Fitchett guilty of killing two sons
ANDREA PETRIE
May 18, 2010 - 4:41PM
A court sketch of Donna Fitchett. Photo: Fay Plamka
A Melbourne mother who was convicted of murdering her two sons before she was granted a retrial has once again been found guilty in the Victorian Supreme Court.
Fitchett, 51, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Thomas, 11, and Matthew, nine, by drugging and then strangling or suffocating them before trying to kill herself at their Melbourne home in September 2005.
She admitted the killings but pleaded not guilty to murder on the grounds of mental impairment.
The jury took about four hours to deliver a second guilty verdict.
Fitchett, who was leaning against a prison guard, remained impassive with her head bowed as the verdict was delivered.
A woman sitting near Fitchett’s former husband David let out a cry of joy.
Later, Fitchett quietly whispered her name and date of birth when asked by the judge’s associate.
Outside court, Mr Fitchett said that two juries had now made the right decision.
"Another 12 people saw through the absolutely shallow, shallow pathetic defence," he said.
"I know that she knew exactly what she was doing was wrong, absolutely no doubt about it.
"She is a manipulative, cunning, street-smart woman and she knew all along what she was doing was wrong."
During her retrial, the jury heard that the qualified nurse told her sons she was taking them on a trip and they needed medicine so they would not be sick, before giving them sedatives and telling them to go and lie down until they felt better.
She then suffocated and strangled the boys before she unsuccessfully tried to take her own life.
The prosecution argued that Fitchett acted consciously, voluntarily and deliberately when she killed her sons to get back at her husband for a less-than-satisfactory marriage.
Prosecutor Gavin Silbert, SC, told the jury that four days before the killings, Fitchett told her husband she was going to leave him and take the boys, but later decided she could not go on as a single parent.
She had apparently planned to commit suicide after killing the boys, telling her husband in a note found at the scene: "I just couldn’t abandon our beautiful boys".
In a letter she sent to her psychologist Patra Antonis before she murdered them — whom she called "a liar" from the dock as Ms Antonis gave evidence at the retrial — Fitchett described killing them as "my greatest act of love".
Mr Silbert told the jury the letter was "coherent, reasoned, logically and sensible".
"It canvasses a plan and a course of conduct which I submit to you bespeaks a lucid and organised mind," he told the jury.
"It evinces a clear knowledge that what she was about to do, i.e, murder the two boys was wrong."
The jury heard that Fitchett told close friend Kathlyn Schipper after the boys’ deaths that she stopped strangling Matthew to put the family dog Jemma outside, who was trying to protect him from being murdered. She then returned to kill him.
Fitchett told Ms Schipper: "If I’d known that she was going to be like that I would have put her out in the first place," the court heard.
The jury rejected claims by Fitchett’s defence lawyer, Patrick Tehan, QC, that his client was not guilty on the grounds of mental impairment.
"The act of killing those two boys who she so dearly loved as being for her an act of love epitomises her lack of capacity to think rationally that it was wrong," Mr Tehan said.
He claimed his client was severely depressed and her mind was "disordered or disturbed" when she killed them.
Fitchett was sentenced in 2008 to 24 years, with a minimum of 18 years, in a secure psychiatric facility.
But her sentence was overturned by the Court of Appeal last year due to a technical oversight by the trial judge, who failed to adequately inform the jury of the legal consequences of a finding of not guilty by reason of mental impairment, as required by the Crimes Act.
The act required judges to explain the various options available to them in the event of such a finding, which included imposing a supervision order or releasing the accused without condition, the Court of Appeal deemed.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/fitchett-guilty-of-killing-two-sons-20100518-vbql.html
