An African woman has been charged with murder after allegedly stabbing her three children in a car in the Blue Mountains, killing one and leaving the other two in a critical condition.
The 42-year-old Kenyan national, who tried to commit suicide after the alleged stabbing, appeared in court via bedside videolink on Tuesday after being charged with domestic violence murder, and two counts of cause wounding/grievous bodily harm with intent to murder.
Penrith Local Court Judge Brian Van Zuylen granted an eight-week adjournment sought by the woman’s Legal Aid lawyer because she is recovering from self-inflicted knife wounds, The Daily Telegraph reported. The matter will return to court on November 20.
The alleged attack was described as “barbaric” by police after emergency services were called to a quiet street in the town of Valley Heights, west of Sydney, just after midday on Sunday when cyclists found the five-year-old boy dead and his two siblings, aged one and three, critically injured in a white SUV.
“People who stab people, people who cut people it’s actually very, very confronting. And the police officers, especially yesterday when there’s children involved. It doesn’t get worse than that,” Deputy Commissioner for Metropolitan Field Operations, Peter McKenna.
Locals performed CPR on the two surviving children, who were rushed to Westmead Children’s Hospital where they underwent surgery for knife wounds to their necks. They remain in a critical but stable condition, police said on Tuesday.
The children’s father, also a Kenyan national, was at work when he was notified, and believed his wife had taken the three children on a picnic. The Kenyan Consulate is providing support to the family, the Daily Mail reported.
Local resident Julie Sukkar said she saw the mother lying in bushes near the car while bystanders helped the kids out of their car seats.
“The woman on the ground was yelling, screaming and thrashing about. I’m not sure what she was saying, or if she was trying to say anything. She was covered in blood and had some really bad injuries,” she said.
“The children were quiet. They were not screaming or crying. They were not moving. That was hard to see. The police and the ambulance were here fast, and they did such a good job.”
The incident came just days after another woman in her 40s, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found not criminally responsible for stabbing her two young sons to death in the same area because she was suffering from “major depression”.
Header image: Left, the mother at the scene (Daily Mail). Right, the car where the children were found (9News).
