15, 2024, her searches included “Perth murder-suicide” and the “Hart family murders”.
In the weeks before her sons’ deaths, the woman searched for reports on the killing of Gold Coast schoolgirl Sophie Wang, pictured above with a forensic officer at the scene, allegedly by the 10-year-old’s mother.
The latter occurred in 2018 when a married couple drove their SUV off a California cliff, killing themselves and their six adopted children.
During the period of her searches, the NSW mother was still in touch with her former husband as they co-parented their sons, texting him about a rugby league game the father was attending with his kids.
But by the end of August, her Google searches had taken a more ominous turn and included ‘deadly knife injuries’, ‘jugular veins’ and ‘the danger of knife slashing’.
She had also bought a Wolstead knife set from a homewares store as a Father’s Day gift from her sons to their dad, who accepted the present on September 1, but left the knives at the home where the boys lived with their mother.
By the morning of the next day, the woman’s searches had turned to the ‘warning signs’ of suicide.
She attended an appointment with a psychologist the same day, who noted the woman’s feelings included ‘I hit rock bottom’ and ‘the world is not fair’.
She made numerous searches on September 4, about ‘knife wounds’, ‘what does it feel like to get stabbed’, ‘how do mums kill their children’, as well as questions about the brachial and radial arteries of the arm.
Three days later, she attended a family function with her sons. Her search history on that day included ‘Can you buy cyanide’.
A woman leaves a tribute near the home where Gold Coast schoolgirl Sophie Wang, 10, was allegedly killed by her mother in 2024, just before the NSW woman killed her two sons
That night she took herself to a hospital seeking help for anxiety and was given temazepam tablets to help her sleep.
Her ex-partner noticed she was ‘very anxious’ the next day and stayed over at the house with his sons after they had dinner.
On September 9, the woman’s Google searches began at 7am and were specifically about death or suicide by knife injuries, including ‘how long will it take me to die by cutting my neck?’
After dropping her children at school, she searched if it was possible to overdose on the drug Restivit, a doxylamine antihistamine used to treat insomnia.
Around 3.50pm, after picking his sons up from school, their father bought them shoes and met up with her, then bought a packet of 20 Restivit at her request.
The woman Googled ‘when does the coroner get involved’ and ‘does suicide go to the coroner’ before buying four mini-bottles of Prosecco shortly afterwards.
The boys took part in athletics training until 6.30pm, after which they went out to dinner with their parents and the father noticed his ex-wife was ‘pretty anxious’.
She took the kids home just before 8pm, and they dressed in pyjamas and went to their respective bedrooms.
Investigators revealed that the two boys, aged 9 and 11, went to bed in their pyjamas and at some point during the night their mother took their lives and then tried to end her own
Spiralling downward with depression, the woman made Google searches about other parents who had killed their children, including US cases and the Queensland tragedy of 10-year-old Sophie Wang’s death (above, outside the crime scene)
Between 8.20pm and 10.45pm, the woman’s internet history showed she searched ‘Most Infamous Alleged Mommy Murderers in History’, ‘Bleeding to Death: Am I at Risk and How Can I Stop It’ and ‘How To Respond When Your Child Says “I hate you”.’
She texted her ex, saying: ‘Night mate xx, love you.’
The last search on her phone, at 10.45pm, was about Melbourne mother Katie Perinovic, who killed her three young children and then herself in 2021.
Later that evening, the woman took the Wolstead knives and killed her younger son and his older brother, with both bodies found together in the older boy’s room.
Audio from a CCTV recording of a nearby residence would reveal ‘a noise consistent with a young person screaming’. The drug doxylamine was found in both boys’ blood.
Between 6.47am and 9.03am on September 10, the woman made further Google searches about the arteries in the arm, leg and wrist.
She took one of the knives and self-harmed before or during her taking a bath, according to detectives.
When the boys failed to call their father on the way to school as normal that morning, and he could not reach their mother, he became concerned.
His sons’ school told him the children were absent, and at 12.33pm, he arrived at the woman’s house and found her semi-conscious in the bathtub.
Justice Richard Cavanagh ruled on Thursday that the woman was not criminally responsible for her children’s deaths because her mental health condition made her unable to reason
She told him, ‘I killed them’ and he found the bodies of his boys on the floor of the older boy’s bedroom, lying close to one another.
The mother had left several notes, written in the expectation that she would not have survived, addressed to her ex and her parents.
In the letters she said that she felt ‘like a boiling frog’ and ‘I am ready for some peace’, adding: ‘I can’t leave my boys alone in such a bad world without my support.’
She wrote about her happiness being a parent of ‘two such amazing boys’, signing off to their dad: ‘We will always love you.
‘I hope you can forgive me as I forgive you and find peace to live in the next chapter of your life.’
The woman was taken to hospital under police guard with self-inflicted injuries before she was charged with two counts of domestic violence murder. She pleaded not guilty.
The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions subsequently agreed to enter a special verdict of not guilty by reason of mental impairment, as the woman was suffering from major depression at the time of the murders.
At a hearing on Thursday, Justice Richard Cavanagh ruled the woman did kill her two children but she was not criminally responsible.
This was supported by the three psychiatric experts who provided reports or gave oral evidence to the court saying the woman’s major depressive illness meant she did not know that her actions were wrong.
‘Having regard to the updated reports of the psychiatric experts … I’m satisfied that at the time of killing her two children, the accused did not know that the act of stabbing them was wrong,’ Justice Cavanagh told the court.
‘She could not reason … as to whether those acts, as perceived by reasonable people, were wrong.’
The woman will be detained at a location determined by the Mental Health Review Tribunal and not released into the community until it is satisfied she would not pose a danger to herself or others.
‘The tribunal will review and supervise the accused, as well as ensure that she is provided with appropriate care and treatment,’ Justice Cavanagh said.
If you or someone you know needs support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. In an emergency, call Triple Zero on 000
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