Woman charged with killing 7- and 11-year-old children in ‘brutal’ rampage | Era

A woman accused of murdering two children, aged 7 and 11, is on trial in the United Kingdom after a jury ruled she was “tempered”. The crime took place in Stoke-on-Trent in June 2023. Veronique John, 50, allegedly killed her children because she didn’t want her husband to “take” them.

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According to the BBC website, Veronique stabbed her 11-year-old son Ethan John more than 20 times and “caused brain damage” to seven-year-old daughter Elizabeth John. She then stabbed her husband, Nathan John, in the stomach. However, the man escaped with injuries.

Veronique’s trial is expected to last about six days. The woman has been charged with two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and an alternative charge of causing bodily harm, but was deemed incompetent to testify.

Crime

A charity shop worker, Véronique John was born on the Caribbean island of St Vincent. She was arrested for assaulting her husband with a saw the day before the crime. According to local press, the woman believed the man was having an extramarital affair.

On June 11, 2023, the day of the crime, just hours before she killed her children, she even searched a search engine for “can a foreigner be charged with murder in the UK”.

Veronique killed her children inside the property where they lived. She then dressed in the bathroom, went to find her husband at the car wash and stabbed him in the stomach. She then returned home and called emergency services: “I’m calling to report that I’ve killed my two children,” the woman announced.

Agents found the children dead at the scene. Veronique told the police that she killed the children because she did not want her husband to “take” them. She asked the agents to kill her, saying she was not “a monster” and that the death penalty be used.

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Kill me and the children. Unless you give me the death sentence, I have nothing to say (…) I did this to protect my children because I love them. If there’s any way I can get the death penalty, I’d love it,” the woman reportedly told police.

‘It didn’t happen anywhere’

As the prosecution told the trial, Véronique and Nathan had had problems before. The woman, according to authorities, tried to block her husband’s access to the Internet and cell phones.

According to Magistrate Justice Chaudhary, the trial was “a little unusual” because the woman was not considered psychologically fit to participate effectively.

– She was unable to participate in the investigation in a meaningful way. “Your task is to decide whether the defendant committed the unlawful wounding and killing of Ethan and Elizabeth that resulted in their death and the unlawful wounding of Nathan John,” the judge told the panel of jurors assigned to the case.